Brutal Polls: Americans are Fed Up, Demoralized, and Anticipate Decline

◼ Two national opinion polls released over the last two days reflect a deeply frustrated and pessimistic American public. - Guy Benson/Townhall

◼ The new NBC/WSJ survey, which tracks President Obama's approval to an all-time low in the series (40/54) and shows a slight Republican edge heading into November's elections, is bursting at the seams with negativity:

(1) Right track/Wrong track is at an abysmal (22/71).

(2) By a 22-point margin, Americans say the country is in a state of decline. On the question of whether people believe that "life for our children's generation will be than it has been for us," respondents said they are "not confident" on that score by nearly a four-to-one margin.

◼ A fresh Associated Press poll is just as bleak on virtually every count. Obama's approval is upside down (40/59) overall, and underwater on every single issue polled. He's in the 30's on many of them. His best number is on handling relationships with other countries, at (43/55). Voters split evenly between preferring Republicans or Democrats to control Congress after the elections. Fully one-third of respondents said it doesn't matter either way. Republicans held a "trust" edge on seven of the eight specific issues polled. Noah Rothman's conclusion upon surveying these numbers: "These are awful numbers for incumbent Democrats heading into the fall. And we haven’t even started applying likely voter screens yet."

America is in the grips of a crisis of confidence, and most people don't see a light at the end of the tunnel at the moment.