2026-06-17
5 分钟The Economist.
Hi, John Prado here.
I host Checks and Balance, our podcast on US politics.
Welcome to Editors Picks.
Here's an article from the latest edition of The Economist, handpicked by our team and read aloud.
I hope you enjoy it.
One stereotype held by foreigners about Americans is that they are irritatingly upbeat,
picture a stranger ordering you to have a nice day,
or a family declaring everything to be so great while exploring a drizzly, mid-infested Scottish ruin.
There is only one nationality they could possibly be.
This cliche is misleading, though.
Americans are generally cheerful, but even in the country's brightest moments,
many of them have been struck by a kind of dread about it all unraveling.
Democracy never lasts long, wrote the second president, John Adams,
in 1814. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.
That sentiment is widespread as the country turns 250. America is feeling nostalgic,
as well as pessimistic, on its semi-quin centennial, in the country that has been inventing the future
since 1776, nearly half of the population say they would rather live in the past.
Most young Americans do not expect to beat better off than their parents.
Meanwhile, on many objective measures, the country is doing better than ever.