America by the numbers is sometimes a very confusing thing.
And in the hands of 24-hour news show hosts who must feel as though they are constantly under a fire hose of global stories and spins, it can get so confused that it's downright misleading.
For instance, if you listen to news show commentators, you often hear that America's unexpected support for so-called billionaire Donald Trump stems from his "Make America Great Again" populist view. Never mind that his shirt and tie companies (and other Trump products) are made overseas. He also hires undocumented immigrants on his building projects and he regularly stiffs contract workers.
And ask yourself how many news show hosts you've heard preface a question with something like this: "Given that Clinton has a trust issue, why..."
On one hand, both of these examples indicate a journalistic effort at adding context to their stories. On the other hand, such a mantra of oft-repeated phrases plays to the manipulations of either or both candidates and political parties.
Some voters may - as commentators keep repeating - be holding their noses as they prepare to vote. But frankly, many of us are not. In fact, we hear "trust issues" as biased code for "corrupt Hillary." And certainly not all Trump supporters will be bothered with one or another of Trump's handicaps.
Give yourself a mental quiz as you listen to the weekend news shows talk about our latest routine annual report from Census Bureau, the one that contains a raft of positive economic data.
The introductory context/spin clause on this news might go like this: "Since six in 10 Americans think the country is on the wrong track, how do you explain that in 2015..."
* Middle-class families got their biggest pay raises in 50 years, when median household income rose 5.2 percent when adjusted for inflation.
* Some 3.5 million fewer Americans were living in poverty than the year before, a 1.2 percent decline - the steepest since 1968.
* Another 4 million gained health insurance, decreasing the nation's uninsured rate to 9.1 percent, the lowest level since before the Great Recession.
* The gender pay gap is at a record low, though women still make an unacceptable 80 cents for every dollar men earn.
* The unemployment rate has declined to 4.9 percent - half what it was seven years ago.
* All three major stock indices hit record highs last month, home foreclosures continue to drop and our cheap gasoline prices are expected to continue falling into 2017.
(So much for Trump's descriptor of our country as a "huugh" disaster.)
Here's one more set of questions to ponder, given that 60 percent of Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction.
What does it mean that President Obama's approval rating is 58 percent in a Washington Post poll released last weekend - the highest it's been since 2009? (And far better than those of George W. Bush and even higher than Ronald Reagan's 1988 51 percent approval rating.)
Conversely, what does it mean that Congress has an approval rating of only about 12 percent, and in June, for the first time in recent memory, more Americans disapproved than approved of the job their own Congress members were doing?
Who's leading us in the wrong direction - the presidential administration, or the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives who can't find a way to vote on anything?
David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, offered The Washington Post this analogy of the disconnect:
"It's like a person who goes to the doctor, and all the tests come back kosher. But the patient still feels sick," he said. "With the body politic, you have the same kind of thing right now. Science shows a healthy body, but it's not showing up in the polls."
Tom Jensen, who runs the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling, told the Post that one of their polls drives home the notion that "Republicans pretty much universally say they think the country is on the wrong track because they don't like the president and don't want to give him any credit." Nationally 64 percent of Republicans (incorrectly) say the unemployment rate has increased under President Obama, to only 27 percent who say it's decreased. And 57 percent say the stock market has gone down under Obama, to only 27 percent who say it's gone up.
"Obviously, when you see voters saying something that's just very objectively wrong, they don't care about the actual statistics. Their assessments on that question are just driven by emotion and their negative feelings toward President Obama."
Think about that the next time you hear a news host preface a question with something like "trust issues" or the next time you hear anyone call anything about America "a disaster."