Eugene Robinson: The Eradication of Trust

[babylonsister]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_eradication_of_trust_20100419/

The Eradication of Trust

Posted on Apr 19, 2010

By Eugene Robinson


Trust might as well be a four-letter word. American public opinion seems to have become an unguided Weapon of Mass Suspicion, and it’s not hard to understand why. But those who would exploit distrust, dissatisfaction and anger for political gain had better worry about collateral damage.

The overhyped tea party phenomenon is more about symbolism and screaming than anything else. A “movement” that encompasses gun nuts, tax protesters, devotees of the gold standard, Sarah Palin, insurance company lobbyists, “constitutionalists” who have not read the Constitution, Medicare recipients who oppose government-run health care, crazy “birthers” who claim President Obama was born in another country, a contingent of outright racists (come on, people, let’s be real) and a bunch of fat-cat professional politicians pretending to be “outsiders” is not a coherent intellectual or political force.

But even people who wouldn’t be caught dead at a tea party rally have lost trust in powerful institutions that are supposed to be working in the public’s interest—with considerable reason. Just look at the headlines.

snip//

Republicans have been actively encouraging this groundswell of distrust on the theory that it’s bad for incumbents, meaning Democrats. Indeed, the approval rating for the Democratic Party has plunged to 38 percent. The problem is that approval of the Republican Party has also fallen—to 37 percent.

The moral here, for giddy GOP strategists, is the one about people who live in glass houses.

[RandomThoughts]

1. I heard a poll about how many people trust government.

There were four categories, always trust, mostly trust, somewhat trust, never trust.

They broke it into two categories, top two, and bottom two, then said most people don't trust government. I figure somewhat trust was most of the replies, and so they broke it into two categories to distort the poll.

But many people do not trust government, some people hardly trust anyone.


But here is the point.



Why not post a poll, how many people trust the media. How many people trust major corporations.

Even how many people trust the people that run whatever company they work at.

How would those results come out?


The whole point is to make people think that the group that is the advocate for the people, look like the problem.

While never mentioning that corporate systems are also a governmental system.


Personally I think the Democrats have been doing some good things, and Government, as corporations, are made of people. So if their is not another agenda they put above helping people in society, then they should be trusted. However, some of them might be working for different goals, like profit, and not societal good, and might try to do things in secret, if they think they can get away with it, and they think it achieves some agenda they feel is more important.


So the question should be, who would you rather have running a society, an elected body of representatives, or a corporation elected by shareholders? And if you think they are the same, they really arn't. But even if you did think that, then why go after the government? Instead support the government that stands up to forms of governance that you disagree with.

[ljm2002]

7. Wow, those categories are bunk!

"always trust, mostly trust, somewhat trust, never trust"

If it were a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 = always trust and 5 = never trust:

1 - always trust
2 - mostly trust
3 - somewhat trust

5 - never trust

Hmmm, there seems to be something missing. I would have expected to see:

4 - rarely trust

Then you could leave the neutrals in the middle and have two categories to break off on each end and compare.

As you point out, grouping "somewhat trust" with "never trust" is just wrong. "Somewhat trust" seems to be a net positive rating, or neutral, rather than negative, and it is wrong to group it with the negatives.

[RandomThoughts]

8. The catagories were paraphrases.

the actual poll was later posted on a blog with the names of the catagories. There was a post of an article on DU that posted the actual poll questions, found it after the original post, but it is no longer in my history folder.

The questions in poll as I stated them were paraphrases.


As you point out, grouping "somewhat trust" with "never trust" is just wrong. "Somewhat trust" seems to be a net positive rating, or neutral, rather than negative, and it is wrong to group it with the negatives.

But this statement still holds true, and it showed a way some groups manipulate poll results to say what they want to say.

[Supersedeas]

2. kick

[Hutzpa]

3. More of this Eugene

we need more of this.

Time to go for red meat, sick and tired of hearing about the tea party
every time I turned on the damn TV.

Unleash the fuckin' dragon, hit them where it hurts.

[Hutzpa]

4. Oh!

and I love seeing Joe Scarborough's face when he was talking about this on his show this
morning the pain was there alright, it was there for all to see, can you imagine how the
wizards would be feeling behind closed doors? same diference....:evilgrin:

Call these fuckas out.

[BlooInBloo]

5. Better, but it's not really about trust. It's about truth...

Americans simply don't *care* about truth.

[wisteria]

6. I agree with his reasoning here. n/t

[political_Dem]

9. Right on, Mr. Robinson! K and R.

People need to read this to understand the hypocrisy of the entire Teabagger phenomenon taking storm in the media.

I would also propose to add to Mr. Robinson's definition that this media-constructed "grass-roots" group is one built on cynicism and exploitation. Not only is race used in such a fashion, but also class is implemented to build up a false meaning of "elitism". Thus, this revision of elitism is negatively attached to intellectualism and theoretical thought.

It serves to be emphasized again that the RW likes to keep the people stupid, racist and doing their bidding. Ask too many questions and one becomes villified.