With each growing year, people feel less and less confident in the American government's choices. In response to this recent government shutdown and the endless squabbles on the hill, the people's faith in government has hit an all time low.According to this poll, the American people's faith in the government's efficacy has dwindled noticeably since the Nixon era, with a steep downward spike with President Lyndon B. Johnson. There are jumps and dips all along the way, but basically, our faith that our representatives can aptly represent our beliefs has become too much to ask for.
While Americans still maintain quite a bit of faith in the local government, according to this CNN poll, the federal government remains unsupported by a majority of the population. This poll actually demonstrates that as of October 18th, 2013, the country's confidence levels in Washington have hit rock bottom at 15%, beating out the previous record of 17% held by 1994.
Although nothing as shockingly disapproved as the Watergate Scandal has happened recently, Americans still trust the government less than they did in the Nixon era. Let's look at why.Our government was built to have checks and balances so that no branch of the government would gain too much power. With these checks and balances, our government has grown to expect slow work, even gridlock, because this is said to ensure fairness to all parties, and to ensure that each minority's voice is heard. However, this gridlock prevents progress, and because the U.S is home to so broad a range of people, it is nearly impossible to pass a bill that everyone likes. Even a bill as universally helpful as national healthcare literally caused the government to shut down.
As this meme portrays, the process to pass a bill in Washington is long and arduous. If this is how our government runs, how can anyone expect them to do the right thing always or most of the time? Every politician is too muddled down in the politics of it all to do anything worthwhile. It is not the fault of any party or person in particular, it is the entire system that promotes gridlock and inefficiency. That being said, how can we expect the system to improve when there are people like Ted Cruz in our government.
Gerrymandering has caused an extreme faction of the Republican party to emerge, causing even more issues to arise in Washington. Instead of doing what would most benefit the entire country and what would help the greatest number of American people, we are forced to push aside progress to placate some of the views of radical extremists who represent a small minority of the country.
If I could tweak the prompt statement to become true, I would make several edits. From "You can trust the government in Washington to do what is right just about always or most of the time." To "You can trust the government in Washington to do the most difficult and least effective thing just about always or most of the time."
Sources:
http://0.tqn.com/d/politicalhumor/1/7/P/C/3/Congressional-Gridlock.jpg
http://www.logarchism.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/congress-gridlock.jpg
http://www.mikewirthart.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/howlawsmadeWIRTH2.jpg
http://www.cagle.com/2013/09/congress-blame-game/
Nice blog post Alicia!
ReplyDeleteWhile the dwindling American faith in the government is quite disappointing, it's not really that surprising. And yes lot of that reasoning comes from post Watergate. But I think the media has also had a big input and influence on people's trust in the government. Often times, the media highlights only the drama going on in Washington over the progress they're actually making. Indeed, these scandals can drastically change one's opinion toward a certain politician.
Also, because information is so accessible now, we've lost that ability to be patient. Instead, we want things NOW. This impatient mindset is perhaps what influences people's distrust in Congress since it takes soooooooo long to do anything. And like you said, sometimes this long progress doesn't even end up being that effective.
That said, our distrust in the government is not entirely the fault of the politicians. Rather, the fault includes ourselves and the very system itself.
Hey Alicia! Well, in response to your title's question, is the answer CON-gress??? Wow, that is too good.
ReplyDeleteI thought your blog post was really interesting. I think the reason for the government shutdown due to the Affordable Care Act is pretty ridiculous. After all, it's a law! It was passed by both the House and the Senate, signed by the President, and declared constitutional by the Supreme Court. In essence, it followed the exact route of checks and balances put in place to ensure controversial bills would take their time to pass, and still the Republicans shut the whole government down. So I think you're right, something's definitely messed up if we follow the system and still have no government for two weeks.
I do like your note about not necessarily blaming politicians who are trying to battle the entrenchment of the system. It's a good point to make, especially when there are certain individuals who make it extremely evident that their only goal is to make the gridlock in Washington as divisive and mired in personal vendettas as the front loading zone when we get released early from school. (Asian moms represent)
That tweak at the end is pretty perfecto. Great post!
Here's a gif-t for you: http://i.imgur.com/KvLQbMI.gif. Get it, like a gif that's given as a present... a gif-t.
To further Kenny's response about the Affordable Care Act, what makes this situation more alarming is that we are increasingly seeing certain factions in our government adopt a position of refusing to concede, regardless of circumstances. The ACA has been
ReplyDelete