According to a chart found here:
http://people.reed.edu/~gronkep/docs...2-version2.pdf
in 1964 78 percent of the American people had confidence in the government. By 1980 that had declined to 25 percent.
According to a chart found here:
confidence in the government rose to 54 percent during 9/11, and has declined to 20 percent.
Why do you think so many Americans trusted the government to do the right thing in 1964? Why do you think that has declined since?
Try going here for the first chart:
Why don’t you tell us what you think the reason is, as if we didn’t already know?
What do you think I think it is?
I will post my answer to my questions after others do. I do not want this to be a thread about me, but about the questions I ask.
If I had to guess what you would say, I’d say it’s the Civil Rights Act.
If I had to guess, I’d say that in 1964 the majority of people still read newspapers and digested real news stories. By 1980 television sensationalistic news took over as the main vehicle for news distribution.
It’s at 20% now because people get their news from the internet, and Facebook, and Jon Stewart. In other words, small snippets of useless information, supposed to fire their imagination. I can’t get no…no, no, no.
Decades of relentless anti-government propaganda from the Right.
What would be interesting would be to see the same data plotted going back several decades prior to 1964. I would not be surprised to discover that the views have risen and fallen on numerous occasions and using 1964 as a starting point simply gives an erroneous impression that the positive views used to be typical, when using that date might have simply been a high water mark. (Note that the line from 1958 to 1964 is rising: prior to 1958, the views could have been either higher or much lower.)
In 1964: we had a decent economy; were beginning to see the results of the Space Race with the implentation of Telstar 2 and other satellites along with the close of the Mercury program and high hope for the Gemini program; we were only a year and a half away from the Cuban Missile Crisis that we perceived we had “won”; JFK had just been assassinated, bringing a sense of solidarity to the country; the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 and LBJ’s announcement of a “War on Pverty” had given many people, (clearly not all), the sense that the government would address injustices in society; efforts to “fight communism” were in the news, notably very minor escalations in Vietnam followed by the Gulf of Tonkin incident in which the U.S. flexed its military muscle, (generally an action that increases support for a government).
Following 1964, there was increasing division over the Vietnam War, disillusion that the government was neither effective nor correct in its handling of racial issues and poverty programs. Then news of Nixon’s behavior, (highlighted by, but not limited to the Watergate scandal), the withdrawal from Vietnam with the later fall of South Vietnam, the (perceived) inability of Nixon, Ford, or Carter to deal effectively with inflation and then stagflation, the rise of the conspiracy movement regarding JFK’s assassination that reinforced the notions of corruption or incompetence in government, (reflected in the “moon landing hoax” CTs, etc.). The nadir, of course, coincided with the Iranian takeover of the U.S. embassy, the failure of the rescue mission, and a general perception that Carter was not capable of being an effective executive.
Without genuine numbers for earlier years, it is not possible to know whether 1964 was an extradordinary anomaly, (although I would guess that from 1945 through 1964, the numbers probably trended higher). What would the numbers have been for 1931?
At a guess, I would think that the blatant deceptions in multiple venues uncovered during the Nixon presidency probably set a tone of distrust that has continued through to this day, but a general rise and fall as the country faces various conflicts is probable, regardless where a median line would plot.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed July 2, 1964. Sixteen days later a black ghetto riot began in Harlem.
The Voting Rights Act was signed August 6, 1965. Five days later the Watts riot began.
While the Open Housing Act was signed in April 11, 1968 there were black ghetto riots in 100 cities, including Washington, DC.
From 1960 to 1970 the crime rate in the United States doubled. From 1960 to 1980 it tripled.
We should also remember that the War on Poverty, which President Johnson declared in 1964, lead to expensive efforts by the government to end poverty in America.
The riots and the increase in crime made it difficult to make a plausible argument that social reform and social welfare spending could solve social problems.
When it became apparent that ending racial discrimination would not achieve racial equality liberal Democrats tried to achieve racial equality with programs like forced school busing and affirmative action. These, plus apparent liberal indifference to the rise in crime, caused white blue collar workers to lose confidence in both the Democratic Party and the government.
By contrast, in 1964, when confidence in the government reached 78 percent, it was generally agreed that the government, under the leadership of the Democratic Party, had ended the Great Depression, won the Second World War, and was managing an economic expansion that benefited nearly everyone. It was also believed by most Americans that ending racial discrimination would enable most blacks to perform and behave as well as most whites already did.
I have read that as soon as Gallup began to track confidence in the government during the 1950s it was high. Dwight Eisenhower was only able to be elected president by making it clear that he supported the basic reforms of the New Deal.
This is what Eisenhower wrote in a letter to his brother:
“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas.5 Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
Ah, the classic “Dem darkies, dey is bad!” gambit.
Nobody could have seen that coming.
That would not have been successful if government programs were improving the lives of most Americans as they did during the New Deal.
I think it’s not possible to point to a single year as a turning poing for anything. Let’s say it’s middle 1960s. My two cents:
Assassinations- popular figures gunned down, leads to a malaise and a feeling that the good people are gone leaving less desirables in charge
What have you done for me lately?- WW II was beginning to fade into memory, the Depression was in the history books, rural electification was a done deal, there was no great unifying cause to get behind.
Vietnam Cynicism- the government was forcibly taking our young men and sending them off to combat for a war that we began to think wasn’t worth fighting over
Relative Prosperity- unemployment was low and fewer people needed the safety net and thus less of a need for government.
Illiteracy is lower than it’s ever been. Yet, market penetration for newspapers have been declining since the 20s. Is it fair to make an appeal to tradition, or is there an objective measure by which declining newspaper readership is a mark of the popularity of the topic?
If that’s the case, then why did the decline of Socialist media presage the current trend away from other print media? Why should adequate knowledge of the government’s actions preclude distrust in them?
As it stands, I personally do think alternative forms of media contributed both to the decline in newspapers and the public’s faith in their government. Stories can be spun and selectively quoted, but that’s much more difficult to accomplish on television and harder still when information is disseminated through the internet.
Tens of millions of Americans do not agree with FOX News and right wing talk radio because they watch and listen every day. They watch and listen every day because they agree.
Of course, confidence was high in the 1950s. The U.S. was the clear winner of WWII and was the only major industrial nation to not suffer severe damage during WWII. We were floating along on a cushion of significant exports, a strong dollar, and incredivle consumerism.
However, since it appears that you only opened the thread for the purpose of engaging in more race baiting rather than a serious discussion, I will leave you to it.
The only reason I did not post the Gallup survey that began to track trust in the government was because I could not find it.
I would like a serious discussion. You are trying to derail it by derogating my intentions.
Both of my parents worked for the Government. I grew up hearing about what a great man Franklin Roosevelt was and how unfortunate it was that Adlai Stevenson was not elected president in 1952 and 1956.
I dislike and distrust the business community. The only alternative to big business is big government. The decline in the prestige of the government is painful to me. I believe that it is legitimate to inquire into why the government has lost prestige, and that all suggestions should merit respectful consideration.
My guess? The assassination of JFK, RFK and MLK followed by losing a war in Vietnam (including the fact that the government was lying to the public about it) followed by the crimes and misdemeanors of Richard Nixon.
Or put more simply: the American people stopped trusting the government when the government started lying to them.
Even Gallup only appears to go back to the 1950s. I do not think there is anything sinister in the graph that is provided; I nonly note that it is potentially misleading for an overall view of the issue.
You have that backward. Look at my first post. I did not speculate on your motives for the thread and contributed a serious analysis of the situation. However, when another poster did voice suspicions regarding your motives, you used the opporetunity to post a list of post hoc, ergo propter hoc “connections” between various events that involved racial issues. You are the one who appears to have confirmed other posters’, (not my), speculations regarding motives.
I’ll second tom re: your intentions. I had no idea that there was a racial component to your question until in response to a vague question about your motivation you listed a series of race riots. That set off all sorts of alarm bells.