{"id":15139,"date":"2025-11-02T12:16:54","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T12:16:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/most-americans-think-the-government-lies-many-say-the-american-dream-is-dead\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T12:16:54","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T12:16:54","slug":"most-americans-think-the-government-lies-many-say-the-american-dream-is-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/most-americans-think-the-government-lies-many-say-the-american-dream-is-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"Most Americans think the government lies. Many say the American Dream is dead."},"content":{"rendered":"
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America\u2019s brand is fading from within.<\/p>\n

In a bitterly divided country, pessimism and cynicism reign supreme: Two-thirds of Americans say it is at least probably true that the government often deliberately lies to the people. That distrust cuts across partisan lines: Strong majorities of Donald Trump voters (64 percent) and Kamala Harris voters (70 percent) agree.<\/p>\n

Nearly half of Americans, 49 percent, say that the best times of the country are behind them, according to The Blue Light News Poll by Public First. That\u2019s greater than the 41 percent who said the best times lie ahead, underscoring a pervasive sense of unease about both individuals\u2019 own futures and the national direction.<\/p>\n

The exclusive new poll, conducted nearly one year after Trump\u2019s reelection, reveals a deep strain of pessimism across the electorate \u2014 but especially for Democrats.<\/p>\n

People who voted for Harris last year are twice as likely as Trump voters to say the United States\u2019 best times are in the past.<\/p>\n

America, as a country, is like \u201csomeone who is feeling lost, confused, or beat up \u2026 or uncertain of what to do, and looking around and saying this isn\u2019t right, this isn\u2019t the way,\u201d said Maury Giles, the CEO of Braver Angels, a nonprofit that works to bridge partisan divides.<\/p>\n

Democrats are more pessimistic than Republicans<\/h4>\n

Asked about \u201cthe best times\u201d in the United States, only a small number of people cited the present moment.<\/p>\n

Instead, nearly two-thirds of Harris voters said the best times in the U.S. were in the past, double the share of Trump voters who believe that. A 55 percent majority of Trump voters said the best times still lie ahead.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s likely at least partly a reflection of a partisan pattern of expressing optimism when one’s party is in the White House, and pessimism when it is not.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmericans will divide on how they view the country’s doing depending on who is in office and which party they identify with,\u201d said Jennifer McCoy, a political scientist at Georgia State University who focuses on political partisanship.<\/p>\n

Americans\u2019 views may flip in the future, when control of the White House and government next change \u2014 but for now, Democrats\u2019 negative views are pervasive.<\/p>\n

More than half of Harris voters, 51 percent, say that America is not a functioning democracy, while 52 percent of Trump voters take the opposite view and say the U.S. is a model.<\/p>\n

The view from Democrats is so gloomy that a solid majority of Harris voters \u2014 70 percent \u2014 say the quality of life in the U.S. is at least somewhat worse than it was five years ago, a period that was marked by the turmoil of the COVID-19 pandemic, widespread racial justice protests and a contentious presidential election. Meanwhile, a 42 percent plurality of Trump voters say the quality of life in the U.S. is at least somewhat better than it was five years ago.<\/p>\n

That dynamic even extends to views of the world at large: More than three-quarters \u2014 76 percent \u2014 of Harris voters say the state of the world is at least somewhat worse than it was five years ago, compared to 44 percent of Trump voters who agree.<\/p>\n

Many people don\u2019t believe the American Dream exists<\/h4>\n

On a personal level, faith in the American Dream has also fallen. The idea \u2014 once considered a national ethos about the ability to better one\u2019s life through hard work and discipline \u2014 was not specifically defined in the poll, which asked more generally about the statement that \u201cthe American Dream no longer exists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall, almost half \u2014 46 percent \u2014 of Americans said that the American Dream no longer exists. That was by far the most common answer, far greater than the 26 percent who disagreed.<\/p>\n

A slight majority of Harris voters, 51 percent, agreed that the American Dream no longer exists, while last year\u2019s Trump voters were even split, with 38 percent agreeing and 38 percent disagreeing.<\/p>\n

The declining belief in the American Dream, which has been mirrored in other national surveys<\/a>, reflects a pessimism about today\u2019s economy, said McCoy.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a stark age divide, with younger Americans more likely to say the American Dream no longer exists. More than half of Americans 18-24 \u2014 55 percent \u2014 agree, compared to 36 percent of Americans over 65.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn economic terms, social mobility has been getting worse and worse, and that social mobility is basically the indicator of the American Dream,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd young people especially … are feeling that, feeling that they can’t buy a house, they can’t afford to have children, they still have student debt, all of these things,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n

Americans know they\u2019re polarized, and say it\u2019s getting worse<\/h4>\n

The sense of pessimism about the future comes amid a widening perception of political polarization.<\/p>\n

More than half of U.S. adults, 59 percent, said that political polarization is \u201cmuch\u201d or \u201csomewhat\u201d worse than it was five years ago, with Americans over 65 much more likely to hold that view, according to the survey.<\/p>\n

Americans\u2019 divisions are also reflected in their personal lives, with 61 percent of Americans saying that most of their friends share their political views. That cuts across party \u2014 65 percent of Trump voters, 67 percent of Harris voters \u2014 and age and gender divides, according to the survey.<\/p>\n

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) warned in an interview last week that American politics had been degraded by the internet and a culture of anonymous vitriol.<\/p>\n

“Anonymity makes anger worse and gets people really ginned up,” Paul told Blue Light News\u2019s Dasha Burns for \u201cThe Conversation.<\/a>\u201d He faulted people whose “expertise and … excellence is in anger and emitting anger.”<\/p>\n

Forty-one percent of Americans say they do not have a close friend at all who votes for a different party than them, with younger Americans and those who supported Harris more likely to say that is the case.<\/p>\n

The increasingly segmented society has exacerbated Americans\u2019 pessimism, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a frequent critic of the Trump White House, told Blue Light News.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a crisis of connection and meaning in this country, and Trump is a symptom, not the cause, of that crisis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are built to want to feel a sense of common purpose, but we live in a world today in which we spend less time with our family and our friends and our peers than ever before,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Americans say \u2018radical change\u2019 is needed<\/h4>\n

Americans\u2019 general malaise has fueled an appetite for overhaul in the country, with a slight majority (52 percent) believing that \u201cradical change\u201d is necessary to make life better in America.<\/p>\n

Younger Americans are particularly likely to hold that view, and more Harris voters agree with the need for radical change than Trump voters.<\/p>\n

Roughly one-third of Americans go even further: Thirty-five percent say the U.S. needs a revolution \u2014 a view that, broadly, cuts across party lines, with 39 percent of Harris voters and 32 percent of Trump voters holding that view.<\/p>\n

But even as pessimism about the future persists for many Americans, pride endures. Almost two-thirds of Americans \u2014 64 percent \u2014 say they are proud to be an American, according to the poll.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmericans need hope and they need confidence,\u201d Giles said. \u201cThe vast majority of this country understands that what is happening right now is not healthy, it is not sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

America\u2019s brand is fading from within. In a bitterly divided country, pessimism and cynicism reign supreme: Two-thirds of Americans say it is at least probably true that the government often deliberately lies to the people. That distrust cuts across partisan lines: Strong majorities of Donald Trump voters (64 percent) and Kamala Harris voters (70 percent) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}