Suspicious minds cause inertia, bad feelings in America

Carol Forsloff - In 2010 the Pew Forum took a poll of Americans and found them highly suspicious of government.  NPR radio followed up with its series.  NPR speculated suspicious minds are the root cause for the country's inertia, a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

The poll surveyed more than 2,500 Americans of voting age in the second week of March, with follow-up polls done in April and what Pew found is distrust and dislike of government to be as high as at any time since pollsters began posing similar questions two generations ago. 

Why is the government so distrusted particularly and what does it mean for its ability to act? 

NPR looked at specific issues and found Americans are disturbed by many things they cannot understand that makes them wonder whether people in Washington understand their needs and concerns.   

Where does this come from?  Some social scientists tell us a lot has to do with a change in direction in the Obama era coupled with the psychological roots of suspicion Americans have historically regarded authority as a country of rebels skeptical.   Like the Elvis Presley song "Suspicious Minds," folks are caught in a trap, can't walk out, because they are hanging on to the love of three decades of a different direction, that change interrupts.

"American polity is responding to a wrenching change of direction personified by President Obama. The previous three decades had been dominated by a public philosophy embodied by President Reagan. Through this period of deconstruction, under Republican administrations and Democratic as well, the primary thrust of government change was toward deregulation and decentralization," was NPR's appraisal.   

President Clinton came along and after trying to change the system, he simply stepped back and played defense with a Republican-controlled Congress. 

So the real change is coming with Obama, and that change, after so many years of certain traditions being the norm, that change is difficult for many people to accept. 

But it isn't just government folks are dissatisfied with.  They are also suspicious of corporations and national institutions, Pew forum found.  They are becoming more and more concerned about those pillars of the culture that are the base of any society and that help move it forward during difficult times. 

Pew poll shows a comparable level of dislike toward banks and financial institutions (22 percent positive, 69 percent negative) as it does with government.   Large corporations do only slightly better (25 percent positive, 64 percent negative), a ratio that almost exactly matches the public scoring of the overall federal government (25 percent positive, 65 percent negative). 

Abe Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, is troubled. A recent ADL poll found that 61 percent of Americans believe their religious values are “under attack” by media. Fifty-nine percent believe those who run TV networks and major movie studios don’t share their religious or moral values. Forty-three percent believe there is actually “an organized campaign by Hollywood and the national media to weaken the influence of religious values in this country.” In addition, nearly 40 percent favor some kind of censorship of morally objectionable material in public places like libraries.

 To Foxman, this is heresy. He says these erroneous beliefs come from people who “want to incorporate more religion in American life,” a Christian/conservative agenda ADL vehemently opposes. Foxman says ADL must calm these disturbing levels of suspicion." 

While traditional institutions are under suspicion, those on the sidelines take advantage of that by alternative news, medicine, religion and free-for-all government.  Are these alternatives free of the problems of traditional institutions as they claim?  Those who believe in this way to go seldom check,  then become disappointed later to find problems can happen anywhere. 

All of this is pointed out by social scientists and the recent program by NPR.  Now the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has cast its net as well, with an exponential increase of people reporting, commenting, or sidelining the main issues of protecting the Gulf Coast and restoring its environment, which is the main problem. 

This parallels the government as well, with a disaster awakening the distrust in almost everything that hangs upon the nation, creating inertia and bad feelings in its wake.