Washington Real State

The oddity of this situation is that although the State of the Union in the Washington sense has become stylized and removed from everyday American concerns, the real state of the union is of enormous social and cultural interest. Pollsters have known for years that one question above all indicates Americans' satisfaction with public life and confidence in their leaders—the question that is typically phrased as "In general, do you feel that things in America are moving in the right direction or the wrong direction?" This is another way of asking whether the state of the union is sound—and when answering the question, people consider a wide range of concerns: How they and their family members are doing, materially and spiritually. What they observe or believe about others. What they think the future will bring. To what extent they feel in control of events, rather than feeling like objects or victims. Some components of this real state of the union are purely private matters, but many others are part of the environment that public life is supposed to help determine. The education system, the robustness of the national economic base, the physical safety of citizens, their pride in what the nation stands for—these and many other areas involve politics to some degree.

That the components of the real state of the union are complex and subjective doesn't mean they can't be discussed—and in many cases measured. An attempt to think broadly and originally about these elements of national well-being lies behind this special section. Some of the essays that follow offer specific action plans; others identify trends to watch. And although they are political in the broadest sense, most don't bother with comparisons of the Democratic and Republican positions on the subject at hand. The assumption is that in most of the areas under discussion the major-party platforms are essentially fundraising tools or ways to organize blocs of interest groups.