Society Radar

Sentiment across six aspects of public life, by administration

Author

Sam Caldwell

Each line is one presidential administration. Angles are six aspects of public life; the radial distance represents sentiment from −10 (extreme negative) at the center to +10 (extreme positive) at the outer edge, with 0 as the baseline at the middle ring. A line passing through the middle ring on an axis means sentiment on that aspect was neutral during that administration.

These scores are editorial calibrations. They anchor on measurable signals used elsewhere on this site (UMCSENT, Gallup approval, NBER recessions, wars-in-progress, published violent-crime indices) plus historical commentary, but the final single-number −10/+10 mapping per aspect is a single author’s aggregation. See Methodology for the full caveats, and data/sentiment/society_scores.csv in the repo for the rationale attached to each score. Corrections welcome via the repo.

Radar

Scores table

Full list of curated scores, with per-row justification notes. Edit data/sentiment/society_scores.csv to refine.

Reading the chart

A line that stays near the middle ring across all six angles = a baseline administration (nothing notably better or worse than average). A line that spikes outward on one axis = notably positive on that aspect; a line that collapses toward the center = notably negative.

Because the six aspects are independent, an administration can be strong on some and weak on others — Clinton’s radar fills the outer half on economy and prosperity but sits near the middle on peace; Bush 43’s inner lobe on peace reflects the wars in progress throughout his term; Trump I’s health score collapses to the inner edge because of COVID-19’s first-wave fatalities.

Methodology summary

  • Six aspects chosen for their independent signal: Public Safety, Economy, Health, Prosperity, Happiness, Peace.
  • Scale is −10 to +10, calibrated so that 0 = long-run baseline for US conditions since ~1990. Values outside ±5 are reserved for historically extreme situations (war, pandemic, recession depth).
  • Data anchors per aspect:
    • Public Safety: violent-crime rate trend (FBI UCR); high-salience events; Gallup crime-worry polling.
    • Economy: UMCSENT, NBER recession dating, GDP growth pattern.
    • Health: life-expectancy trajectory, major public-health events, major legislative changes.
    • Prosperity: real-wage growth, household-wealth trajectory, inflation impact on cost of living.
    • Happiness: UMCSENT level, Gallup life-satisfaction, approval bottoms.
    • Peace: number and scale of active wars involving US forces; major international crises on US agenda.
  • Ongoing administration (Trump 2nd term) gets partial scores; aspects that can’t be judged yet are omitted from radar display but remain in the table.

See the full Methodology page for the cross-section caveats that apply across all of Public Presidential Sentiment.

Sources

Anchor data comes from the same sources already cited elsewhere — see Data & Citations and Methodology.