In fact, people who disagree with one another on just about everything will find themselves lumped together as anti-Bush if they say America is on the "wrong track." Pat Buchanan, at the right end of the political spectrum, may think the country is on the wrong track because millions of illegal aliens from Mexico are flooding across the border. Someone else, on the far left, may think we are on the wrong track because many states won't let hundreds of thousands of convicted felons vote. Yet both Buchanan and the leftist are counted as members of a hugely discontented "majority."
Moreover, certain instinctive defense mechanisms of the public are used to maximize its apparent disaffection. Americans hate to be fooled, and have an innate skepticism, bordering on cynicism, about what politicians tell them. If asked whether they think President Bush is being entirely truthful about something, a lot of people will say no. That isn't to be taken as a flat assertion that he is lying; it is more accurately just a protective stance, assumed in order to defend against the possibility. And yet we are assured that large numbers of the American people believe that President Bush is an inveterate liar.
Of course, that saving skepticism applies even to polls, which is why there is a limit to their influence. We sense that a biased pollster can get pretty much any answer he wants, if he is allowed to shape the question. But unfortunately we cannot resist being influenced, to some degree, by what he tells us the American people think.