It's Time To Revitalize Our Institutions

Can faith and trust in our democratic institutions be restored?

Jan 16, 2021

The insurrectionist mob which rampaged through the Capitol building on January 6 shocked a public oblivious of their own apathy. Blinkered vision had fooled many Americans into clinging to their belief that the United States was the world’s greatest democracy, the “shining city on the hill”, this despite the rancid divisiveness of our politics. The pictures of the violent crowd invading the halls of Congress exposed not only the vulnerability of the members but the fragility of the myth itself. The rioters were there to “stop the steal”. When they smashed windows and broke down doors, they were attacking the most sacred institution of democracy, a free election.

How did we get to this point?

Political societies organize themselves around a framework of institutions. There are formal elements of the government such as the Congress, the Executive, and the courts. There are informal institutions- political parties, interest groups, media, academia, organized religion- that interact with these formal institutions. The ultimate purpose is to attain a civil society that resolves problems and disagreements through consensual collective action. For political institutions to fulfill these roles, the people must have trust in them. The functionaries of these institutions are obligated to earn and maintain that trust. In the course of the past six decades, the public’s faith in these institutions has weakened and, in some cases, been completely abandoned.

The Erosion of Trust

I was an undergraduate in the mid-1960s and witnessed the turmoil of that decade in real-time. As the civil rights movement gained momentum and the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts became law, violence in the South and riots in cities like Detroit and Watts were stark reminders that America had not come to grips with systemic racism. The war in Vietnam became the focal point of protests as the policies of the Johnson Administration and claims of military success were questioned. We wondered if assassination and violence would become accepted means to settle political differences and if faith in the outcome of elections had been shattered. This period was punctuated in 1974 by President Nixon’s resignation as the result of the Watergate scandal, a stark indicator that institutions are only as trustworthy as the people who lead them.

For those of us of a certain age, we can recall events and people over the intervening years between then and now when we came to understand that the institutions we were told to believe in did not live up to their promise. I am referring to the oil shortages of the 1970s, the recession of the early 80s, Iran-Contra, the savings and loan debacle, Michael Milkin, scandals involving the Catholic Church and TV evangelists like Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Fox News, Enron, the 911 intelligence failure, the interminable war in the Mid-East, Scooter Libby, the Great Recession of 2008… I could continue, but the point is clear: the institutions in which we placed our faith to protect not only our lives but our way of life, have failed us often enough that our faith in them is now in question. (I urge the young among you to google some of those names if you are not familiar with them.)

During the Reagan Administration, it began evident that the message of the Republican Party had shifted rightward from traditional business-friendly conservatism to an actual attack on government. Reagan’s quips such as “government is not a solution to our problem- government is the problem” and “the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help” succinctly captured this approach. It was the intentional denigration of the role of the government over which he presided. And it anticipated a trend to populate leadership ranks of the government with people hostile to the mission of specific executive agencies.

By the 1990s, the Republican Party realized it was being consigned to permanent minority status by the nation’s changing demographics. Led by House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the GOP undertook a campaign of what can only be called take-no-prisoners-politics, describing Democrats as their enemies and not as competitors. In the ensuing 25 years, the approval rating of Congress has declined to 15 percent as bipartisan norms were jettisoned. Governance now takes a back seat to remaining in power, and another institution has been sullied.

Why?

In his 2012 book, Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy, Chris Hayes explored the failure of elites as a result of the corruption of a meritocratic system intended to promote the most qualified to leadership positions. The consequence has been the proliferation of institutions led by the incompetent, the venal, and the uninterested.

The temptation of monetary gain, not only in politics but across a wide range of social institutions, weakens core principles. We have, for example, mega-churches committed more to fund-raising than saving souls and universities invested in the multi-million dollar sports entertainment industry.

The role of an ultra-wealthy minority, a putative plutocracy, should not be discounted. The Koch brothers are the most well-known of this group and their political activities are organized under the umbrella of the Koch network, a group of wealthy donors. They contribute to an assortment of think tanks and universities, as well as political campaigns and causes, promoting libertarian principles such as free-market economics and low taxes. The zeal to protect their economic status often leads to anti-democratic policy positions, e.g. opposing climate change legislation supported by a majority of the public.

In a more general sense, we are living with the consequences of the loss of civic virtue (which I discussed last week), both in the public and our leaders. Citizens cheat on their taxes, professional athletes cheat to win, famous entertainers pay bribes to ensure their children admission to desirable colleges. Some of this may be laid at the feet of our educational systems, which have mostly abandoned the teaching of civics, government, and similar courses, especially in middle school and high school. As retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter stated:

…The most significant problem that we’ve got is … the current inability of people to understand how government can and should function. It is a product of civic ignorance.
What I worry about is a remark that Benjamin Franklin made about how “an ignorant people can never remain a free people."
Democracy cannot survive too much ignorance.
What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed, people will not know who is responsible. And when the problems get bad enough… some one person will come forward and say, “Give me total power and I will solve this problem."
If we know who is responsible, I have enough faith in the American people to demand performance from those responsible. If we don’t know, we will stay away from the polls. We will not demand it.
That is the way democracy dies. And if something is not done to improve the level of civic knowledge, that is what you should worry about at night.

What is to be done?

Lenin’s existential question- where do we go from here? There is no simple answer, but it is imperative we seek answers. To restore faith and trust of the institutions of our society is not a short-term project, but it must be accomplished.

I can offer one example. The US military has the highest approval ratings of any government institution. This is in stark contrast to the tattered reputation it earned in Vietnam. In 1973, the US eliminated the military draft and increased recruiting efforts to create an all-volunteer force. Military service became a profession. Of course, the military’s command structure made it a much simpler task to bring structural change to a cumbersome bureaucracy. Still, the lessons of leadership, commitment, flexibility in planning and implementation can find parallels elsewhere in society.

So, the first question should be, “Do we have the will?”

FYI: Some numbers

A new [2019] Gallup report found that only half of Americans say they belong to a church or other religious body, down from 69% two decades earlier.
A 2015 study by the Pew Research Center of political party identification showed the 39% of Americans identified as independents, greater than the 32% as Democrats and 23% as Republicans.
2.77 million members of the American military have served it either Iraq or Afghanistan. This is less than 1% of the population

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