America’s chaotic, crazy, challenging, great, tumultuous, horrible, disappointing year

Would you say this was a good year for the United States? For decades, Americans’ sense of how their nation was doing was closely linked to the economy. Through Democratic and Republican presidencies, through divided and unified sessions of Congress, Americans were consistent. When they saw jobs and GDP growing, an increasing number of people told pollsters that the country was headed in the right direction. And typically, they gave credit to the president.

But in 2017, a highly upbeat economic outlook failed to elevate America’s generally pessimistic mood. CONT.

Scott Clement, Emily Guskin & Shelly Tan, Washington Post