There’s a reason that Americans’ faith in our institutions is declining, the reason that The Economist considers the United States a “flawed democracy”. We don’t trust our institutions as much as we used to because our institutions are less trustworthy than they used to be.
Question: What’s a three syllable word beginning with ‘P’ that means you think that people are against you?
Answer: Perceptive
It’s really unclear when American institutions were trustworthy. The better answer is that American institutions have failed completely to deal with how exposed and weak they are. But since they still have money, Americans have had to stomach this or use it to their advantage.
I don’t disagree with that. Read Will Rogers or Sam Clemens. Americans have been skeptical at best about our own institutions since we’ve been a country and probably before and I believe with good reason.
I think that esteem for our institutions probably reached its zenith in the aftermath of World War II. I keep hoping it hits a nadir but there’s no sign of the bottom yet.
Americans need to give up their nostalgia for that time. Let’s leave aside the racism, Hoover’s FBI, and the national security state. The rest of the world was a ruin. American nostalgia for the good times is predicated on the fact that Russia lost 26 million people, China 15 million, and Germany 7 million. The world was destroyed except for the US, and economically and institutionally it reaped the reward. End of story. The conditions are not repeatable.
Tbh, I think that the truth is the opposite: Americans trust the institutions they are part of more and people who deal with these institutions less. This is across the board: government, academia, business, the police, or the military.
“I think that esteem for our institutions probably reached its zenith in the aftermath of World War II.”
I think that’s correct, and it was probably all the events that accompanied the Vietnam Nam War that created an inflection point downward. Perhaps not totally warranted by actual functioning, but at the very least in perception.
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With thanks – Michaela