Trusting Your Government
So here is a fascinating chart from Pew. It shows trust in government by administration, starting with Kennedy and Johnson.
During the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, most democrats and republicans trusted the government. After Tricky Dick, trust in government plunged and never really came back. But whereas trust in government (or lack thereof) stays fairly consistent for democrats and independents, for republicans it shoots up when one of their own is in the Whitehouse. I mean look at the difference between George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Holy crap.
I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around these figures. Republicans – who are always talking about small government and keeping the government out of your business and how evil politicians are – have absurdly high trust in government when its one of “their own.” If they see themselves reflected back, then they just figure, what? They’re good people and we should just trust them? Evidence be damned. But if it’s the scary other, then all bets are off and it’s time to march out with guns?
Meanwhile democrats, who don’t trust government worth a damn, insist that every problem can only be solved with legislation and government enforcement. How’s that for schizophrenic? Why on earth would you time and again willingly give your power to people you don’t trust to use it wisely? And how is it that I, as an anarchist mistrustful of power, am often treated like I’m out of my mind. I’m just taking your own mistrust to its logical conclusion.
The survey also asked whether it was the members of congress or the political system that was broken. Unfortunately, they asked it in such a way that, if you wanted to say it was the system, you had to say that congress people have good intentions. What kind of choice is that. I’ll take D. none of the above.
You can see the whole pew poll here
