Pollsters have for decades tracked public satisfaction via the question of whether the nation is on the right or wrong track.

In the RealClearPolitics polling average, fewer than one-quarter of Americans think the nation is on the right track.

On Thursday evening, those holding that view stood at just 23.8 percent, while 68.1 percent believed the country was headed in the wrong direction.

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In early July 2012, about 32 percent of the nation thought the country was on the right track, but about 60 percent thought it was on the wrong track.

In mid-October 2008, a Gallup poll found a mere 7 percent of Americans believing their nation — then dealing with a spiraling financial crisis as well as wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — was on the right track.

To some eyes, these upswings in unhappiness leave the country much more prone to volatile swings — and to populism of the left and right — than it was during more contented times.

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Reeher emphasized that some of the signature achievements of both the left and right have emerged from periods of national crisis.