Voters Getting Trumped

[From article]

“There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the entire government working for you,” Will Rogers quipped, capturing his era’s zeitgeist and explaining the popularity of our moment’s outsider presidential candidates.
It’s good to be a non-politician when 75 percent of Americans say government corruption is widespread, up from 66 percent in 2009, and half say government is an immediate threat to lives and freedoms, according to Gallup.
[. . .]

Fans of self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders and conservative Ted Cruz meet at the intersection of their contempt for a government that gives sweetheart deals to well-connected cronies.
The newly elected may arrive in Washington convinced it’s a cesspool, but after harnessing governmental power and dispensing billions, they discover it’s an inviting Jacuzzi, where big government and big special interests collude to enrich the few, trumping the interests of the many.
[. . .]
President John F. Kennedy said, “A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” Eager to restore our sovereignty, Americans are searching for an independent leader, one they believe will “make America great again.”
[. . .]



In his New York Magazine commentary, Frank Rich argues Trump is saving our democracy by “exposing, however crudely and at times inadvertently, the posturings of both the Republicans and the Democrats and the foolishness and obsolescence of much of the political culture they share.”
[. . .]
Think Again — As Will Rogers eventually conceded: “This country has gotten where it is in spite of politics, not by the aid of it. That we have carried as much political bunk as we have and still survived shows we are a super nation.”

http://www.aspentimes.com/opinion/18322173-113/sturm-the-real-debate-are-americans-getting-trumped

Melanie Sturm
Think Again
September 24, 2015
Sturm: The real debate: Are Americans getting Trumped?

Americans Have Low Confidence in Government, Institutions

[From article]
"Americans' confidence in most major U.S. institutions remains below the historical average for each one," a Gallup spokesman said in a news release. Only the military, in which 72 percent of Americans express confidence, up from a historical average of 68 percent, and small business, with 67 percent confidence, up from 63, are currently rated higher than their historical norms. This is based on the percentage expressing "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in these institutions, the Gallup spokesman said.
Only 8 percent have confidence in Congress, down by 16 points from a long-term average of 24 percent – the lowest of all institutions rated. The rating is about the same as last year's 7 percent, the lowest Gallup has ever measured for any institution.
[. . .]
The Gallup spokesman added: "From a broad perspective, Americans' confidence in all institutions over the last two years has been the lowest since Gallup began systematic updates of a larger set of institutions in 1993."

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/ken-walshs-washington/2015/06/17/americans-have-lost-confidence-in-everything

Americans Have Lost Confidence ... in Everything
It's not just Congress and the economy that have Americans concerned these days.
June 17, 2015 | 7:20 a.m. EDT
By Kenneth T. Walsh

Harvard University's Institute of Politics Pollsters Find Youth Distrusts Justice System. Is This A Surprise?

Have IOP pollsters considered asking "Would diverting the energy exerted in protests, looting, arson, rock throwing, engaging police in combat, destruction of tranquility, and vandalism to reforming the criminal justice system, have any effect?" Is that why the U.S. Department of Education demands universities take jurisdiction of sex offenses from the courts? Does the United States Government share this distrust? 



[From article]
Nearly half of young Americans reported little or no confidence that the criminal justice system treats individuals equally regardless of race or ethnicity, according to new findings of a national poll conducted by the Institute of Politics.
[. . .]
The poll found that former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton holds a significant lead among potential candidates in the Democratic field, with 47 percent listing her as their first choice if the primary were to be held today.
[. . .]
Sixty-one percent thought the U.S. should let the U.N. take the lead in addressing these global conflicts, down from 74 percent in 2014.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/5/1/iop-millennial-poll-spring/

Millennials Report Little Faith in Justice System, IOP Poll Shows
By LUCA F. SCHROEDER

Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
April 30, 2015

Americans Distrust Federal Government, Ready For Revolution?

[From article]
Americans view the federal government as dreadful.
Americans are more dissatisfied with federal government services than at any time since this survey began. The survey also found that in three of the four aspects of service – “process,” “information,” and “customer services” – satisfaction with the federal government was at the lowest level ever.[. . .]
There are two levels of “government” service tested, “federal government” and “local and federal government,” and “federal” is viewed as worse than “state and local” government services. Even when the federal government is broken down by agency – Defense, Agriculture, Treasury, etc. – not a single federal agency is as high as the aggregate average for private and public institutions.
[. . .]
Gallup showed that trust in the executive branch was not at the lowest level ever (that nadir was reached when Nixon resigned forty years ago), but this confidence was still near its lowest. Trust in the legislative branch is at the lowest level ever as well, as is trust in the judicial branch.
This is a problem of trust not in government generally, but in the federal government specifically.[. . .]
People correctly see the federal government, which lives in the Never-Never Land of Washington, as about as close to America generally as London was to the colonies in 1775.
There are seeds of a peaceful and constitutional revolution.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/02/americans_and_washington.html

February 3, 2015
Americans and Washington
By Bruce Walker

White House Encourages Distrust of Government

In 1971 Harvard University Law School Professor Archibald Cox pleaded with demonstrators to help restore faith in the government. Now Harvard University Law School graduate and President of the Harvard Law Review is destroying any remaining faith in the government. Sad what that law school has become.

[From article]
Some of these immigrants, including one woman who sneaked in from Mexico 18 years ago, even complained that presidential ­amnesty doesn’t include free health care.
“It isn’t fair,” Graciela Flores whined.
What luck — she and the other 5 million who benefit have found their soul mate in Barack Obama. He’s not into obeying laws, either. And he is endlessly entitled to whatever he wants, whenever he wants it.
Oh, sure, he has twice taken an oath to “faithfully execute” the ­nation’s laws, and to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
But he’s not serious about oaths, either. As America has learned, his word is not his bond.
[. . .]
But on virtually every major topic, from the economy to foreign policy, the president’s view is shared by only a sliver of the country. It would be leadership had his policies been proven right. But they are proven wrong every day.
So the nation grows gloomier as more people lose faith in their government and their own ­futures.
That seems to be fine with Obama. Democracy is a virtue only when his side wins.
[. . .]
former top aide Neera Tanden said this about him in a magazine interview:
“The truth is, Obama doesn’t call anyone, and he’s not close to almost anyone. It’s stunning that he’s in politics, because he really doesn’t like people. My analogy is that it’s like becoming Bill Gates without liking computers.”
He is a misfit, sailing against the national mood. His one significant victory, ObamaCare, became law only through one-party rule, and even then depended on massive deception and outright lies, as the infamous Gruber tapes prove.



http://nypost.com/2014/11/22/a-job-for-super-ego/

How Obama is still making everything worse
By Michael Goodwin
November 22, 2014 | 11:45 PM

Six Years Of White House Broken Promises

[From article]
his claim as a candidate in 2007 that the events at Selma, Alabama, in 1965 stirred his parents to ignore the obvious obstacles to their multicultural romance and give birth to baby Barack.
“They got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born,” said Obama to a largely black audience. “So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don't tell me I'm not coming home to Selma, Alabama.” He didn’t, and he wasn’t. In reality, Obama’s father had long since abandoned the family by the time of the famous march. While protestors were confronting angry white state troopers in Alabama, the three-year-old Obama was collecting seashells with his white grandfather in Waikiki.
[. . .]
Although admitting he did not know all the facts, Obama had confidence enough in America’s “long history” of racial injustice to announce, “The Cambridge [Mass.] police acted stupidly.”
Obama knew less about the arresting officer than he did about the incident itself. Sgt. James Crowley defied the racist stereotype. He was not only a model officer, but also an Obama supporter. A black police commissioner had personally selected him to teach recruits about the pitfalls of racial profiling.
[. . .]
Obama urged the Latinos in his Univision radio audience to think of Republicans as “our enemies” and “to punish” them by voting. On a similarly discordant note, he told a 2008 campaign crowd in Philadelphia, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”
[. . .]
Concluded Obama after some meaningless temporizing: “But my main message is to the parents of Trayvon -- If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon.” Obama would not have known that Zimmerman was a civil rights activist who openly supported him for president.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/11/celebrating_six_years_of_broken_promises.html

November 4, 2014
Celebrating Six Years of Broken Promises
By Jack Cashill

Skepticism Becoming Distrust, and Brain Dead Senator

U.S. Senator Mark Udall (D-CO) admits he's brain dead.

[From article]

With the Senate now less open and more partisan, unanimous Democrat votes set an all-time high for either chamber, according to a recent study by Congressional Quarterly, with the average Senate Democrat voting the party line 94 percent of the time in 2013.

To maintain this governing conformity, Reid has denied votes on more than 350 House-passed measures, many with large bipartisan majorities, and used parliamentary trickeries to pass controversial measures on narrow party-line votes. In December, he activated the “nuclear option,” eliminating the Senate’s two-century-old filibuster tradition (the 60-vote threshold requiring consultation with the minority) on most presidential nominees.

Smash-mouth politics has served the governing elites — many of whom, like Reid, have parlayed influence into family fortunes — but not Americans who feel ill-served by the institutions they oversee. 

[. . .]

More worrisome than the cavernous competence gap is the politicization of every bureaucracy, even institutions charged with equal enforcement of laws, such as the Justice Department and IRS.

Aided and abetted by elected officials who defend the indefensible, the administration diverts our attention with false assurances: You can keep your health insurance and your doctors, there’s not a smidgeon of corruption at the IRS, al-Qaida is on the run, the border is secure, and a U.S. Ebola outbreak is extremely unlikely.

[. . .]

In a television interview this week, Udall admitted to being “brain dead,” which isn’t surprising given how dumbed-down and non-deliberative the Senate has become. Had Udall and Reid succeeded last month in passing their constitutional amendment to refashion the First Amendment (under the guise of campaign finance reform), there’d be even less need for politicians to defend themselves in the marketplace of ideas. 

http://www.aspentimes.com/opinion/13490814-113/udall-ebola-post-senate

Sturm: “What’s Scarier Than Ebola? A Brain-Dead Polity.”
Melanie Sturm
Think Again
October 23, 2014

Journalists Lose Trust of Audiences

[From article]
Conservatives (70%) are far more likely than liberals (15%) to perceive the media as too liberal. Moderates' views are closer to liberals, with 35% calling the media too liberal. Likewise, relatively few moderates -- similar to conservatives -- think the media are too conservative.
Democrats -- with a small majority of 52% -- are most likely to think the media are just about right, while a mere 18% of Republicans feel this way about the news. More than seven in 10 Republicans say the media are too liberal.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/176042/trust-mass-media-returns-time-low.aspx

September 17, 2014
Trust in Mass Media Returns to All-Time Low
Six-percentage-point drops in trust among Democrats and Republicans
by Justin McCarthy

Obama Concerned Israelis and Jews Do Not Trust Him. Duh!

[From article]
The Obama administration is worried that Israel is riling up American Jews, according to a report in the Israeli press. The allegations are detailed in a story headlined, "'US perceives Israel as encouraging anti-Obama backlash among Jews,'" which appears in the Jerusalem Post.
The Post report reads, "A US official close to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry said both men are disturbed over what is being perceived in their inner circle as 'Jewish activism in Congress' that they think is being encouraged by the Israeli government, Israel Radio reported on Thursday.
"The official has informed Israeli government figures that the president and secretary of state are disappointed over repeated attacks made against them by leading members of the Jewish community in the US.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/report-obama-admin-worries-israel-riling-jews_775261.html

Report: Obama Admin. Worries Israel Is Riling Up the Jews
8:13 AM, JAN 23, 2014

BY DANIEL HALPER

Trust Us, We're Experts

[From article]
"The point is that even smart, experienced and accomplished people can be wrong, which is why elitism is so dangerous. Complex systems are hard to predict.
Sure, it’s possible to take skepticism of expert authority too far. But the mistake made more commonly is listening to the experts. Eli Manning didn’t pay much attention to them, and look where it got him."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/giant_strike_against_the_experts_QKlOF7pNtXz2VPWNr62YSP

A Giant strike against the ‘Experts’
Ira Stoll
New York Post
Last Updated: 12:22 AM, February 7, 2012
Posted: 10:23 PM, February 6, 2012