Earlier this month, Rasmussen Reports asked "likely voters" (I'm not exactly sure what these voters are "likely" to do 23 months from election day...) about their impressions of the federal government, and by and large Americans remain extremely unhappy with the way the business of the people is being handled. By a 68 percent to 16 percent margin, voters believe that government does not reflect the will of the people, a significant upturn in skepticism from just a decade ago. Just one-third of voters believe that government is the solution to problems while a 52 percent majority believe it is a cause. These numbers jibe with a survey conducted in February of this year by The Pew Research Center, which found that 34 percent of Americans trust the federal government to do the right thing "just about always" or "most of the time" while 65% percent trust Washington "only sometimes" or "never."
These numbers present significant problems for the Democrats on the eve of their takeover of Congress -- but also significant opportunities. As the party that believes in the government's ability to improve the common good and better the lives of citizens, Democrats need Americans to buy into government, which they do not currently do. Without the faith of the American people, the Democrats will not be able to achieve much, either in the short run or the long run.
So the Democrats need to restore Americans' faith in government -- and fast. This task is made much more difficult by the fact that George W. Bush will remain in the White House for the next two years, during which time he will no doubt use all of the powers at his disposal to subvert the will of voters. What's more, Republicans in the House and the Senate will most likely spend the entire time of the 110th Congress working hand-in-hand with the administration.
But the potential upside of success at this arduous endeavor are great. If the Democrats can manage to outflank both the President and his congressional allies, fostering a growth in Americans' confidence in the federal government, they will significantly undercut the basis of modern conservatism -- the belief in shrinking government to the point it can be drowned in a bathtub, as Grover Norquist put it -- while at the same time greatly buttressing progressivism and liberalism.
Democrats do have some things on their side in this battle, not the least of which is the fact that they received a large majority of the nationwide popular vote on November 7 and now hold more seats in the House than the Republicans have at any point in the last 50 years. What's more, voters under the age of 30 are already twice as likely to have faith in government as older voters, according to the aforementioned Rasmussen survey.
The Democratic strategy to try to enact relatively quick and popular fixes, such as increasing the minimum wage and passing ethics reform legislation, should provide at least a temporary boost to these dreadful numbers. But these moves alone will not be enough. Even strenuous oversight that leads to savings of billions of dollars of taxpayer money will not suffice. The Democratic Congress will need to pass at least one sweeping piece of legislation that the Republicans failed to -- whether it's passing immigration reform, enacting the 9/11 Commission's recommendations, alleviating the situation in Iraq, plugging the long-term deficit in Social Security (sans private accounts, of course), or something else of this magnitude -- in order to achieve enduring changes in Americans' outlook towards government. Legislation with the President's signature might be better than that without it, though it is not necessarily mandatory for success. But any bill will likely need to be on the floor within the next 12 months because after that the presidential campaign will be fully in swing and there will be much less attention paid to the goings on of Congress.
The only way Republicans can continue to win is if Americans continue to distrust government; the less faith voters have in government, the more they will support the type of cynical candidates who attack government and suggest tax cuts as the only prudent policy. Accordingly, if the Democrats can increase the number of Americans who believe in the government's capacity to do good above 50 percent, they will achieve as permanent a majority status as can exist in today's political environment and progressivism will once again become the dominant political philosophy it once was decades ago.
|
|
|
Permalink :: 21 Comments :: Post a Comment
|
In order to post a comment, you must be logged in. If you have a member account, please log in to comment.
If not, you can make an account right here. It's quick and free.
