Can the United States government be trusted? One of the main ideas of a successful democracy is having a strong government that you can trust. Unfortunately from time to time they make statements that will begin to break this trust. The level of trust has dropped in recent years and doesn’t look to be getting better anytime soon. By taking a look at reasons not to trust the government, a closer look can be taken to try and figure out a way to increase the confidence Americans have in the federal government. Having a successful society takes many different things. One big thing is to have a government that has the ability to serve its citizens properly and in as effective manner as possible. The concept that makes this possible is trust. Without trust, humans have no reason to work together to build bigger and better things (Simpson 2). As Americans begin to lose faith, and by extension trust, in their government, it begins to get harder to create bigger and better things. Clem Brooks and Simon Cheng noted that “no trend in U.S. public opinion has elicited more enduring concern among scholars, political commentators, and politicians than declining levels of public confidence in the …show more content…
The poll highlights three parts of government, the Presidency, U.S. Supreme Court, and Congress. The confidence that the average U.S. citizen has had in Congress has never been very high, with an all-time high of thirty percent. As of the most recent poll, confidence was at an all-time low of seven percent. By comparison, the level of trust citizens have in the Presidency and the U.S. Supreme court is much higher. They have all-time highs of fifty and seventy-two percent respectively. Currently they have rates of twenty-nine percent for the Presidency and thirty percent for the Supreme Court (
Chapter nine of Enduring Debate talks about how the American opinion poll plays role in constructing the government and how the media has affected the American politics. The public polling promotes democracy by allowing citizens to give their views concerning issues in government. The opinion polls also keep the government on toes. The main ideas are based on the founding of the American state and the constitution. Constitutionalism is based on the concept of the rule of law and limited authority. American constitutional principles can be traced back over 200 years ago. However, the practical meaning of constitutionalism is a recent and peculiar achievement. In the American history before the constitution was implemented, most governments were established by use of force, heredity, the need to stop anarchy and by the belief in God’s will. During out the history, this style of establishing authority has endorsed power to different leaders with different characteristics. Some were dictators, divine, kings, tyrants while others were bureaucratic. These people had full control of power. They exercised absolute authority. The main reason is that there were no instruments of power such as constitution that could limit and keep in check the powers of these forms of government.
the public can put its trust ad faith in but this time it fell apart
Kouzes, James M., and Barry Z. Posner. Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People
We often wonder about the importance of government. Is it necessary? Does it really benefit society? The answer is yes. Many countries have diverse forms of government such as totalitarian, monarchy, theocracy, and much more. The United States of America specifically runs a democratic type of government. A democratic government gives power to the people. Citizens over the age of eighteen are allowed to elect leaders based on their individual opinions through voting rights. The main purpose of the American government is, to protect people’s inalienable rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness as our Founding Fathers intended.
O’Connor, K., Sabato, L. J., Yanus, A. B, Gibson, Jr., L. T., & Robinson, C. (2011). American Government: Roots and Reform 2011 Texas Edition. United States: Pearson Education, Inc.
One of the biggest upsides of America is the fact that the citizens have freedom. The United States has fought in the past, for their citizens to acquire rights and freedom. Going along with freedom and rights, the citizens receive the right to vote. We can vote for our leaders and what we want to achieve and improve, including the problems listed above. The process to get things done might take a long time, but they will eventually be achieved. Many countries are not free and the citizens do not have their rights, but Americans do have their freedom. This positive aspect of America supports Thomas Paine’s view of America by showing how great a country we still are despite our
Is the American government trustworthy? Edward Joseph Snowden (2013) released to the United States press* selected information about the surveillance of ordinary citizens by the U.S.A.’s National Security Agency (N.S.A.), and its interconnection to phone and social media companies. The motion picture Citizenfour (2014), shows the original taping of those revelations. Snowden said that some people do nothing about this tracking because they have nothing to hide. He claims that this inverts the model of responsibility. He believes that everyone should encrypt Internet messages and abandon electronic media companies that track personal information and Internet behavior (op.cit, 2014). Snowden also stressed to Lawrence Lessig (2014) the importance of the press and the first amendment (Lessig – Snowden Interview Transcript, [16:28]). These dynamics illustrate Lessig’s (2006) constrain-enable pattern of powers that keep society in check (2006, Code: Version 2.0, p. 122). Consider Lessig’s (2006) question what is “the threat to liberty?” (2006, p. 120). Terrorism is a real threat (Weber, 2013). Surveillance by social media and websites, rather than the government, has the greater negative impact on its users.
Presidential Influence in Congress." American Journal of Political Science 29.2 (1985): 183-96. JSTOR. Web. 19 May 2014.
Hudson, William E. American Democracy in Peril: Eight Challenges to America's Future. Washington, DC: CQ, 2010. Print.
Edwards III, C. George, Martin P. Wattenberg, Robert L. Linberry. “Government in America: People, Politics, and Policy”. Textbook.
The American Presidency is undoubtedly one of the most widely recognized popular icons throughout the world. Although to most foreigners or those who have never resided in the United States or know little of its history, the executive branch of government may seem to be as dull and unyielding as the rest of the American politics, for those few rare individuals who have taken the time to examine and closely scrutinize this office of the American political system and its recent history, quite the opposite will be said. Unlike Congressional or local elections where typically a number of individuals of the same ideological background must be elected in order for a particular issue to be addressed by the government, when it comes to the presidency, one person, although checked by various other divisions of the same government, has the power and responsibility to literally, as history has proven, change the world. The American people, "like all people everywhere, want to have our (political) cake and eat it too. We want a lot of leadership, but we are notoriously lousy followers" (Genovese). In other words the expectations the public has of the executive office are ever-changing since we demand that our leaders keep up with the evolving world around us and them. Throughout the past seventy eventful years alone, the American people's views, perceptions and demands of the Executive Office of American government have evolved simultaneously with the political and social events of that same time period.
Works Cited Hudson, William E. American Democracy in Peril: Eight Challenges to America’s Future – Fourth Edition. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2004. Landy, Marc and Sidney M. Milkis. American Government: Balancing Democracy and Rights.
The United States of America is one of the most powerful nation-states in the world today. The framers of the American Constitution spent a great deal of time and effort into making sure this power wasn’t too centralized in one aspect of the government. They created three branches of government to help maintain a checks and balance system. In this paper I will discuss these three branches, the legislative, the executive, and the judicial, for both the state and federal level.
and is this distrust of our government even a serious problem at all? These are
The creation of a government that is out of control, and thus out of touch robs every citizen, preventing fulfillment of the original American dream. (Thomas, 2011)