Those numbers may be a crisis if you’re an incumbent. But they don’t threaten the Republic. There are two other forces that might.
The first is low American confidence in 14 major institutions – the presidency, Congress, the Supreme Court, banks, business, etc. We can muddle through normal circumstances with low confidence in these entities. But in a crisis, waning trust in, say, the military could be a real problem.
Second, America famously regards itself as having, in President Abraham Lincoln’s words, “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” So what happens when the people don’t trust The American People?
That’s one of the questions raised by another Gallup poll from earlier this month. That survey found just 51% of Americans have a great deal or a fair amount of trust in the American people as a whole – a record low.
It’s not hugely different from the 53% who answered that way last year. But Gallup notes that trust in the American people has been below 60% each year since 2018. It had never been below that level until 2014.
This is relatively recent, in other words. And there’s not a big partisan gap: 53% of Democrats, 51% of Republicans and 49% of independents told Gallup they trust the public’s ability to make democratic decisions. So it’s not like when the majority party says the system is working and the minority party grumbles until the next election.
This new-ish cynicism strikes at the core of our system. It’s not professed hostility to the news media (“professed” because, in my experience, everyone trusts the news media when their beliefs are affirmed ). It goes to something more vital.
This is about the central belief in government for, by and of the people. We’re supposed to trust in the democratic process – elections, legislative compromises – and that trust rests on our belief in the wisdom of the people as a whole.
A country that rolls its eyes at its politicians can survive. But can democracy survive if the inhabitants of that country doubt the collective sanity of majority rule?
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
This is an easy question to answer. Unfortunately the answer is profoundly disturbing.
A line was crossed when the Republicans and Republican voters rallied around Trump AFTER he tried to steal the 2020 election. It has been all downhill since Kevin McCarthy, the Speaker Of The House, went down to Maralago to kiss his ring a few weeks after Trump left office.
Putting him back in office in 2024 was a stain on our national honor that will take many years to erase. We will probably all be gone before that happens.
Beyond that, we have the spectre of Christian nationalism (aka white nationalism) hanging over the future. We have the ethical and moral riff raff rot that infests the entire Trump administration.
None of these things are going to end well any time soon.
No doubt about that.
Glad to see that there is at least ONE American Republican who can think critically.