How you feel about America’s hopes for 2025 depends on the party you belong to. That’s the bottom line of four polls on Americans’ expectations for the coming year, polls from Gallup, Reuters, AP-NORC, and CBS News.
In reality, these polls are a referendum on the upcoming Trump administration. Republicans’ expectations are sunny. Democrats’ expectations are grim. As a Business Insider headline put it, “Most Americans see economic difficulty ahead in 2025 but not Republicans.”
Here are some of the Republican-versus-Democrat predictions in the Gallup poll. The majority of Americans, 56%, say that 2025 will not be a year of economic prosperity. Let me reword that. 56% of Americans say the economy in 2025 will be bad.
But the difference between parties is stunning.
- 78% of Republicans say that the 2025 economy will be good. But 85% of Democrats say that the economy will be bad.
- An amazing 88% of Republicans also feel the stock market will rise. But 54% of Democrats disagree.
- 87% of Republicans think inflation will be reined in “at a reasonable rate.” A whopping 77% of Democrats disagree.
- 86% of Republicans think there will be increasing or full employment. 75% of Democrats disagree.
Then there’s global politics. An astonishing 90% of Republicans are certain that “America will increase its power in the world.” And an overwhelming 81% of Democrats disagree. Meanwhile, 70% of Republicans feel that China’s power will stop rising in 2025. 86% of Democrats disagree. And 63% of Republicans feel 2025 will be a peaceful year without international conflicts. But an astonishing 92% of Democrats disagree.
To sum it up, the side that won the November election, the Republicans, are optimistic about 2025. Very optimistic. But Democrats are pessimistic.
However there’s something important to keep in mind. The last four years have been far, far better for America’s economy than most Americans realize. The British publication The Economist says our economy is so strong that the rest of the world envies us. Our economic growth after the pandemic has been the highest among the NATO nations. Our unemployment level is 4.2%, one of the lowest in the last century.
During the last four years, we’ve produced sixteen million new jobs. We’ve invested more in rebuilding America’s infrastructure than at any time in American history. What’s more, we’ve coaxed six foreign companies to build nineteen new microchip factories in the United States. And we’ve motivated over thirty American companies to increase their investment in microchip production in America.
What’s more, during the last four years, we Americans have achieved the highest production of gas and oil in the history of the world. We are now out-producing even Russia and Saudi Arabia. On top of all that, our wages are rising. And our stock market has been at record highs.
Then there’s inflation. Until three years ago, Russia supplied 40% of Europe’s gas and oil. When Russia invaded the Ukraine three years ago NATO responded by sanctioning Russian fuel. Our sanctions drove up gas and oil prices worldwide. Yet we in the United States have wrestled inflation down from 9.1% in June of 2022 to a mere 2.7% today.
These achievements will be challenges for the Trump administration to equal. Or to surpass. Republicans seem certain that President Trump will pull this off. In part because they believe the Biden economy is terrible. That’s not true.
Let us hope that the rosy predictions of Republicans for 2025 prove accurate. Even Democrats will flourish if they do.
References:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/654731/americans-predict-challenges-2025-few-bright-spots.aspx
https://apnews.com/article/39af2a837fc35173e13dd0e5d5e5d471
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/open-questions/do-you-have-hope
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/americans-more-hopeful-about-2025-than-2024-poll/
https://www.newsweek.com/americans-expect-better-off-2025-2006183
https://www.newsweek.com/heres-how-americans-want-change-their-lives-2025-new-poll-2006927
https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/flying-piigs-nations-stir-rethink-europes-core-2024-08-12/
https://www.ft.com/content/1201f834-6407-4bb5-ac9d-18496ec2948b
https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/the-us-economy-in-global-context
https://rsmus.com/insights/economics/american-outperformance-in-the-global-economy.html
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Howard Bloom of the Howard Bloom Institute has been called the Einstein, Newton, Darwin, and Freud of the 21st century by Britain’s Channel 4 TV. One of his eight books–Global Brain—was the subject of a symposium thrown by the Office of the Secretary of Defense including representatives from the State Department, the Energy Department, DARPA, IBM, and MIT. Bloom’s work has been published in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Psychology Today, and the Scientific American. Concludes Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of Evolution’s End and The Crack in the Cosmic Egg, “I have finished Howard Bloom’s [first two] books, The Lucifer Principle and Global Brain, in that order, and am seriously awed, near overwhelmed by the magnitude of what he has done. I never expected to see, in any form, from any sector, such an accomplishment. I doubt there is a stronger intellect than Bloom’s on the planet.” Bloom’s next book, coming out in February, 2025, is The Case of the Sexual Cosmos: Everything You Know About Nature is Wrong, which Harvard’s Ellen Langer calls “fascinating.” For more, see http://howardbloom.net and http://howardbloom.institute.
