Why Democrats thought Obamacare would be popular

Michael Barone explains the connection between the history of Progressivism, the Democrats' belief that Obamacare and other sweeping redistributive legislation would be popular, and their shock at the level of opposition to these measures.

One hundred years ago, most urban Americans rented rather than owned their homes. Many had no bank accounts, and few had significant financial assets. Elites worried that this proletariat might rise in revolution.
In this America, the progressives argued that the Founders’ vision was obsolete. Property rights should be subordinate to human rights. Government should regulate economic activity and “spread the wealth around,” as Barack Obama told Joe the Plumber.

This view animated the New Deal in the 1930s and appealed to the non-property-owning majority. Franklin Roosevelt sowed the idea, harvested by the New Deal historians, that an ever-expanding government was both good and necessary. Democrats were referencing this when they said they were “making history” by passing their health-care bill.

Read it all. It helps explain why people like Rush Limbaugh say they want everybody to be rich. It also helps, to some extent, explain the progressive tendency to define morality in economic terms. And their desire to confiscate people's property - especially the property of the "working rich" rather than the property of the "trust fund babies". People who think that their security will come from the government rather than from working to "get ahead" will be more likely to vote for people who promote progressive policies.

The only enthusiasm for the Obama Democrats’ policies comes from David Brooks’s “educated class”: people who are or identify with the centralized experts tasked by the Obama Democrats with making decisions for the rest of us. . . .

This "educated class" tends to resent crass capitalists who earn more than they do. Polls indicate that they also do not understand why most Americans don't trust them, like Swedes trust their counterparts in Sweden.   You may find the linked video interesting.

Swedish culture stresses working for the "common good" on a very personal level, to the extent that neighbors in an apartment co-op will sometimes get together to eject someone onto the street from their (paid for) apartment if they feel the offender is not sufficiently cooperative with the goals of the co-op. Hard to imagine this in most U.S. neighborhoods.  Some Swedes express fears that the country will someday have a significant number of  "free-loaders" who exploit the generous welfare system, but for now, this does not seem to be a big problem there.

New York City has about the same population as Sweden, and a lot of progressives live there. It would be an interesting experiment to try to bring successful government based on the "Club Sweden" mindset to the diverse population of this city, before trying to extend the dominance of progressive government over the rest of the country.

Tocqueville noted that local civic involvement was an important part of being an American in the past. Swedes seem to retain the idea of partnership with government more than modern Americans. Perhaps partly because of the smaller size of the country.

 A relatively new challenge there is to extend the egalitarian "Club Sweden" atmosphere and sense of cooperation to the largely Muslim immigrant population.