[September 23, 2015] A recent Gallup poll in the United States found that almost half say that government is an “immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.”1 While the polling data only goes back to 2003 when the question was first asked, it’s no new revelation. I’ve also written about the decline in the trust of leadership and government several times (see links here, here, and here).
“If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists – to protect them and to promote their common welfare – all else is lost.” – U.S. President Barack Obama
This drop in trust should be no surprise as we build up to the U.S. presidential election in 2016 with the vitriolic rhetoric. But this trend in those saying the government is a threat has been increasing since at least 2003. Today, American citizens believe their government is more corrupt, untrustworthy, and more of a threat than in any time since polling became a scientific enterprise.2
Except it’s not just the government where trust in leadership is lacking. For example, there have been anti-police protests pushed by some of our more influential politicians and the Black Lives Matter movement. Another example is the Occupy Wall Street protests that were inspired by peoples’ disgust and anger with a financial system that “unjustly rewards the richest one percent at the expense of everyone else.”
Nor is this lack of trust in leadership limited to the United States. Immigration mostly from refugees fleeing the Middle East has overwhelmed many of the eastern-most European nations and pitted one against the other on immigration quotas and who pays for their costs. Accusations of betrayal are flying back and forth among their political leaders. There is also the tragedy of the Greek financial system collapse and its externally imposed austerity measures.
All of this helps drive people to believe that government is more interested in perpetuating itself as a bureaucracy than protecting its citizens. What is so unfortunate about this trend is that, despite it being recognized as a problem, there appears to be very few senior leaders who are willing to do anything about it.
The more serious problem is that many leaders are actually making the problem worse by divisive and acrimonious talk. The epitome of leadership is the ability to pull people together for a good cause and by that standard we have not done well. In our failure to provide leadership we might just deserve the people’s lack of trust in us.
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- 1. http://www.gallup.com/poll/185720/half-continue-say-gov-immediate-threat.aspx?g_source=Politics&g_medium=newsfeed&g_campaign=tiles
- When asked by Gallup pollsters why Americans believe their government is an immediate threat, the general answers were that the federal government is too big (and too costly), too powerful (allows some to be above the law), it has too many laws (many being selectively enforced), and violates freedoms and civil liberties (threatens the Second Amendment). Less common complaints were that the government picks winners and losers such as the wealthy or racial minorities and is involved in things it shouldn’t be in. Yet, the results from surveys are consistent … there is a lack of trust in leadership across the Western world, in government and in other institutions.