I wouldn't intentionally go to a hospital and ask them to operate on me or give me a Coca Cola enema.
I'm Angela Duckworth.
I'm Stephen Dubner, and you're listening to.
No stupid questions today on the show.
If Americans are generally happy as individuals, why are we so frustrated as a nation?
We're going to hell in a handbasket as a country.
But my own life is pretty good.
Angela, I recently came across a Gallup poll which found that only 17% of Americans are currently satisfied with the direction of the United States.
That's a little depressing.
We'll say depressing, but probably not so surprising.
And I will say that number has been falling over recent years in the US.
But here's the thing.
The same poll found that 85% of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in their personal life.
Almost the exact opposite, right?
Yeah.
So we can discuss some of the other numbers in the poll later.
Cause the breakdown is interesting, but how do you explain this astonishing gap between personal satisfaction and our satisfaction with, quote, the way things are going in the US?
When I first heard of this statistic, it was a pretty widely publicized poll, I thought about what it means to be asked, how satisfied are you, Angela, with the way things are going in this country?
Should we try that right now?
Should I pretend to be Monsieur Gallup?