Telling Statistics

Michael Barone: American exception, includes some rather remarkable statistics that say much more than even Barone points out. To wit:

The divide is illustrated by two questions recently put by pollster Scott Rasmussen. In response, 64 percent agreed that America is generally fair and decent, while 22 percent said it was unfair and discriminatory. And 62 percent agreed that the world would be a better place if other countries behaved more like the United States, while 14 percent say it would be a worse place.

There is an interesting difference between Republicans and Democrats. Bush voters agree, by an 83-to-7 percent margin, that America is generally fair and decent. Kerry voters also agree but only by 46 to 37 percent. Fully 81 percent of Bush voters believe that the world would be a better place if other countries were more like the United States. Only 48 percent of Kerry voters agree. Almost all Republican voters believe in American exceptionalism. Only about half of Democratic voters do.

I suspected something like this was going on, but I did not imagine it went to this degree. Think about these numbers for a second: less than half of the people polled in the party of Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Truman, and John Kennedy believe the United States is generally fair and decent. Less than half of the people polled in from the party that gave us presidents who led the country in World War I, World War II, and at key times in the Cold War think that the world would be a better place if more countries were like the United States.

These are not polling questions about George W. Bush (at least not directly), they are questions about how Americans look at themselves. These results tell more about the status of the country right now than anything I have ever seen. Remember these numbers the next time a protestor argues that it is patriotic to call President Bush names like Hitler. Remember these numbers the next time John Kerry says he wants to turn over power in Iraq to the UN.

What is at stake here is much more than an election or two. The fate of our country--all of that it was, is, and will be--hinges on an optimism born of the certainty that the United States, for all of its flaws, is the greatest country in the world, and getting better. A certainty that whether by our action or example, the world would be a better place to follow our lead. Although I will be accused of it, I'm not talking about chest-thumping jingoism. I am talking about the fundamental beliefs--part City on a Hill, part Four Freedoms--at the core of what we are.

Share these numbers with Democrats who are in that plurality who agree. They must take back their party from the nihilism of a falsely nuanced worldview that has lost sight of the big picture. We can afford nothing less.