Obama campaigned with the affectation that it was all about us, all about the little people getting together to change the government and live up to America’s best ideals. Now that he’s the government (an ever bigger share of the federal government, with czar-mania breaking out), the little people are a mob in his eyes, an impediment to what he wants.

And what does he want? The most grandiose and ambitious scheme attainable for regulating, taxing, and controlling health care. As Bill Kristol explains, Obama has invented or reinvented a health-care “crisis” so enormous as to justify his ambitions:

But isn’t health care a crisis? No.

Indeed, the president acknowledged it isn’t: “But we did not come here just to clean up crises. We came to build a future. So tonight, I return to speak to all of you about an issue that is central to that future — and that is the issue of health care.” In other words, health care — unlike, say, the financial system a few months ago — is not in a state of crisis.

So there is no health care crisis. There are a host of normal public policy issues dealing with health care that can be dealt with through the normal political process.

But that doesn’t suit Obama. He’s decided a big victory on health care is key to his political success. He’s decided we all have to acquiesce in a massive overhaul of our health care system because … he’s decided he wants it.

He said, “I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.” This suggests how grandiloquent his self-understanding is. After all, even if he were to prevail with some form of his legislation, others would come along with further and other reforms. Obama really isn’t our last, best hope for public policy changes in this area — or in any other.

But it is hard to convince the vast majority of Americans who have health-care insurance (and like it) that we should turn over their most significant health-care decisions to the government, which can’t manage mundane tasks like spending stimulus money in a useful fashion or getting car dealers paid in a timely manner for the clunker cars. Now it’s not about us; it’s about him and his magnificent and final (there shall be none after his!) conception of affordable care for all, taxes only on the wealthy, and no increase in the debt. (Unicorns are optional.)

The scope of his ambition and the disdain with which he regards his opponents are startling. Never once in his speech did he concede the merits of his opponents’ concerns. It is all silliness, lies, misunderstanding, and partisanship—by the other guys.

So we come full circle. It is no longer about empowering people but about running them over. But meanwhile, the public is in revolt. In the new AP-Gfk poll, 42 percent of voters approve of his handling of the economy and of health care (52 percent disapprove of both); only 33 percent approve of his handling of the deficit and 40% of his handling of unemployment. Moreover, by a 49-34 percent margin, voters oppose the current health-care scheme floating around Congress.

Can Obama convince everyone they are wrong? In politics, never say never. But the voters thought it was about them, not his big-government ambitions. And now they find out it wasn’t ever about them.