Poll Question 25: How many government officials are crooked?
Answers:
Quite a few 63% Not many 20% Hardly any 5% Not sure 12%
Poll question 24: Can you trust government to do what's right?
Answers:
Just about always--5% Most of the time--19% Some of the time--77%
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| Roosevelt: Civil Service Cmmr. 1885-91 |
The Economist and yougov.com cooperated on a poll taken last week. Its headline news was that Republican voters were asked who was the greatest Republican president, and Donald Trump edged out Abraham Lincoln. Really.
There were other surprising results, including the fact that most Americans think Trump will win re-election, defeating Biden, Warren, Buttigieg, Sanders, and others.
The results that stood out to me was the widespread and bipartisan consensus, that American government employees were mostly crooked, with 72% of Republican voters thinking quite a few crooked and 57% of Democrats thinking this.
Incompetence, too. Only 28% of voters thought government employees "Know that they're doing" while 51% said "They don't know what they are doing." (Question 26) Democrats are only slightly more favorable to government than are Republicans.
The Democratic electorate has moved to the left in this post-Obama era of Trump, and every candidate has shifted along with it. A consensus has emerged, that Hillary Clinton lost because her campaign message did not address the justifiable discontent of the public over problems left unresolved: unaffordable health care, drug costs, student debt, the loss of family wage jobs, ongoing wars, the gig economy, the power of special interest money. She was too establishment. She didn't understand populist discontent.
This year's Democrats do.
This year's Democrats do.
The solutions voiced by all candidates, but especially Sanders and Warren, involve more direct involvement with government. Corporations are understood to be self serving, uninterested in the general public, but in fact loyal to the stockholder owners and top management, against the interest of employee or community "stakeholders."
Democrats look to government successes, most obviously Medicare For All. A presumption embedded in the discussion is that Social Security and Medicare are efficiently run and popular. The results have an unintuitive age skew, with more seniors--69%--saying government employees are crooked, compared with 47% of voters 18-29.
Democrats look to government successes, most obviously Medicare For All. A presumption embedded in the discussion is that Social Security and Medicare are efficiently run and popular. The results have an unintuitive age skew, with more seniors--69%--saying government employees are crooked, compared with 47% of voters 18-29.
This decade has been noteworthy for a decline in public support and faith in institutions generally, government included. Trump described that mood in his inauguration speech:
"Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system, flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now."
It was angry populism put to voice, but the problems have not been solved, certainly not in the views of Democrats. They have gotten worse. Trump has fought the culture war, not the problems of incomes, debt, and access to health care.
Trump's style of administration, with vacant offices, policy by tweet, accusations of the presence of a Deep State (Question 32), and most recently his over-ruling military chains of command, exacerbate the problem of distrust of government.
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| Hoover Dam |
What can Democrats do? Be seen addressing and solving problems facing Americans. The problems of health care access, high drug prices, the loss of family wage jobs, access to the middle class, student debt, and power of special interest money are still out there. There is an opportunity to end the carnage.
3 comments:
For most of the postwar era, certainly since Nixon and the conservative movement founders, Republicans have fostered the narrative of an incompetent, wasteful entrenched bureaucracy that was responsible for all manner of societal ills. Ironically, the same government that defeated Hitler and put a man on the moon. Their assault has been relentless and it has found willing believers at every level in the society, even from those who benefit the most from legislated progress in social and economic justice. One result is that otherwise competent and public spirited people are hesitant to run for office, and created openings for self-serving individuals who can be bought off by special interests.
In short, a self fulfilling prophecy. In the face of this it's no wonder at the results of the poll you cite. It's considered naive to have a high regard for government, a primary reason for the apathy infecting our electorate.
The Obama candidacy ("Hope and Change") was a counter narrative that challenged the prevailing sentiment and could have made a lasting difference, but Progressives became complacent and the Regressive machine kept grinding away more intensely than ever, now with the racist element leading the way.
You ask what Democrats should do?
Easy answer...not so simple, though.
Revive the same energy that elected President Obama, except this time champion a woman; one who will inspire all Americans to re-engage and put forward solutions to income inequality, money in politics, healthcare, climate change, and immigration. We are fortunate that we have such a woman running and Democrats should put aside all the petty infighting and unite behind her, the sooner the better.
Senator Elizabeth Warren
If Democrats want to show Americans that Government can work and solve problems, they have the perfect opportunity: the Golden State of California. Democrats own the state, top to bottom. The bluest of the Blue states.
But California is sinking into Third World status before our eyes. It's both the richest state in the union AND the poorest state in the union. The working class is raising their kids in parking lots. There are tens of thousands of homeless community college students -- so the California legislature proposed allowing them to sleep in the college parking lots. Bike paths that were built for everyone to enjoy are now homeless encampments, too dangerous for a family bike ride. Voters authorized ten billion in bonds for a SF-LA high speed rail system, but that was just too hard for California to get done.
Like a Third World country, Californians no longer even have reliable electrical power. Entire counties of hundreds of thousands of people have their power shut off for 4 or 5 days because the Public Utilities Commission cannot find a way to force PGandE to maintain their power lines.
There are more billionaires in California than anywhere else on Earth. There is plenty of money in California to solve the obvious problems. How come the Democratic government of California can't tax the rich and create a good life for all Californians?
Distrust? Republicans want to kill off government completely and return to the law of the jungle. Agree that CA is a Third World country. The question is where do they emigrate to?
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