Are we in the end times of trust in government?
When public trust in government collapsed from 53 percent in 1972 to 36 percent in November 1974, it made sense. The Watergate investigation, which led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, was just the sort of ugly — and prolonged — episode to make public perception of government erode in a relatively rapid manner.
Ditto the historically low trust ratings reached in Pew polling in the early 1990s, as a series of congressional scandals — with the House Bank scandal being the most prominent — produced large amounts of media coverage focused on what the heck politicians were doing in the nation’s capital.
But the recent drop, which began in earnest after the goodwill toward Washington surrounding its actions in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks wore off, seems disconnected to any single notable event. There have been a fair share of legislative standoffs and scandals in recent years, but nothing nearly as heavily covered or broad as Watergate or the House bank.
Instead, it appears to be a political death — or at least bloodletting — by a thousand cuts.
Blowback
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1965?
Oil Can on February 7, 2013 at 10:39 PM
I suppose it can’t help that Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Durbin, Schumer and their Comrades are epic liars.
visions on February 7, 2013 at 10:47 PM
Almost as bad as the lack of trust in the state run media…?
d1carter on February 7, 2013 at 10:49 PM
Yeah, and so? 51% of those who voted last election ran out and pulled the lever for the most destructive preznit ever to infest the office, and they also voted to keep an equal number of retarded aszhats who don’t have the intelligence to run a one-man shoeshine operation.
Nothing will change until serious consequences are visited upon the increasingly royal class of politicians running this nation.
Bishop on February 7, 2013 at 10:55 PM
Nope this is the beginning of compulsory trust in government.
Room 101 otherwise.
tom daschle concerned on February 7, 2013 at 10:58 PM
We are near the collapse of government.
61% of our deficit each year is being lent to A PRINTING PRESS at the fed that makes dollars out of thin air… It won’t be much longer before the value of the dollar ceases to exist, and thus, our government ceases to be able to provide any meaningful form of welfare.
Indeed, it will probably be so poor that the only kind of army we could field would be citizens bringing their own rifles…
That’s how bad of a fiscal condition we are in.
wildcat72 on February 7, 2013 at 11:06 PM
I have never trusted govt types – it’s the people who have lost my trust, lately.
OldEnglish on February 7, 2013 at 11:08 PM
It’s not going to ever get better.
Ethnic diversity means inequality… people who deny this deny evolution itself.
The demand for “equality” will cause government efficiency to nosedive. The demand for “equality” will cause conflicts between older, wealthier, higher IQ whites and younger, poorer, lower IQ non-asian minorities. The people we’ve imported will not be up to the task of running this ship once the baby boomer retire…
The future of American politics will be grim and ugly.
ninjapirate on February 7, 2013 at 11:12 PM
That is really what it has come to. The electorate is too lazy, too uniformed, too envious, too gullible… The snake oil politicians have always been in the wings, it is just that now they are no longer passed over by a virtuous and informed electorate.
tom daschle concerned on February 7, 2013 at 11:13 PM
If we aren’t we s/b.
Schadenfreude on February 7, 2013 at 11:15 PM
Indeed!
OldEnglish on February 7, 2013 at 11:28 PM
One big, ineligible, Indonesian Dog-eating 84 IQ gash is the major bleeder. The fact that rags like the WaPo and the rest of the MSM cover for the Retard Sukarno copy in his every anti-American, anti-Western move (which is basically every single thing the moron does) and that the cowards and collaborators in the GOP have done exactly squat in the face of TENS OF CLEARLY IMPEACHABLE acts just lets the only decent people left who loved and respected America (not the fundamentally deformed nation that the Indonesian and his lunatic leftist junta have been pushing and creating) realize that there is no one and nothing in the feral government that is defending America, our Constitution, or the responsibility to “secure the Blessings of Liberty TO OURSELVES AND TO OUR POSTERITY”). This feral government is wild and there is nothing around to stop it. Benedict Roberts offensive decision regarding BarkyCare was the very last straw, as the SCOTUS was the very last resort. He is a villain to live long in infamy and humiliation, as he well should, the miserable POS.
Death by a trillion dollars every year in debt to fund un-Constitutional, anti-American programs – and the GOP has done exactly jack to even slow this down, even as they hold the House which holds the purse strings.
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on February 7, 2013 at 11:34 PM
[ninjapirate on February 7, 2013 at 11:12 PM]
You are talking about two different equalities and you ought to be clearer. The issue you are talking about is the socialist’s dream of equality of outcomes.
That is something much different than equality before the law, or “… that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness ….” And this latter meaning is in no way tempered by concepts of ethnicity or race. Nor should it be.
You diversity argument may have bearing in the competition of cultural norms that often come with different ethnicities or races, and, yes, using the term evolution in some form fits technically but it’s hardly apt in the meaning for which it is commonly used. For such evolution that you assert makes peoples different could take decades or centuries to change or could happen in mere seconds because all that needs to occur is to change one’s way of thinking and there on to form new habits.
Dusty on February 7, 2013 at 11:42 PM
Translation: “the media didn’t cover it, so why you mad?”
Having used the disappearance of 1/6 of the economy as an excuse to spend even more tax money and then pivoting away from that economic brilliance to restructure another 1/6 of the economy in the most underhanded and arm twisting way possible. No that couldn’t put everyone in a bad mood because the idiots that are supposed to question government turned into sophomoric cheerleaders. So we should all be happy.
MechanicalBill on February 7, 2013 at 11:51 PM
I’m not talking about cultural norms at all… I’m talking about evolution over hundreds of thousands of years in many different environments and other selection pressures.
This is absolute political correct nonsense. It is very difficult for different ethnic groups to form new habits because there are a biological basis for their cultural norms.
An ethnic groups with say higher testosterone will act differently than another ethnic group with lower testosterone.
There will be no “change on’s way of thinking and there on to form new habits”. It’s just not natural for that to happen.
ninjapirate on February 8, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Well said, very well.
Schadenfreude on February 8, 2013 at 12:02 AM
1+ all of the above.
And the Media is the tool that has actively promoted the destruction.
justltl on February 8, 2013 at 12:03 AM
I hate you and all the other media outlets with the heat of a thousand burning suns.
You worthless, communist mfers only worry about something when it concerns a republican. Just look at today’s Benghazi testimony. Barry was plucking his eyebrows while bad shit was happening.
The sad thing is, Nixon, Ford and Bush/Bush expanded government but never enough.
arnold ziffel on February 8, 2013 at 12:08 AM
I don’t know if the media was ever trustworthy. Yeah, they went after Nixon with a vengeance, but he was a Republican. They protect progressives, not investigate them.
The Rogue Tomato on February 8, 2013 at 12:16 AM
lol, They fluff em and help with talking points.
arnold ziffel on February 8, 2013 at 12:21 AM
I think the belief in government probably died on November 22, 1963. That’s my feeling anyway.
Dack Thrombosis on February 8, 2013 at 12:25 AM
The Founders surely as hell didn’t trust government.
That’s why they gave their new nation a Constitution and Bill of Rights.
viking01 on February 8, 2013 at 12:28 AM
How does that make any of them unequal, here in the USA, or anywhere for that matter? What the heck was your point as regards this Headline thread about trust in government?
So you are saying Blacks can’t do engineering, and Chinese can’t play basketball and Whites will never be able to dance? Are you saying Hispanics will never understand unalienable rights, Germans can’t be comedians, Irish can’t be sober? Seriously, besides the continual temptation towards the seven cardinal sins, which infects all ethnicities, what are you saying can’t be changed considering how much things have changed in the world amongst so many ethnicities in the last 70 years or less, because as you say “it’s just not natural for that to happen.”
You ought to at least read Sowell’s Race and Culture: A World View, before you wave your ignorance around in public any more.
Dusty on February 8, 2013 at 12:31 AM
I don’t think the Founders vision of government will ever go away. We may lose it here. For a while or maybe forever. I don’t know. I think it will come popping up somewhere, though. It is the most dangerous and radical vision of government yet thought of. The vision can’t be undone for good.
The fools attacking it here and now may win, but their vision will not in the long-term. It’s the same old thing mankind has always had. A generation will come along that will have had enough and try the Founders way again.
trigon on February 8, 2013 at 12:51 AM
Trust? Lol!
Bmore on February 8, 2013 at 1:18 AM
I agree. The god-worship of the JFK family beat all. Romney’s wife was mocked for riding dressage, to help her MS, but Jackie K. was worshipped for putting on snotty duds to fox hunt, and dropping French
What changed was the total takeover of the public school system. This coincided with the degeneration of many religious denominations, who, to validate behaviors called abominations in the Bible, had to cherry pick the book. The moving standard, once started, never moves up, but always down
To justify behavior, religion must be unjustified, and it has been pushed to the point those who hold to the old morality are ridiculed. It isn’t a new story. The Bible predicts the outcome.
Iin the colleges, the philosophy of Rousseau, and Marx displaced the Western philosophies. Private property became the enemy of equality. Inequality of results was taken as proof of discrimination. This stopped the upward rise of the disadvantaged classes. Now we push the producers downwards. The elite class remains static . Block the upward path, and whoever is already on top, stays there as long as they support the order
Race riots were the opener for the new equalization.
Ultimately the slide would not have happened if enough Americans believed in the Bible, which by commandment also protects private property, and enshrines individual liberty, with punishments for crimes therefore, to be meted out only if a crime is committed, and not before the fact
The decadence of the 30′s, the resulting financial bubble, collapse, and wars, were results of growing decadence. Each heave is worse.
entagor on February 8, 2013 at 1:38 AM
I agree. The god-worship of the JFK family beat all. Romney’s wife was mocked for riding dressage, to help her MS, but Jackie K. was worshipped for putting on snotty duds to fox hunt, and dropping French
What changed was the total takeover of the public school system. This coincided with the degeneration of many religious denominations, who, to validate behaviors called abominations in the Bible, had to cherry pick the book. The moving standard, once started, never moves up, but always down
To justify behavior, religion must be unjustified, and it has been pushed to the point those who hold to the old morality are ridiculed. It isn’t a new story. The Bible predicts the outcome.
Iin the colleges, the philosophy of Rousseau, and Marx displaced the Western philosophies. Private property became the enemy of equality. Inequality of results was taken as proof of discrimination. This stopped the upward rise of the disadvantaged classes. Now we push the producers downwards. The elite class remains static . Block the upward path, and whoever is already on top, stays there as long as they support the order
Race riots were the opener for the new equalization.
Ultimately the slide would not have happened if enough Americans believed in the Bible, which by commandment also protects private property, and enshrines individual liberty, with punishments for crimes therefore, to be meted out only if a crime is committed, and not before the fact
The decadence of the 30′s, the resulting financial bubble, collapse, and wars, were results of growing decadence. Each heave is worse.
entagor on February 8, 2013 at 1:42 AM
Sorry two posts. Going to have to clean my computer. Should have stayed away from N Korea info sites. Heh
entagor on February 8, 2013 at 1:44 AM
The entire premise for the formation of our government is based on mistrust of government. In 1776 we started with near 0% trust of government.
The problem with our country is the upward trend over the last 236 years.
CycloneCDB on February 8, 2013 at 1:52 AM
There should probably be two speeds for feelings on government:
Tolerate -> Revolution
with very little ground between.
Panther on February 8, 2013 at 5:34 AM
When the government no longer trusts the citizens, it should come as no great surprise when the citizens no longer trust the government.
We have a million examples of government’s distrust of the citizenry (actually closer to disdain or even hatred of the citizenry): The so-called Transportation Security Administration; the entire Department of Homeland “Security”; the government’s drive to eliminate gun rights; the insistence in more and more taxes and spending; the government’s lip -service to citizens and their rights; and it goes on and on and on.
clippermiami on February 8, 2013 at 6:38 AM
EXACTLY! We are in the end times of trust in ourselves.
MikeA on February 8, 2013 at 6:39 AM
Government may be too broad a word – but 90% yes.
jake-the-goose on February 8, 2013 at 6:49 AM
This is rich. Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake at the Wash Post belly-aching that no one trusts government.
Oh yes, no one event… “by a thousand cuts” and these tools held the knives. Maybe it might have had to do with liberals telling everyone that Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction and tricked all those Democrats into for voting for war (poor victims). Or maybe it had something to do with lying to everyone about how Bush (or maybe Reagan) caused the “Great Recession”. Or maybe it had to do with prominent Democrats calling federal troops Nazis and accusing them of war crimes (yet again) or maybe it had to do with politicians getting sweet-heart mortgage deals while the mortgage industry collapsed or the fact that we had to bail out Fannie and Freddie again and again after prominent Democrats said there was nothing wrong with them… Yeah, a thousand cuts – don’t we know it.
But now that their guy’s control government – boo hoo nobody trusts government and it’s nobody’s fault. Pftt.. Reap what you sow, losers.
Wait until ObamaCare, Medicare and Social Security screw us all over too. There’s going to be even less trust in government but of course it will be the GOP’s fault for not just going along and believing in Tinker Bell.
rhombus on February 8, 2013 at 7:14 AM
I’ll name two things… you can’t change the natural variance in intelligence(Pinker says it’s 70% inherited) and testosterone that varies between the main ethnic groups.
Culturalists who want to change the behaviors of other ethnic groups need to realize that they’re running up against the biological wind.
ninjapirate on February 8, 2013 at 7:23 AM
It is watering time…
trs on February 8, 2013 at 7:39 AM
They are butthurt that the right is every bit as loving of Obama as the left was of Bush.
harlekwin15 on February 8, 2013 at 7:50 AM
Ah. I see you’ve missed a memo somewhere along the line. Trashing the President simply because he belongs to the opposition party is no longer acceptable. As a matter of fact, trashing any (D) politician for ANY reason is no longer acceptable.
(R)’s are still screwed, of course.
I’m surprised you missed that.
Besides, the left voted to give Bush his fake war for oil built on lies, right? What has the right ever given Obama
Washington Nearsider on February 8, 2013 at 8:26 AM
Even if one accepts Pinker, you ignore the 30% that can be changed. So right there, your earlier assertion is false. As for the 70%, what does Pinker say about it’s use as it relates to it’s environment.
Besides, is there anything known to man that some ethnicity is incapable of understanding exclusively because as you say they haven’t evolved sufficiently that their IQ’s are high enough? Can you name one? Can you prove it’s due to IQ and not cultural norms or desire to know?
Anyway, I hate to break it to you but the high IQ Whites are who got us into this mess, starting with the Income tax scheme, then the Social Security Ponzi scheme, then the Welfare scheme and the Medicare and Medicaid scheme, not to mention the hankering after the Universal Healthcare scheme for for over 100 years. And it was high IQ White who put them those high IQ White into office, so don’t go putting the blame on the lower IQ non-Asians for not being able to get their betters out of it.
Dusty on February 8, 2013 at 9:34 AM
If you want to know what the US army will look like in another decade, take a look at what happened to the Soviet military machine after the USSR collapsed two decades ago. That is where we’re headed.
The media spent eight years describing Bush as a mass murderer and war criminal who stole the election and was governing illegitimately, followed by what looks like a decade of economic depression under Obama, and people wonder why the public has lost faith in government? Good gravy.
Doomberg on February 8, 2013 at 9:44 AM
Well, they like themselves and that’s all that matters.
Marxism is for dummies on February 8, 2013 at 10:29 AM
It is entirely possible to acknowledge the reality of racial and ethnic inequalities without subscribing to Darwinian fantasies. Heck – over the last two thousand years they have been proven.
Exactly. Starry-eyed egalitarianism aside, the idea of the Democrat welfare-minorities being able to run America with competence or justice is laughable. The entire Democrat scheme is to have them sitting on their semi-literate fannies all day making unwanted babies, doing drugs and breaking the law.
They don’t have the faintest idea how to feed themselves anything but prepackaged, chemical-laden gorp from the local Wal-Mart, let alone maintain our infrastructure, and their paymasters aren’t fit to manage a burger stand let alone a nation.
Add to that our brilliant solution to labor shortages caused by cheapskating American workers has been to import Turd-World peasants to be paid and treated like trash by their employers. This combined with the welfare state will not, CANNOT, end quietly.
MelonCollie on February 8, 2013 at 11:20 AM