I still can’t understand how anyone with as disastrous a record as Obama can have an approval rating anywhere near 50%. Let’s face it: Obama makes Jimmy Carter look good. And yet his approval remains within striking distance of 50%. The only rationale I can come up with is that roughly the same proportion of Americans who approve of Obama pay no federal income taxes. Most of these individuals are quite content to live their lives dependent on the hard work of the other half who actually pay taxes. Why work when one can lay in the hammock, collect food stamps, and rely on that magical “Obama Money”?

The problem, of course, is that the country as we know it can’t survive if this trend continues. As more and more people voluntarily choose to essentially become mendicants, living on the coerced charity of a declining population of those who assume life’s responsibilities, the whole system, and America itself, will cease to be. A depressing thought, to be sure, but this is where Obama has the country headed with his cherished fundamental transformation. As Margaret Thatcher famously said, the problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.

Obama clearly doesn’t understand this. Why should he? His only real experience in life prior to assuming the presidency was in the cloistered confines of academia and on the streets of Chicago where his main function as a community organizer, near as I can tell, consisted of the fomenting of unrest among the unproductive so that they could demand more and more from the productive. Is it any wonder America is declining under this guy?

All of this is profoundly distressing, as I said, but every once in a while there is a faint glimmer of hope. A new poll today indicates a substantial majority of those polled believe Obama has transformed America — but in so doing made it worse. Via The Hill:

Two-thirds of likely voters say President Obama has kept his 2008 campaign promise to change America — but it’s changed for the worse, according to a sizable majority.

A new poll for The Hill found 56 percent of likely voters believe Obama’s first term has transformed the nation in a negative way, compared to 35 percent who believe the country has changed for the better under his leadership.

The results signal broad voter unease with the direction the nation has taken under Obama’s leadership and present a major challenge for the incumbent Democrat as he seeks reelection this fall.

Conducted for The Hill by Pulse Opinion Research, the poll comes in the wake of last month’s Supreme Court decision that upheld the primary elements of Obama’s signature healthcare legislation.

It found 68 percent of likely voters — regardless of whether they approve or disapprove of Obama — believe the president has substantially transformed the country since his 2009 inauguration.

America was founded on the principle of limited self-government, and the data above suggest that a significant majority of Americans see Obama as substantially changing that core principle. Further, and perhaps more significantly, a substantial majority don’t wish for their country to be fundamentally transformed, particularly in the direction Obama is hell-bent on taking it. Moreover, this poll suggests that Obama’s strategy of blaming Bush four years into his presidency may be wearing thin. How can this tactic continue to work if voters recognize that Obama’s policies have made the county worse? All of this should be great news for Republicans. But, alas, our nominee is Mitt Romney, and data from the poll also indicate that voters don’t see the Mittster as one who’ll dramatically change the country’s trajectory:

Compared to the sentiment about Obama’s impact, fewer people see presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney as a candidate who will change the country dramatically if elected.

That voters don’t believe Romney will make any dramatic changes, even though that’s exactly what’s needed, is not surprising. I’ve been making the case for three years that there are many issues on which Mitt and Obama are simpatico, and therefore there’s no logical reason to believe that Mitt will do anything other than slow America’s drive down Obama’s path to mediocrity — or worse. Unfortunately, at this point in our nation’s history, that may not be enough. Not by a long shot.