Despite President Obama’s sneering at Donald Trump’s portrayal of America as Gotham, a top Democratic pollster said that polls do show that the Americans, and especially the middle class that the Republican focused on, feel betrayed, angry and generally forgotten by Washington.
“There is a strong undertone of disaffection,” said John Zogby. “I think it is attributed to a genuine sense of anxiety by a forgotten middle class that has felt betrayed and whose anger and frustration has truly boiled over this year,” he added.
#Trump accused @POTUS of dividing Americans by race and color. See where racial divide exists on major issues: pic.twitter.com/KAhGG1cWOZ
— Brookings Governance (@BrookingsGov) July 23, 2016
During his Thursday speech to the Republican National Convention, Trump noted the anxiety the middle class feels due to stagnant wages, rising crime, illegal immigration and a sense that the system is “rigged” against them in favor of the rich.
Obama mocked that on Friday.
“I hope people, the next morning, walked outside and birds were chirping and the sun was out and this afternoon, people will be, you know, watching their kids play on sports teams and go to the swimming pool and folks are going to work and getting ready for the weekend,” Obama said during a joint press conference with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. “And in particular, I think it is important, just to be absolutely clear here, that some of the fears that were expressed throughout the week just don’t jibe with the facts.”
But Zogby said that the anger and concerns in America are real and that Trump seized on it. And in a post on his website, John Zogby Strategies, he explained why that anxiousness is there.
- First, it is financial, a sense that they are losing ground. Whether it is “real wages” that have been either stagnant or actually lower than they were or the fact that so many have lost jobs and have not been able to recover where they were before, there growing sense of “status anxiety” — the fear of losing their middle class status.
- Second, the status anxiety among the middle class comes in the form of broad demographic and cultural changes. For many white middle class Americans, looking out the window and going shopping in their communities means seeing immigrants who do not appear to be “people just like me.”
- And third, what happened also to “my America” — the one great superpower, the essential nation, the exceptional force in the world. To Americans losing ground, there is this sense that America is no longer respected, no longer able to shake a stick and get the rest of the world to comply.
There are also a number of polls that back Zogby up that show most Americans feel that the country is heading in the wrong direction. One from Gallup last week showed a nearly historic low in those who feel satisfied “with the way things are going.” That 17 percent satisfaction rate was down 12 points in just one month.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
