Look what they’ve done There is no doubt in mind what’s causing that bizarre disconnect: Last year, the Atlantic’s Derek Thompson summarized the national mood succinctly: Everything is terrible, but I’m fine. He was reacting to research published by the Federal Reserve evaluating how confident Americans were about their own finances and the nation’s more broadly. What the data suggested was that there was a gap, that while three-quarters of Americans said their own finances were doing all right, only a quarter said the national economy was doing well. On Monday, the Federal Reserve released the 2022 iteration of those same numbers. When Thompson was writing, there was a 54-point gap between confidence in Americans’ own finances and those of the nation generally and a 30-point gap with perceptions of the local economy. Now, the gap with the local economy is 35 points, with fewer than 4 in 10 Americans saying their local economies are doing well. Only 2 in 10 Americans say the same of the national economy. I include social media in that indictment. There is no material reason that Americans should be so sour about the economy. It’s because the media can’t stop saying things like “Inflation is down and jobs are up, sure —- but look at the price of celery! Where will it all end!” They can’t stop doing this. And it’s not just the economy: [T]his pattern emerges elsewhere, too. Consider crime. In October, I noted the gap in perceptions of crime locally and nationally. Gallup recorded concern about increased…