Americans Not Hopeful

A new Pew poll finds that Americans are feeling very "meh" about political goings-on these days. Says Pew:

Two-thirds of the public is dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country. Fully nine-in-ten say that national economic conditions are only fair or poor, and nearly two-thirds describe their own finances that way—the most since the summer of 1992. An increasing proportion of Americans say that the war in Afghanistan is not going well, and a plurality continues to oppose the health care reform proposals in Congress.

Still Americans polled (rightly) recognize that third parties are not going to save them from this morass. About half of of Americans said they'd like to see some third party action, but that number hasn't changed much in years and hasn't spiked recently. Why? The system isn't structured to admit third parties into the ring, so they don't represent a source of hope.

Strictly speaking, I suppose the correct answer to the question "Should we have a third party in the U.S.?" is "Yes, and I would also like a pony." But neither is likely to happen.