Let’s skip the usual “pulse of American sentiment” stuff in the AP-NORC America 250 poll that came out yesterday. A lot of it is about what you’d expect in terms of the economy. I want to focus on one unsurprising development and then one more unsettling result.

BRUISED EXCEPTIONALISM
Good news first: America seems pretty clear-eyed on the issue of exceptionalism. When this survey was conducted in April, 25% of respondents had the opinion that the U.S. “stands above all other countries in the world.”

That figure is in between the 21% from March 2024 and the considerably higher 33% from the month after Joe Biden took office. Nothing drastic.

Less than half said the U.S. is “one of the greatest countries in the world, along with some others” for the first time in that three-poll timeframe.

But the real eye-catcher was the response for “There are other countries better than the United States.” That sentiment leaped to 30% this year, up from 26% in 2024 and just 11% in 2017.

Sure, I wish that number hadn’t nearly tripled since Obama left office. The U.S. as an idea is pretty great on paper, but its principles as originally framed suffered from some critical and invisible asterisks (e.g., suffrage for me but not for thee).

This kind of question reveals what I think of as the asterisk delta: The rolling difference between what kind of country we said we are and the kind of country we actually are at any point in time.

Throw in self-inflicted economic woes and unnecessary war, and these responses seem in the ballpark to me.

MEH THE VOTE!?
I was much less prepared for the results of asking Americans if they considered “a democratically elected government” to be a key part of national culture. Quick, what do you think the general sentiment would look like?

In early 2021, 80% of respondents showed moderate to strong enthusiasm for the concept as essential. Seems a bit low to me, given that our government’s user manual is pretty explicit on this subject, but whatever.

In early 2024, the number had dropped, but just a little, to 76%.

As of seven weeks ago, the number has dropped to 66%. One out of three respondents could take or leave democratically elected representation as a core quality.

WTF.

Unfortunately, I can’t see the breakdown on that question with regard to political sentiment. The poll’s overall self-described political makeup was 21% liberal, 48% moderate, 29% conservative. Hardly left-tilting.

I don’t want to jump to conclusions about what’s happening in this question. I assume the original 20% who could take or leave the idea were spread across the political spectrum for whatever reasons.

But I also know who has been organizing to fight for voting rights and holding No Kings rallies since the previous poll. And I know who has been working every conceivable angle in every branch of government (and beyond) to erode the concept of one citizen, one vote.

So while I’d rather not suspect that most of this anti-democratic lurch is due to Fox News viewers’ increasing panic over a lack of privileged status, and their blessing for Donald Trump to do whatever he wants … that does seem like the most likely culprit.

I’ll defend the hunch that this poll item reveals modern right-wing radicalization by harkening back to Bush speechwriter David Frum’s quote from 2018:

“If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.”

Like the overturn of Roe v. Wade and the prospect of a mob insurrection descending upon the Capitol to interrupt our peaceful transfer of power, Frum’s scenario seemed largely unthinkable to many self-described “moderates.” Many of them subsequently found that all of the above didn’t bother them too much after all, as long as their “cultural norms” buttons can be pushed just so in campaign season.

The rest of the moderates, assuming there are any remaining, need to get with the program. Going by these two questions, it’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.