Americans are pessimistic about the state of democracy in the U.S.

[Shiftless2]

Americans are widely pessimistic about the state of democracy in the U.S., AP-NORC poll finds​

Only about 1 in 10 U.S. adults give high ratings to the way democracy is working in the United States or how well it represents the interests of most Americans, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Majorities of adults say U.S. laws and policies do a poor job of representing what most Americans want on issues ranging from the economy and government spending to gun policy, immigration and abortion. The poll shows 53 percent say Congress is doing a bad job of upholding democratic values, compared with just 16 percent who say it’s doing a good job.

The findings illustrate widespread political alienation as a polarized country limps out of the pandemic and into a recovery haunted by inflation and fears of a recession. In interviews, respondents worried less about the machinery of democracy — voting laws and the tabulation of ballots — and more about the outputs.

Overall, about half the country — 49 percent — say democracy is not working well in the United States, compared with ....

Americans are widely pessimistic about the state of democracy in the U.S., AP-NORC poll finds

A new poll finds that only about 1 in 10 U.S. adults give high ratings to the way democracy is working in the United States or how well it represents the interests of most Americans.

www.pbs.org

 

[sear]

"If you will the end, you must will the means to that end." George Will

"Only about 1 in 10 U.S. adults give high ratings to the way democracy is working in the United States ..." #1

And half the electorate reportedly prefers Trump.

So to as Paul Harvey says "shuck right down to the cob" half the U.S. electorate or more can't functionally differentiate between the problem, and the solution.

“Ah, Houston, we’ve had a problem.”

With the world-class fustercluck of desperate humanity trying to cross our border South to North, do you suppose one or two of us might escape this madness crossing the same border North to South? Could it possibly be any worse there than here? How many dozen felony counts is Mexico's guy facing?

 

[Shiftless2]

"... According to the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), 21 percent of adults in the United States (about 43 million) fall into the illiterate/functionally illiterate category. Nearly two-thirds of fourth graders read below grade level, and the same number graduate from high school still reading below grade level. This puts the United States well behind several other countries in the world, including Japan, all the Scandinavian countries, Canada, the Republic of Korea, and the UK.

The NCES breaks the below-grade-level reading numbers out further: 35 percent are white, 34 percent Hispanic, 23 percent African American, and 8 percent “other.” Nor is this a problem mostly for English Language Learners. Non-U.S.-born adults make up 34 percent of the low literacy/illiterate U.S. population. New Hampshire, Minnesota, and North Dakota have the highest literacy rates (94.2 percent, 94 percent, and 93.7 percent respectively), while Florida, New York, and California have the lowest (80.3 percent, 77.9 percent, and 76.9 percent respectively)."

How Serious Is America's Literacy Problem?

The first step in solving a problem is seeing it clearly. This article, part one of an ongoing series, defines the broad scope and depth of the literacy crisis in the United States, among both children and adults. Future installments will address the complex ecosystem of schools, government...

www.libraryjournal.com

 

[sear]

"Nearly two-thirds of fourth graders read below grade level, and the same number graduate from high school still reading below grade level. This puts the United States well behind several other countries ..." #3

Separate reports I've read indicate pandemic isolation has been a quantifiable detriment to such obvious student parameters as language and math skills.

Part of the problem is, at the dawn of A.I. and other technologies, the U.S. will be less prepared, less competent at competing with both trading partners, and potential military foes alike.

Biden doesn't seem to suffer from a lack of issues for his administration to contend with, but his might not be a bad time to raise the U.S. education standard to from K - 12 to K - 14.

When K - 12 was established as the national standard such education was deemed sufficient for a citizen to live an adequate standard of living. BUT

A quarter century into the new millennium K - 12 may no longer be.

 

[Shiftless2]

When K - 12 was established as the national standard such education was deemed sufficient for a citizen to live an adequate standard of living. BUT A quarter century into the new millennium K - 12 may no longer be.

The question isn't just whether or not K-12 is adequate but has to consider what students are learning there (and what the graduation standards are).

Speaking from memory, the first "failure to educate" lawsuit involved a young man who had graduated from high school with decent mark. He was hired at a local shoe store but it turned out he couldn't do the job for the simple reason that he was incapable of reading the labels on the end of the boxes in the storeroom. At the time he said that he had no idea that he couldn't read - he's always received decent marks and no-one had ever raised the issue with him (have to say I never saw the outcome of that lawsuit so I don't know what happened).

But you raise a valid point - think about the magic burger machines - the ones that can cook dozens of burgers in an hour thereby eliminating all those "burger flipping jobs". People will still be required to run and maintain the equipment but those jobs will not be for the individual whose education stops at grade 12.

And the same goes for many other jobs - people complain about the offshoring of jobs but forget that if that production returns to the US it will require far fewer workers and those workers will be far better qualified than before.

Those jobs are gone forever. Let’s gear up for what’s next.

> “Generals always fight the last war.” — an old World War II saying Manufacturing jobs were a huge part of America’s post-World War II economic miracle. In the early 1980’s, 20 million Americans worked in factories, assembling consumer products like cars and appliances. Well, what happened...

www.freecodecamp.org

 

[sear]

"Every Presidential campaign is an epidemic of economic illiteracy, but this year is a particularly egregious case when talking about the manufacturing [jobs] crisis. What that means is manufacturing employment as a percentage of total employment is declining. True. [It] Has been for 60 years. We make steel today, we made steel 20 years ago. We just make 1/3 more steel today with 2/3 fewer steel works who have gone on to other points of employment. If we have a crisis in manufacturing ... we have a calamity in agriculture, because in 1940 19% of our employers were in agriculture, 4% by 1970, 2% today. That's a triumph of American productivity, not a problem." George Will

The low unemployment numbers haven't gotten much press lately, perhaps because it reflects well on Biden.

Even less well known, there are many well-paying jobs in the U.S. going unfilled, because there are no qualified applicants available. B1B only goes so far.

 

[titan]

Looks like you're supporting national standards again Shiftless. Book banning is only one element of this. Extending the U.S. standard from 12 to associates degree would receive backlash over funding. But the fight over the particular syllabus for the additional two year, likely to be a Republican theocracy wish list battle. Republicans battle over the details, their style for obstructing the matter entirely. And the western world passes the U.S. by.

 

[sear]

"Extending the U.S. standard from 12 to associates degree would receive backlash over funding. But ... " t #7

I don't recall the source, but I read that while the GI Bill which paid U.S. military veterans to attend college reportedly was revenue positive. How so?
Because whatever the $cost of paying the veteran / student $tuition, was recovered by elevating the graduates into higher income tax brackets, producing more tax revenue.

It might be difficult to calculate precisely, but I suspect helping to maintain U.S. competitiveness in the globalized economy would pay valuable dividends.
Matter of fact, it seems recklessly foolish to cede manufacturing in general to China. And allowing the majority of computer chip development & production to go off-shore seems little short of lunacy.

 

[sear]

"I felt sorry for myself because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet." proverb

"Americans are widely pessimistic about the state of democracy in the U.S., AP-NORC poll finds" PBS #1 November, 2023​

Biden was a problem?
How about now AP-NORC ?

The perils of acute unprecedented crisis can nurture appreciation for the more usual clash.