He’ll likely win because the U.S. is in a very bad way; but whoever wins will probably fail because what’s undiagnosed remains untreated.
Donald Trump will likely defeat Joe Biden at the American presidential election on 5 November. One major reason is well-known but not, in some mainstream media outlets, widely-publicised: for the past several months, multiple organisations’ polls have indicated that he holds decisive leads in five of the seven “battleground” states (Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania; Michigan and Wisconsin lean to him but they’re too close to call).
If no “safe” state changes hands, these “swing” states will deliver to Trump a comfortable victory (ca. 290-240) in the Electoral College.
Yet opinion polls have occasionally been spectacularly wrong. Indeed, Trump’s victory in 2016 provides one of the most prominent examples. A second factor should therefore buoy him and disquiet Biden: people who’re willing to wager their own money tend to be more prescient than those who merely express an idle opinion – and since last October they’ve mostly and increasingly reckoned that Trump will triumph this November.
More generally, the RealClear Politics Betting Average indicates that over the past 18 months Trump’s odds have relentlessly improved. But trends can be fragile and nothing in politics is inevitable.
Most recently, immediately after his conviction on 31 May Trump’s probability of victory slumped to 47.7% and Biden’s lifted to 39.2%. A week later, however, Trump’s rebounded to 50.3% and Biden’s sagged to 35.5%. By 18 June, Trump’s odds continued to improve (to 52.5%, above their level before the verdict), and Biden’s crashed to 33.3% (well below their pre-verdict level).
Trump’s lead thus remains substantial – and Biden’s chances low and stagnant– in the six betting markets that RealClear Politics tracks.
Why will Trump likely defeat Biden? I focus upon a third development which everybody else is apparently ignoring: the mostly gradual but cumulatively drastic shift of one of American society’s tectonic plates. Since the 1990s the percentage of its residents who’re “dissatisfied with the way things are going in the U.S.” has soared, and the percentage who’re satisfied has plunged.
Over the past 20 or so years, however, Americans were least displeased with the country’s direction during Donald Trump’s presidency – and throughout Joe Biden’s they’ve become more discontented than at any time since Jimmy Carter’s one-term administration (1977-1981).
Why will a second Trump term, if it eventuates, probably fail? For the same reason that he’ll likely defeat Biden, and that a re-elected Biden administration would (as the first one has) also flounder: the state of the nation increasingly displeases Americans. The inflection point seemed to occur during George W. Bush’s first term (2001-2005). Not since Bill Clinton’s second term (1997-2001) has the U.S.’s course contented a majority of its residents; moreover, since then discontent has generally grown during each successive presidency.
How can that be? How over the past quarter-century has electoral politics in America frustrated a rising tide – and now a large majority – of Americans? My answer will probably surprise and disconcert most people.
Gallup’s “Direction of Country” Poll
Occasionally beginning in 1979, during most months since the mid-1980s and in practically every month since the early-2000s, Gallup, Inc., the public opinion and polling firm founded in 1935, has asked a random sample of American residents aged 18 or older: “in general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time?” Other reputable polling firms ask similar questions, but Gallup’s series of polls is by far the longest. Figure 1 summarises its results.
Most importantly, the percentage of satisfied Americans has tended to fall, and the percentage of dissatisfied ones to rise, over the past 45 years. Never since 2002 have the satisfied outnumbered the dissatisfied. This discontent long predates Donald Trump’s presidency; obviously, he didn’t create it.
Figure 1: Percentages of Americans Satisfied and Dissatisfied “with the Way Things Are Going,” 1979-2024
The percentage of dissatisfied poll respondents has averaged 33%. Moreover, with only a couple of exceptions in 2019 – that is, during Trump’s term – since 2005 a significant majority (60% or more, and as many as 80% as recently as November 2023) of Americans have been discontented. Five more specific results are also apparent:
- The percentage of satisfied respondents fluctuated greatly, from ca. 20% to more than 60%, during the two decades before the turn of the century.
- From ca. 2000 until the nadir of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), the satisfied percentage steadily and cumulatively drastically fell, reaching an all-time low of 7% in October 2008.
- From the GFC until the COVID-19 crisis and panic, satisfaction rose, reaching a post-GFC maximum of 45% in February 2020.
- Since then, the satisfied percentage has decreased; it’s averaged 22% and sagged as low as 13% in June 2022. Figure 2, which plots the moving average of 12 polls, reveals points 1-4 more clearly.
- The dissatisfied percentage is a near-mirror image of the satisfied one. In other words, very few people (an average of 2.5% of each sample) have expressed no opinion to Gallup in response to its question.
Figure 1 and Figure 2 thus contain four inflection points: the biggest one occurred shortly after the turn of the century; the others occurred at the height of the GFC and COVID-19 crisis, and the recession of the early-1990s.
Something happened at these junctures which caused enduring changes in the percentage of Americans which is (dis)satisfied with the country’s direction.
Figure 2: Percentages of Americans Satisfied “with the Way Things Are Going,” 12-Poll Moving Average, 1984-2024
Figure 3 plots the average percentage of satisfied respondents to Gallup’s surveys conducted during the term of each president since 1979 (“Reagan I” denotes the first term of the Reagan administration, “Reagan II” its second term, and similarly for the other two-term presidents).
Figure 3: Average Percentage of “Satisfied” Respondents per Presidential Term, 1979-2024
Five points are most noteworthy:
- The average percentage of satisfied respondents across all presidencies is 34.3%. On average, in other words, almost two-thirds (64.2%) of respondents have been “dissatisfied with the way things are going in the U.S.”
- Under only two presidents – during Ronald Reagan’s and Bill Clinton’s second terms – did the country’s direction satisfy an average of 50% or more Americans.
- Levels of satisfaction generally rose from the Carter to the second Clinton administration; since then, the overall trend has been downwards, and since George W. Bush’s second term the level of satisfaction per administration has continuously been below-average.
- Also since W’s second term, Americans were least dissatisfied with the country’s direction during the Trump presidency.
In other words, a higher percentage of Americans reckoned the country was on the right track under Donald Trump than during George W. Bush’s second term, both of Barack Obama’s, and Joe Biden’s. Trump inherited considerable discontent, and during his tenure it mostly abated. The fifth point, then, is that during Biden’s time Americans have been unhappier with the country’s direction than at any time since Jimmy Carter’s term.
An American president (or his vice president, if he dies in office or is removed from office) serves a fixed four-year term. The first month of a term is in January of its first year, the second month is in February, … and the final (forty-eighth) month is the December of its fourth year. A two-term president therefore holds office a total of 96 months.
The biggest inflection point of Americans’ satisfaction with their country’s direction occurred just after the beginning of this century. I’ve therefore compared the percentage of Americans who are satisfied “with the way things are going in the United States at this time” during the first, second, … and forty-eighth (and, for two-term presidents, forty-ninth to ninety-sixth) month of each presidency between George H.W. Bush’s single term of office and George W. Bush’s second term. Figure 4 plots the results.
Figure 4: Percentage of “Satisfied” Respondents per Month of Three Presidents’ Terms 1989-2009
When the elder Bush entered the White House (month 1), the percentage of Americans satisfied that the country was headed in the right direction was 45%. Perhaps as a consequence of the first Gulf War, it zoomed from 30% in month 22 to 66% in month 27; but likely as a consequence of the recession of the early-1990s, it soon surrendered all of its gains and collapsed as low as 14% in month 42.
In the first month of Clinton’s presidency, fewer than 30% of Gallup’s respondents agreed that the U.S. was heading in the right direction. That percentage remained mostly stable throughout his first term (months 1-48); but seemingly as a result of the strengthening economy, booming stock market and the budget’s first consecutive years of surplus since the late-1940s, it bolted as high as 71% in month 74 and averaged 60% during the remainder of his presidency (months 75-96).
Bill Clinton is thus the most recent president – and only one since Ronald Reagan – whose “country moving in the right direction” score was higher at the end than at the start of his time in office.
When George W. Bush entered the White House, the country’s direction satisfied almost one-half of Americans. This percentage zoomed to almost 70% immediately after the attacks on 11 September 2001 and the American counterattack in Afghanistan in October (months 10-12), but collapsed to 36% by month 27. It rebounded to 55% – not as high as in 2001 – in month 28 (Anglo-American invasion of Iraq), but towards the end of his first term, perhaps as a consequence of the Dot Com bust and recession, was lower (37%) than when he took office. And during his second term (months 49-96) the percentage slumped almost continuously.
A couple of months before W passed the baton to Barack Obama (in December 2008 (month 94), which was close to the nadir of the GFC), just 10% were satisfied – which was an improvement on the 7% in October!
What caused Americans’ satisfaction with the country’s direction, which rose under Bill Clinton, to collapse under George W. Bush? I’ll provide a preview now and details later. Clearly, the implosion of the Dot Com Bubble (and resultant recession) as well as the GFC (and resulting recession) didn’t help; nor did the insurgency in Iraq.
The main culprit, I suspect, is that during W’s two terms – and well before the GFC, which exacerbated the problem – the Republican Party abandoned its last remaining vestiges of fiscal discipline. “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter,” W’s vice-president, Dick Cheney famously boasted. Where the Republicans led the Democrats enthusiastically followed.
If the inflection point of satisfaction with the country’s direction occurred during George W. Bush’s second term, its cause was the political class’s abandonment of fiscal discipline – and thus of sound policy and rising living standards.
Before I elaborate and justify that explanation, let’s consider the impact of that change upon Americans’ attitudes. For each month of each presidency since George W. Bush’s first term, I compared the percentage of Americans who are satisfied “with the way things are going in the United States at this time.” Figure 5 plots the results.
Figure 5: Percentage of “Satisfied” Respondents per Month of Four Presidents’ Terms 2001-2024