Peggy Noonan, Washington Post op-ed contributor, takes the most recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll as her starting point. The poll included the "right track/wrong track" question, generally used as a bellwether of the mood of the country.
Not surprisingly, the numbers have been pretty dismal since 2006 or so. They improved slightly at the beginning of the year with the enthusiasm of a new president, a new Congress and, God willing, a new beginning. We know how that's worked out and the numbers have slipped again; 55% of Americans now believe the country is on the wrong track.
Ms. Noonan has an interesting take on the poll.
...something tells me this isn't all about money. It's possible, and I can't help but think likely, that the poll is also about other things, and maybe even primarily about other things....we are concerned about other things, too, and there are often signs in various polls that those things may dwarf economic concerns. Americans are worried about the core and character of the American nation, and about our culture.
It is one thing to grouse that dreadful people who don't care about us control our economy, but another, and in a way more personal, thing to say that people who don't care about us control our culture. In 2009 this was perhaps most vividly expressed in the Adam Lambert Problem.
Let's see...less than a year ago the country was teetering on a complete economic collapse, nearly one in five Americans are still either unemployed or underemployed, we've had to be witness to the complete lunacy of our Congress, a disturbingly large chunk of the population seems convinced the president is a Kenyan born Nazi/Socialist/Rastafarian...and Peggy Noonan thinks some second place American Idol singer who kissed a guy on an awards show that no one watched is the reason the nations in the doldrums?
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