SAN DIEGO — With all due respect to baseball, the real national pastime is complaining.

Oblivious to how soft and comfortable our lives are compared to those of millions of other people around the world, Americans love to gripe. Whether it's harvest time or not, we make "whine" year-round.

We complain about the weather in the places we choose to live, the cost of eating at restaurants we like to frequent, and the poor performance of the elected officials we put in office. We make choices, and we pay for them.

We hire undocumented immigrants as household workers to make our cushy lives even cushier, and then we complain that the United States is home to so many undocumented immigrants. Gee, how did that happen?

We even complain about America itself, insisting the country's best days are behind it and fretting that future generations won't match the success of previous ones. That might be true for our families, but not for all families.

What if the real problem is that we're the problem?

A new national survey and research initiative by Gallup and the Charles F. Kettering Foundation explored how Americans perceive and experience democracy. The project set out to "identify solutions to strengthen democratic engagement and bridge divides."

There's good news and bad news.

The good news is that eight in 10 U.S. adults agree on a handful of principles. They include the idea that using violence to achieve political goals is not acceptable, that elected officials must be willing to compromise, and that multiculturalism is a positive thing. And slightly more than two-thirds of Americans (67%) believe that democracy remains the best form of government. Frankly, I would have liked that percentage to have been higher. Even so, these findings suggest that, despite our divisions and political differences, Americans still share the same values.

The bad news is that we don't have much faith or confidence in the institution of democracy — and we are even less likely to put stock in one another. Only 24% of Americans are satisfied with how democracy is currently working in the United States, and 51% said that the system is performing poorly or very poorly. And a big chunk of Americans don't think we can count on each other, or even that we see the world in the same way. More than four in 10 Americans don't believe their countrymen share their values or care about saving democracy.

These findings put a fresh spin on the nation's trust deficit. We often hear that Americans have no trust in government, media or our institutions. Well, of course. We don't even know how to trust each other. What do you want to bet that this is the root of everything else?

I'm disappointed but not surprised. It's been obvious for some time that Americans can't stand each other.

But I don't think that's fair. As long as we're talking about vacations or the show we're streaming, we're fine. But when someone injects politics into the discourse, well then, we can't stand each other.

We know that our politics has become poisonous. But have we also come to grips with the fact that it has become much too personal?

The research might say that we see the world in much the same way, and that we have many of the same values. Just don't try convincing us of that. We're not buying it.

Fifty years ago, I imagine that how an average American voted was as insignificant as the sports team they cheered or the type of food they preferred. Now, our political preferences have become a convenient shorthand for figuring out who we are as human beings. That's not a good trend, or a healthy one.

As someone who makes camp in the political center, I can see that both Republicans and Democrats are good at casting blame and bad at owning up to mistakes.

Indeed, one thing that both parties seem to have in common is sanctimony. Republicans are convinced that only they love this country and want to preserve freedom. Democrats are convinced that only they care about the welfare of the poor, marginalized and foreign-born.

The problem is not that we disagree. That happens. The problem is that we're too quick to doubt each other's motives. We think that anyone who disagrees with us about anything isn't just wrong but a threat to the nation.

Nonsense. You know what the real threat is? It's our eagerness to complain about what's broken, paired with a reluctance to assume our share of blame for breaking it.

To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Joseph Chan at Unsplash