February 6, 2020

Americans Are Happy, Happy, Happy

Today Gallup released the latest version of one of my favorite survey questions:

The reason this question fascinates me is simple: it makes a hash out of the quadrennial deluge of stories telling us that Americans are deeply frustrated with life and are demanding a president who can address their profound angst.

Maybe so. And yet Americans generally seem pretty happy as long as the economy is in good shape. What’s more, there are plenty of other measurements of happiness that tell the same story. As long as you have a steady job, you’re probably feeling OK.

Politically, I assume this is good news for Republicans. On the other hand, it turns out that satisfaction has a very partisan cast this year:

Can Democrats turn their deep gloom into an election win? I don’t know. Stay tuned.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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