The End Times Of Trust In Government May Well Be Upon Us

The Fix writes, “It’s no secret that the American public views its elected officials with some combination of disgust, disappointment and distrust. Congress’s approval rating is in used-car-salesman territory, and with every legislative crisis it dips, somewhat amazingly, lower. But, as bad things are, there is a tendency to assume that the current attitude toward the federal government is sort of how it always has been. Except that it hasn’t always been like that. This chart is taken from a broader interactive project from the Pew Research Center that aims to document public attitudes toward the federal government from 1958 to the present day… most interesting was how the current low period of government trust is, unlike past periods of distrust, seemingly unconnected to an obvious event or events. Instead, it appears to be a political death — or at least bloodletting — by a thousand cuts. No one event is to blame. Rather, something even more corrosive to government appears to be happening — a steady and growing belief that politicians in Washington are simply not to be trusted.” Interactive