This anomalous shift has less to do with the fickleness of public
attitudes, or some sudden and unprecedented ideological awakening, than
it does with chronic misinterpretation of popular dissatisfaction
during periods of discomfort and depression. The fact that citizens
feel worried about the future of the nation doesn't mean they've lost
confidence in themselves. By 3 to 1, Americans believe that the nation is headed in the wrong direction, but similarly big majorities express satisfaction with their personal situations and optimism over their prospects.
Private lives not that bad
The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which has surveyed 1,000
adults almost every day for more than two years, shows that even in the
midst of high unemployment and bitter political turmoil, people are
pleased with their private progress. From 2008 through 2009,
participants' "life evaluations" of their current situation and future
expectations rose by more than 5 percentage points.
Without exception, every racial group, income level and age cohort
showed brightening attitudes, with particularly big improvements among
blacks, young adults (18-29) and people of modest means ($24,000 to
$48,000 in annual income).
In other words, the endlessly discussed desire for "change" always
applied to Washington, or Wall Street, or other far-away forces, but
rarely to the daily lives and intimate arrangements of ordinary
Americans. We seek change for institutions or for others, but not
necessarily for ourselves. We remain overwhelmingly pleased with our
jobs, families and neighborhoods, and we expect the best for our
children. Big majorities — more than 60% — predict that today's young
people will enjoy even better lives than their parents.
This contradiction in public attitudes — with private satisfaction
persistently co-existing with grim assumptions about the nation at
large — produced the core miscalculation by the White House. President
Obama might have pleased the public by transforming some of the
big-picture problems so frequently decried in the news media, such as
the bitter polarization in Washington, or America's tarnished image in
the international community. But he has made little visible progress in
altering these distant realities while frightening much of the public
about potential change of a far more intimate sort: involving the
health care arrangements or tax-and-debt burdens on every American.
The biggest obstacle to public acceptance of the Democrats' plans to
uproot and restructure the health care system involved the fact that
most people felt pleased with their own medical care and insurance
plans. As many as 85% of insured Americans say they like and value their current policies. As long as "ObamaCare" amounted to altering reality for someone else — providing for the uninsured, for instance — it drew strong support.
When, however, the public came to suspect that the promised reform
would change their own insurance situation, likely raising costs and
limiting available treatment, opinion turned decisively against the plan.
Not a green light for the GOP
Republicans may be the immediate beneficiaries of the Democrats'
clumsy misinterpretation of the supposed mandate for change, but they
run a very real risk of making similar mistakes. Polls show
disillusionment and distrust regarding the Obama agenda, but that
hardly signals an impassioned appetite for a conservative
counterrevolution. If the GOP pledges massive, wrenching, systemic
change — cutting back, for instance, on cherished, widely popular
government programs on which millions of Americans depend — it will
meet the same resistance and skepticism that confronts Obama and his
liberal colleagues.
In other words, the people would welcome a concerted effort to
"clean up the mess in Washington," but they don't want Washington
cleaning up the mess in their private lives because they don't consider
their personal status a mess.
Yes, the Democrats miscalculated by underestimating the deeply
conservative nature of the American people, but the Republicans may yet
miscalculate themselves by interpreting that conservatism as
ideological rather than temperamental.
The public wants pragmatic, commonsense, problem-solving leadership
more than purist dogmatism of the right or the left. Voters don't yearn
for stirring 10-point programs, or radical readjustments of
governmental institutions, or definitive demonization and defeat of
opponents.
We're conservative in a deeper sense —liking the lives we've built
for ourselves and wanting to conserve them from unwelcome interference
by overreaching change agents or ideologues. The party that connects
with these wholesome, optimistic, emphatically practical instincts most
effectively (and respectfully) will not only make big gains in
November, but also may soon begin to build the durable governing
majority that has been missing in our politics for nearly 30 years.
Syndicated talk radio host Michael Medved is a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors and author of The 5 Big Lies About American Business.
(Change candidate: Then-Sen. Barack Obama campaigning for president in 2008./Alex Wong, Getty Images.)