According to Gallup, for the past 4 months, weighted polls of Americans have identified “Government” as their #1 concern. This trumps other categories which are explicitly listed like “economy”, “healthcare”, “immigration”, and everything I usually hear people complaining about when they complain about the government.
Therefore, I have no idea what it means when it says “Americans name Government as the #1 problem”. What are people/Gallup referring to? What is the problem?
“Poor governance” is my guess.
Agreed; I would not take it as an expression of antigovernment sentiment in the Libertarian or RW sense, though no doubt that is present among some responders.
It means, relatively speaking, we don’t have a lot to complain about.
Low information voters generalizing because they’re unable to speak effectively about any specific topic, would be my guess.
The actual choice on the poll was “dissatisfaction with government”. Which raises the possibility that at least some of the responders might have been saying that complaints about the government was a problem rather than the government itself. In support of this, the number of people who say they are satisfied with the way things are going in the United States has risen in the last few months.
So these poll results could be expressing the opinion “I’m getting tired of people saying everything’s going to hell. The country is actually doing pretty well.”
Keep in mind only 18% picked government from the multi choice poll and it is probably a mix of respondents in that bunch:
Conservatives who are anti-statist
Liberals who feel the state could solve the problems we have but is too dysfunctional
Independents who are just tired of the policy fighting
So I doubt it is a monolithic group.
I agree, but what government? The Eurogroup? The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant? China? Russia?
While I don’t know quite what we should do about it, it is Russia’s government that poses the greatest risk of messing up our western world’s relative – compared to historical standards – peace and prosperity. Those close at hand see this:
What the US government could be up to seems to me a lot less worrisome.
Go to the actual source page and you will get as good an explanation as exists.
Start with:In today’s global economy, the need for global collaboration is vital less we globally collapse.
Wealth inequality, why it hurts all of us.
Immense, unpayable debt among a demographic that should be the strong middle class.
Beef demand destroying the planet’s largest CO2 filter.
The Fukushima disaster.
The largest ocean on the planet is polluted beyond belief, and governments won’t do anything about it.
The world is running out of potable water.
The most populated state in America is already feeling the effects of increasing desertification of the planet.
History and problem of the American education system.
So yeah, there are things to be worried about. Right now America is struggling with gays marrying and if marijuana should be legal, yet there are far more pressing concerns regarding the very future of the human species, like the poor educational system that should be doing more to prepare debt-ridden and poverty-stricken households with the tools necessary to overcome the looming obstacles faced by humankind. Will humans be completely wiped out? Unlikely. Can the world devolve into a dystopia where the planet is all but destroyed, tapped out on consumable resources, and governments continuing to wage war in the name of profit and not progress? Yes.
The problem with governance these days is that if there’s no profit in doing something, like cleaning up the Pacific Ocean, then no one will touch it. Governments – citizens of governments – need to pressure their governments to start making decisions that will benefit all of ours’ futures, not just a few pocketbooks.
It means that Gallup probably should be more specific. As a liberal, I can name a bunch of things I don’t like about the government: crazy GOP, lack of regulations, idiot judges trying to remove civil rights, religious people pretending religious freedom is being attacked and trying to make laws making Christianity supreme, etc. That’s probably going to be different than a conservative blaming government. But we’ll both be blaming the government.