Optimism abundant about ourselves, but not about direction of country

One part of January 6th Committee report you need to read again

By Ken Tingley

We are an optimistic people.

We talk about how lucky we are to have grown up in the greatest country in the world, the land of opportunity. We tell our children to follow their dreams because anything is possible and the possibilities are endless if they are determined and work hard.

Most of us believe in that American dream.

Many of us are living that American dream.

Yet in February, a Gallup Poll found that just 20 percent of respondents were satisfied with the way things are going in the United States. And that’s twice as optimistic as it was in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol two years earlier. It was 11 percent then.

But here’s the conundrum, while Americans have been mostly dissatisfied with the direction of the country for the past two decades, they are pretty optimistic about their own personal lives.

Ninety percent were satisfied in the days before the pandemic in 2020.

The low point was in 1992 when it was down to 77 percent. Even then, three out of four were mostly satisfied with their lives.

In general, Gallup polls have found some 85 percent of Americans say they are satisfied with their personal lives in any given year, but far more pessimistic about the direction of the country.

Perhaps, we Americans have higher aspirations for the country than ourselves. Or maybe too many of us won’t admit we are dissatisfied with our own lives.

The satisfaction with the direction of the country could also be tied directly to politics, and since we all hate politicians, we are never going to be satisfied.

But that leads to another conundrum.

If we are perennially unhappy with the direction of the country, you would think we would do something to change it, but we don’t do that either. Incumbents in Congress are re-elected at a 90 percent rate.

Derek Thompson wrote in The Atlantic six years ago, “One of the hallmarks of Americans’ supposed exceptionalism is its citizens’ extraordinary optimism.”

We believe that hard work will be rewarded.

We believe those in the middle class can become rich and those who grow up poor can move into the middle class.

We believe anything is possible.

The Gallop polls show that we believe in ourselves, but not in our elected officials.

This week we saw another school shooting with no chance for curbing the gun culture.

Democracy continues to be under assault with repeated lies from the former president and Fox News.

Climate change continues its onslaught unabated with little concern from the general public.

Some states are banning books and restricting freedom of speech.

And women all across the country no longer have control over their own bodies.

How the hell is 20 percent satisfied with the direction of the country?

Steven Rattner @SteveRattner

It's the guns.

Intimidating reading

“The January 6th Report” is a daunting-looking volume, but it is worth reading.

You just need to read the 130-page Executive Summary to be reminded of what happened on that day at the U.S. Capitol. This should not shock you, but it matches closely with what you saw on television.

Still, there are some details that should not fade with time.

On page 85 of the executive summary report, a Jan. 6th Committee staff member asks a White House Secret Service official who was on duty at the White House that day to explain one specific entry into the security log made at 2:24 p.m. - “Service at the Capitol does not sound good right now.”

The official had been monitoring the Secret Service communication that day.

He was asked what he meant by, “it does not sound good right now.”

He answered this way:

“The members of the VP detail at this time were starting to fear for their own lives. There were a lot of yelling, a lot of - I don’t know - a lot (of) personal calls over the radio. So - it was disturbing. I don’t like talking about it, but there were calls to say good-bye to family members, so on and so forth. It was getting - for whatever the reason was on the ground, the VP detail thought that this was about to get very ugly.”

He was asked again why he made the entry into the official log.

“That they were running out of options, and they’re getting nervous. It sounds like that we came very close to either Service having to use lethal options or worse. At that point, I don’t know. Is the VP compromised? Is the detail - like, I don’t know. Like, we didn’t have visibility, but it doesn’t - if they’re screaming and saying things, like say good-bye to the family, like the floor needs to know this is going to a whole another level soon.”

At that exact same time, President Trump tweeted that “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution…”

That’s pretty chilling and we all should remember those are the facts.

Lochner responds

After writing about Jill Lochner’s Republican challenge to Elise Stefanik, I urged her to read Chapter 27 of “The Last American Newspaper.” It chronicles Stefanik’s 2018 campaign where The Post-Star EditorialBoard asked the candidates not to lie. Stefanik did not agree to that, hired a 17-year-old high school student to do political espionage and invited a supporter to one of her town hall meetings after he had threatened the local newspaper with violence.

Lochner tweeted this after picking up the book:

Jill Lochner for Congress @jill_lochner

@kentingley @poststar @timesunion @WAMCRoundtable @SaratogaTODAY It’s also what I already knew. She lies, she is ruthless, her and her people don’t fight fair. They don’t care about the truth. There’s no respect, etc etc. But I’m not going to be scared away so easily, which is what they want.

I don’t think any political opponent has been so ruthless truthful before. We should all pay attention.

More interest in Girard

Apparently Glens Falls product Joseph Girard III has been shown even more interest in his services as a shooting point guard.

The latest list shows almost 20 schools reaching out to Girard through he transfer portal. Other experts have weighed in that Girard is considered one of the top transfers in the portal because of his 3-point shooting.

Jon Rothstein @JonRothstein

Syracuse transfer Joe Girard tells me that he's receiving interest from the following programs: Indiana Pitt Tennessee Auburn Butler LSU Florida Ohio State Loyola Chicago Stanford Clemson Nebraska BYU Arkansas Washington Notre Dame Maryland Oklahoma