Gallup has a new poll that shows “Fear of Big Government at Near‐​Record Level.” The headline might also have been “Fear of Big Business Falls by 20 Percent in 2011.” Or perhaps “Fear of Big Government Has Risen Sharply during the Age of Obama.”


This is not good news for Progressives in general. They need for the government to be trusted, if not loved, to undertake great projects in pursuit of a presumed public good. But the real losers here are Occupy Wall Street. The Gallup survey was done in late November and early December of this year. After several months of attention to OWS, the fear of Big Government has gone up while the fear of Big Business has dropped. OWS is not moving public opinion in its preferred direction.