A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conducted last week (Feb. 18-22) has some fascinating snapshots which paint a complicated picture of the American mood.
Last summer, only 18 percent said the country was on the right track, but that number has doubled to 40 percent in the current poll, while 51 percent say the country is on the wrong track. At the same time, 48 percent disapprove of President Trump, while 60 percent disapprove of Congress, disapproving of each party at about the same rate too (58 percent-60 percent). By the numbers, it seems very clear that while Americans weren’t thrilled about their options for it, the country was ready for a change, and they are in equal measures fearful and hopeful about it.
Given the negative views of Trump, Congress, and the parties, it is very striking to see how Americans answered a question about whether they were “hopeful and optimistic” or “worried and pessimistic.” Incredibly, 60 percent of Americans are hopeful about the future of the country, while only 40 percent are pessimistic (about the same number who think the system is “stacked against them”).
The most striking result of all, however, should also not be too surprising in our populist moment. Respondents were asked, “For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.” A whopping 86 percent super-majority agreed with this sentence, while only 12 percent disagreed.
Polls do not often tilt towards such a powerful consensus. This tells us something much more important than any polling data about Trump because it substantially overlaps both those who approve or disapprove of him.
The populist fever of both the Left, the Right and independents (a whopping 36 percent described themselves as independents) is a symptom of a deeper political disease. Government is no longer seen as something which belongs to “we the people,” but as something which enriches the few at the expense of the many.
Aristotle once said that we are political by nature. The increasing tendency to legislate by judicial fiat rather than through the hard work of consensus building through a long political process is a denial of our political nature. The increasing tendency to drive progress through powerful lobbies, with the support of corporations, for social and political purposes out of step with average Americans is a denial of our political nature. The 86 percent stands not simply against an economic elite, but also against a social elite who have driven through programs that benefit the influencers while making the rest of us “pay for it.”
America’s surprising consensus is really just an agreement that we are no longer a self-governing people, and we want to be. But as Aristotle also teaches us, political passions need to be harnessed by reason, wisdom and virtue. This is the cure that seems to elude us so powerfully at present.
C.C. Pecknold (@ccpecknold) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is an associate professor of Theology at The Catholic University of America, located in Washington, D.C.
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