Welcome to Denison Forum's Daily Article Podcast for Thursday, April the 30th, 2026.

I'm Chris Elkins, narrator, giving voice to today's daily article written by co-founder and chief vision officer, Dr. Jim Denison.

The New York Times has named Taylor Swift, one of America's greatest living songwriters.

American Idol recently had each of its singers perform from her songbook.

What is the secret of her abiding popularity?

Consider this anecdote.

In her Times interview, she explained that she wrote her hit song, Love Story, at the age of 17, after her parents wouldn't let her date an older man.

Quote, I have this very strong opinion that when you're young, you feel things on such an intense and detailed level.

According to Time, her ability to connect with the frustrations and sadness so many people

feel makes them feel seen.

If the latest research is to be believed, the audience for such empathy is only growing

these days.

University of Chicago economist Sam Peltzman recently documented, quote, a sudden, sharp and historically unprecedented decline in self-reported happiness in the U.S. population, end quote.

Journalist Derek Thompson cites Peltzman's work and adds that the Federal Reserve's measure of U.S. worker satisfaction has fallen to its lowest

level since the survey began in 2014. Consumer sentiment has also fallen to the lowest level

ever recorded in the 70-year history of the survey. Here's what these indexes have in common.

They begin to plunge in 2020 and have not recovered.

According to Thompson, the explanation is simple, quote, as a cultural political force,

the 2020 pandemic never ended. He's calling the COVID-19 pandemic the permademic. Thompson explains,

American sadness this decade has been forged by the fact of and the feeling of a permanent,

unrelenting economic crisis amplified by a uniquely negative news and media environment

and exacerbated by the rise of solitude and the declining centrality of

...