America's Upbeat Mood

COVER STORY

Once again, people feel good about their lives and their country

"I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy... It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. .. The confidence that we have always had as a people is not simply some romantic dream or a proverb in a dusty book that we read just on the Fourth of July . . . Confidence has defined our course . . . We know the strength of America. We are strong. We can regain our unity. We can regain our confidence . . . Let us commit ourselves together to a rebirth of the American spirit."

When he gave his so-called malaise speech on television five years ago, Jimmy Carter wanted to inspire. But many Americans felt the President was blaming them for his failures of leadership. The hortatory language was a little bewildering too. A crisis of confidence? The heart and soul of our national will? A rebirth of the American spirit? A great many citizens had already come to think of the President as a bit of an oddball, attuned more to metaphysics than to politics. After that impassioned, fretful analysis of the country's bad mood in the summer of 1979, his reputation never really recovered.

But it is clear now that Jimmy Carter was on to something real and powerful. Americans did feel defensive and dispirited about their nation: cynical about its faded grandeur, alarmed by what felt like the beginnings of economic chaos and despairing of prospects for improvement. The notion of even a quiet national contentment and pride seemed quaint, implausible, slightly foolish.

Not any more. Put on the Willie Nelson record. Turn up Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring. Woody Guthrie will do fine too, and even John Philip Sousa is permissible. The Zeitgeist has turned zesty. The U.S. is at peace, and between rising employment and fading inflation, the economy is aglow. Americans are feeling more sanguine and comfortable about their country than they have felt in two decades. A rebirth of the American spirit, as Carter dearly hoped five summers ago? It sure feels like it. Even the walkouts called against General Motors last weekend were reluctant and selective (see ECONOMY & BUSINESS). "People seem to be enjoying themselves more," says Mel Hagen, 35, an auto worker from Keego Harbor, Mich., a working-class town outside Detroit. "Things aren't as tight as they once were." Homosexual Activist Harry Britt, a member of the San Francisco board of supervisors, also senses a change. Says he: "I haven't found anybody who doesn't feel good about being an American right now." The new mood has become a central element in the presidential campaign. Ronald Reagan has tried to capture the flag by stressing the nation's economic recovery and his huge military buildup. Most Reagan campaign events are masterpieces in Yankee Doodle pandering. The Democrats made a point of waving Old Glory at their convention in San Francisco. "There is not one party that is patriotic and one that is not," insists Walter Mondale.

The ebullient surge did not happen overnight, but in fits and starts from the mid-1970s onward. After Viet Nam and Watergate, America seemed to have lost much of its confidence and moral energy. The nation's mood, as measured for