When I wrote the first edition of this book in 2000, I mentioned that “today’s
national mood is in many ways upbeat—with crime on the decline, the economy
booming, and international tensions seemingly much less frightening than they
were during the depths of the Cold War.” This claim is reflected in the data shown
in Figure 2.10, which show responses to a commonly asked question in an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll: “All in all, do you think things in the nation are generally
headed in the right direction, or do you feel that things are off on the wrong track?”
As you can see, most people felt good about the direction of the country until around
2000, when the recession began to set in. The indicator jumped to a historic high
after the September 11 terrorist attacks, in large part because of the outpouring of
patriotism following the attacks. This is reflected in people thinking the country
was on the right track, even as we rebounded from the worst terrorist attack in history.
And we see the rally effect in 2003, when the Iraq war began. The rally effect
is the tendency for people to rally around an individual president, the institutional
presidency, and sometimes other national institutions in time of crisis. But as the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan war dragged on and the economy grew slowly and
then slid into recession, dissatisfaction began to set in.