PEW POLL RESULTS: Democrat Malaise and Pessimism, and their love of Leftist Policies

POWER LINE - on Barone and the recent global Pew Poll/"Attitudes Survey":

... what is striking is how much optimism is reflected in the survey, world-wide. Global economic growth has sparked a high level of confidence in the future, even in Africa. The United States, however, is an exception:

Most strikingly, only 25 percent of Americans are positive about the direction of the nation, down from 41 percent in 2002. In only a handful of the 47 nations are there declines of similar magnitude -- Uganda, the Czech Republic, France, Canada and Italy. ***

[B]y a two-to-one margin Americans say their children will be worse off than we are. There's a similar response in Canada, Britain and Brazil. The even more negative verdicts in Western Europe and Japan can be explained as a cool assessment of the combination of low birthrates and overgenerous welfare states.

But what basis do Americans have to suppose that, for the first time in history, a younger generation will be worse off than their parents? Perhaps it's just a feeling that things cannot possibly get any better. In any case, we seem to be in a pronounced national funk.

Barone concludes by suggesting that Americans should snap out of it. Good advice; but I think what we are seeing is partly faux pessimism. As Barone notes:

It's partly a partisan response: Almost all Democrats are negative about the nation's future.

RELIAPUNDIT: I think the decidedly MORE PESSIMISTIC attitude by Democrats in the USA is because - as Leftists - they are temperamentally more pessimistic, and have been for a LONG TIME. And they are MORE LIKELY to see reality through a partisan lens than right-wingers.

[ASIDE: This was proved by a poll in the book FAILING TO WIN: A poll in the book had results which proved that right-wingers were more principled than Democrats and applied core principles to issues; whereas leftists/Democrats selectively applied principles depending on the partisan slant of the question in the poll.

The particular poll in the book was about Iraq: when the situation wa expressed abstractly using hypotheticals and fictitious president and fictitious foreign land, then the Democrats supported Bush's policies in iraq2. But when the question was posed using REAL names and places, then the Democrats OPPOSED them. The Republicans who answered the poll answered the same regardless of whether the places were real or fictitious/hypothetical.]

Remember Carter's Malaise speech? Carter blamed America for its miserable state and wanted more sacrifices. lowered expectations and more statist interventions. Carter:

we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.

The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next 5 years will be worse than the past 5 years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world.

CARTER DID NOT SEE THAT LEFTISM WAS THE PROBLEM, AND NOT THE PEOPLE. Carter suggested we needed (1) QUOTAS on foreign oil, (2) mandated limits on oil use by PRIVATE utilities, (3) a NEW HUGE FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY, and (4) RATIONING.

FUNNY: He saw the energy crisis much like toady's Dems see the "healthcare crisis": as something which can only be solved by MORE GOVERNMENT AND GOVERNMENT RATIONING. GEE: I WONDER WHY?!

What saved America in the 1980's was not the smörgåsbord of leftist policy carter suggested; it was Reagan and his right-wing approach: lower taxes, smaller government and more faith in free people and free markets.

FAITH IN FREE PEOPLE AND FREE MARKETS: THAT IS TRUE OPTIMISM.

Leftists are people who have no faith in free markets or the people, and that's why they FEEL they NEED to have BIG Government - in order to intervene on behalf of particular people (victims) and particular issues THEY favor.

BOTTOM-LINE:

Democrats/Leftists NEED to feel bad and pessimistic in order to JUSTIFY their GRANDIOSE/BIG GOVERNMENT policies.

FOR EXAMPLE:

They NEED to say that global-warming is man-made AND that it will "destroy life as we know it" in order to make the GOVERNMENT BIGGER AND MORE POWERFUL AND IN ORDER TO ENACT FAR-REACHING CHANGES IN OUR LIVES.

Little crises just can't motivate or justify their colossal UTOPIANISTIC and "revolutionary" policies.

Don't become a victim of their pessimism. Don't fall for their prescriptions: they're worse than the disease.