Why Our Political Elite Remind Me of Dumb and Dumber

The Kamala Harris campaign has just unveiled an “Issues” section on its website, with a striking emphasis on “opportunity.”  Its first sentence says that Harris’s vision “ensures every person has the opportunity to not just get by, but to get ahead.” Its first bold heading begins, “Build an Opportunity Economy” (“where everyone has a chance to compete and a chance to succeed”). Yes, this is what a generation of campaign consultants has advised writing on your website. But does it reflect what Americans want?

One of the most consistent and counterintuitive findings in American Compass’s public opinion surveys, which we find in other survey data as well, and which we’re now beginning to understand in more depth through focus group research, is that the politically prevalent understanding of the American Dream as a chance to “get ahead” or “make it to the top” is not widely shared by the American people. To be sure, no one objects to the idea that America should be a place where anyone, wherever he starts, can achieve great things. But the obsession in our political rhetoric with “opportunity” is misplaced.

Much more important than “opportunity” and “mobility” is “stability” and “security.” I first became aware of this contrast with a fascinating question asked by Pew Research: Which of the following is more important to you: “Financial stability” or “Moving up the income ladder”?

Americans chose “financial stability” by 12 to 1, in one of the most lopsided results you’ll ever see in public polling.