Three of the polling profession's heavyweights took time this year to look at the important issue of public trust in Washington.
In March, Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, released "Deconstructing Distrust: How Americans View Government." In June, Fred Steeper of Market Strategies, Inc. produced one of his occasional papers titled "The Federal Government: Able, But Immoral." Robert Worcester, who heads the highly regarded British firm Market & Opinion Research International, compared British and American attitudes in a paper he wrote for the American Association of Public Opinion Researchers.
By now, the major trends on trust in government are familiar to most politicians and pundits. To take just one of the questions the pollsters regularly ask about trust, in 1958, 73 percent told interviewers from the University of Michigan that they trusted the government in Washington to do what was right most of the time or just about always, and 23 percent said they trusted the government only some of the time or never.
High levels of trust dominated during the early 1960s, but then began a downward spiral, with occasional small upticks, usually during strong economic recoveries. But good times today are not lifting the numbers of those who trust the government to do what is right. The latest iteration of Michigan's question, posed by CBS News and the New York Times this October, produced results that were almost a mirror image of the 1958 ones: 73 percent trusted the government only some of the time or never, and 26 percent trusted it most of the time or just about always. By this measure, then, trust in Washington has dropped nearly 50 percent in 40 years.
Why is trust so low in Washington to do what is right, and what consequences flow from this condition?
To find some answers, Pew conducted six focus groups, three national surveys over the course of 1997 and 1998 (Princeton Survey Research Associates did the fieldwork) and separate surveys in five European countries. Kohut argued that "discontent with political leaders and lack of faith in the political system are principal factors that stand behind public distrust of government today. Much of that criticism involves the honesty and ethics of government leaders. Concern about moral decline is also a major component."
Kohut went on to say that "with the failings of political leaders bearing so large a burden in Americans' distrust of government, the recent allegations against President Clinton . . . appear to strike at the heart of trust in government."
Steeper (and his co-author, Christopher Blunt) argue that the high levels of trust that people had in the federal government in the late 1950s and early 1960s were probably an aberration. Government had dealt successfully with a depression and a war, and those seminal events bolstered people's trust in Washington. To assess what is producing low levels of trust today, they explored what people mean when they are asked how much of the time they trust Washington "to do what is right." When people hear those words, are they thinking about government's abilities or about its motivations?
Steeper and Blunt gave people 19 pairs of adjectives and asked them which word in the pair best described the federal government. Pairs included terms such as good/evil, ethical/unethical, safe/dangerous, helpful/intrusive, intelligent/dumb and strong/weak. Eight of the 19 pairs had a moral component, and five of them dealt with government's effectiveness.
Steeper and Blunt found that the public's views of the motivations of government were much more powerful in explaining overall distrust than their ratings of the government's abilities. Americans see inefficiency or wastefulness as a byproduct of government's motivations, and government is wasteful because of its dishonesty and immorality, Steeper and blunt found.
Worcester finds that the deep distrust that infects the American polity has tainted British attitudes, too. In 1983, 74 percent of those surveyed by MORI said they could not trust government ministers to tell the truth. By 1997, 80 percent felt that way. The marks for politicians in general were not much better. Ministers, politicians and journalists all ranked below 16 groups in terms of their veracity. In 1973, a near majority, 48 percent, described the system of governing Britain as working extremely well or mainly working well. By 1997, before Prime Minister Tony Blair's election, that proportion was down to 28 percent.
Kohut argues that distrust of Washington has not diminished Americans' patriotism, caused a loss of appetite for government services or even effected interest in working for the government. Steeper, Blunt and Kohut believe that distrust is not translating into active hostility for most Americans. They and many others rightly say that people see a certain utility in people's distrust of Washington. A healthy skepticism of government keeps officials on their toes.
Distrust does, Kohut says, "weaken people's connection to civic life, turning them away from Washington." In the past few weeks, many reporters I've talked to have expressed surprise that people outside the Beltway don't seem to be paying much attention to the impeachment proceedings. For most people, however, the President's actions reinforce negative views of Washington. As the data make clear, not only has the current scandal damaged the President's legacy, it has also further diminished already low levels of trust in Washington.
What to Do about the Independent Counsel Law
In early December, Gallup found that 38 percent wanted Congress to keep the independent counsel statute (described in the question as the law that "allows the Attorney General to appoint independent prosecutors to investigate possible wrongdoing by certain government officials") as it is, and 44 percent wanted to keep it but modify it. Just 14 percent wanted to abolish it.
Karlyn H. Bowman is a resident fellow at AEI.
