Feeling is Believing
Is rising unhappiness putting our democracy at risk?
Happiness has long been an object of desire in the United States. The right to the “pursuit of happiness,” as we’re all taught early on, appears in the Declaration of Independence as a truth we hold self-evident.
Exploring happiness —and finding it—is a sign of success and a mainstay of American culture. Brene Brown’s books to fulfill our obsession with “happiness strategies” remain best-sellers. In Mad Men’s brilliant exploration of American realities and ideals, Don Draper laments: What is happiness? “It’s a moment before you need more happiness.”
All that said, Americans have long been an unhappy bunch—but this year, we’re very unhappy. And for Americans under 30? According to Gallup’s just-released 2024 World Happiness Report, they’re dramatically more miserable—and not just because of the downsides of social media and the warming of the planet.
“Right across the world, we are seeing an ever widening gap between youth and older generations on how they perceive the functioning of democracy,” says Oxford professor Roberto Foa. “…We need to realize how our countries’ crisis of democracy is rooted in deep emotional distress. We need to acknowledge the trauma and loneliness that exists and the need to rebuild connections—and that democracy, flawed now, can be healed if people re-build those connections.”
The Report, a partnership with the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, includes these key takeaways:
For the first time since the World Happiness Report was published in 2012, the United States has fallen out of the Top 20 happiest nations among 163 countries ranked, dropping to 23rd just behind the United Arab Emirates. [Germany ranks 24th and Mexico ranks 25th. Finland ranks as the happiest. Afghanistan ranks last.]
Divided among age groups, the United States ranked 10th for people 60 and older but 62nd for people under 30—behind the Dominican Republic and just before Peru. Among American GenZers and Millennials, there is growing worry about the state of the world and high anxiety due to climate change, political instability and polarization.
In the United States, a peak in loneliness is uniquely experienced earlier in life, at age 20, with a steady age-related decline in happiness felt some years thereafter. This also can skew how young adults view politics and the state of democracy, the report says.
Disinformation is a driver. Pew Research and other think tanks monitoring the state of American culture say it is exacerbating widespread feelings of disconnection and despair—and is, therefore, also negatively affecting U.S. politics, making all of us more distrustful and vulnerable to misinformation, says American historian and culture critic Ruth Ben-Ghiat. “Autocrats are very, very good at tapping into people’s innermost fears,” she told us. “On one hand, they make themselves the carriers of those fears but they also make themselves a solution. So when politicians say the American Dream is dead, they make themselves the vessel of the forgotten, the people who feel emotionally downtrodden. They exploit emotion if their opponents are not trying to make voters feel less lonely and isolated.”
New Rules
So what can be done? Perhaps most significantly this election year, the unhappiness epidemic is making it clear to many leaders that the underlying emotional state of the nation requires a new mindset about how politics is played—and a bigger emphasis by lawmakers on helping constituents work through their anxieties. “You don’t solve a crisis of meaning and purpose by just giving people a little bit bigger tax cut,” says Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator from Connecticut. “… Political instability and polarization are driven by people feeling upset and angry when they can’t find positive connection and then go to the dark side to be found.”
One remedy, he told us, is to be more responsive to the post-pandemic, emotional stress epidemic. “…It’s not good enough for me and my colleagues to just kind of adjust the dials of public policy to be a little more to the left or to the right to gain traction,” Murphy added in an interview. “As a policymaker in a democracy, we all need to step back and start asking more questions about how people are feeling. We have to start grappling more seriously with the underlying emotional state of a country ailing across our culture and our politics.”
Writer, journalist and MSNBC contributor Anand Giridharadas agrees. In a recent interview, he said what progressives need to do is “to build an actual, thrilling, galvanizing, inviting, seductive pro-democracy movement” to diminish the imbalance between those who feel democracy is broken and those who wish to save it. “Donald Trump has created a movement,” he says. “Progressives have not. There is no pro-democracy movement in this country, just outrage against Trump, and it doesn’t work. …We have to organize people into a movement that makes them excited to participate in an effort to not just defeat American fascism, but to build an incredible country in the wake of American fascism—and to help build a narrative about the world that gives people hope and pulls them around the idea that democracy isn’t perfect but that everyone’s voice is needed to make it better because the alternative would be much worse.”
Without such a play of what he calls “passion politics” to help walk people through their fears, hopes and anxieties about the rapid pace of change in technology and society, Giridharadas says pro-democracy advocates will be “playing the fiddle of wonkery while democracy burns.”
Rebranding Democracy
Such sentiments appear to be shared globally by those wanting democracy to survive and gain power, according to a new Pew Research report released last week, which surveys voters in 24 fully-fledged democracies around the world, including the United States. Respondents were asked how democracy can and should be improved. Here are some of the highlights among their responses:
Better politicians are needed. In almost each of the 24 countries surveyed in a new Pew Research poll that asks What Can Improve Democracy? “responsiveness” was cited most often. “Those surveyed said we need to make democracy promote more of the people’s voice,” the Pew survey said. “It’s a great strength for leadership across sectors to begin listening to the emotions and fears of the people.”
Citizen participation needs to be harnessed and improved. Public shows of activism, a high-profile movement and an aggressive social media strategy to envelop all age groups, specifically those groups serving young adults who are lonely and unhappy, but willing to participate in advocacy groups seeking purpose-driven campaigns.
People want to see politicians from different groups in society. Respondents broadly called for three types of improvements: better representation, increased competence and a higher level of responsiveness to people’s feelings and fears. (They also called for politicians to be “less corrupt and less influenced by special interests.”)
Pro-democracy leaders have to stop thinking that “democracy speaks for itself.” It doesn’t. The traditional assumption that its benefits and challenges are accurately known to all is something that no longer applies. According to Giridharadas and David Axelrod, former senior advisor to Barack Obama during his run for the White House, democracy “needs a rebrand” and stronger narrative to raise awareness and engagement among voters, especially those 14 million GenZers who will be voting for the first time in the November election in the U.S. or in those around the world.
“Democracy is at stake in this election,” says U.S. historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. “Tuning out and not paying attention to this election will be worse than anything one might do this year, but I still think that if we look back in history, each time, Americans have pulled through in tough times. It will happen again —but only if people start marching and firing up our consciousness about democracy as a way to improve how people feel about the future.”
“…We’ve risen to this moment before,” she added, “and we can do so again.”