My colleague Chris Ernst makes several valid points in his commentary on the public opinion of our national government. It is true that current public opinion for the government is low, especially so with congress, and Mr. Ernst points out a very important question that results from this. Is our current government whats best for us. However one area that my classmate fails to examine is the possible consequences and solutions to such a problem.
There are several issues that come with a public distrust or distaste of the government. One of which being a diminishing voter turnout. When public opinion turns and holds in a negative fashion voters begin to lose faith or interest in elections. They start to develop a defeatist attitude and simply move on thinking that nothing they do will help to solve the problem. And they are absolutely right. The moment that a voter falls into this mindset, and until they can get out of it, they're vote no longer becomes important. They are now disaffected, uninterested, and unknowing. When citizens feel they can't relate to the issues or the politicians then it all just gets tuned out and looked pass. For a truly democratic society one of the worst things that can happen is to have a populace that sees a lack of representation as an acceptable norm; at that point they can hardly be considered part of the democracy.
Another problem with a public distrusting of its national government is the increasing difficulty facing any government institutions or applications. How can a government built upon the passing of legislation continue on if the people that support it have no faith in the legislation? Even if the government tries to do something to help or to meet the needs of the people a distrustful public is a skeptical one, and all it takes is one little mistake to unravel a lot of progress. One current example of this is the current situation surrounding the Affordable care act and the technical difficulties surrounding its website: healthcare.gov . A piece of legislation that has the potential to help several million people in this country, that has already fallen under heavy skepticism and scrutiny, becomes even more endangered all due to some technical errors. Yet thats all the public needs to disregard and demerit it since at this point why should they have faith in something that comes through congress.
Then we come to the question of, "How can we help better public opinion of the national government?" The problem is that there isn't any easy answer to this question.One possible solution would be to adopt a multi party system instead of our current dual party system. Maybe if politics wasn't a slug match between two strongly divided parties with very defined ideals people would be more akin to participating. When you only offer two choices you force people to make sacrifices in some departments, you force them to pick which one "fits the most" instead of allowing a more accurate mixed representation. Hopefully if the parties where far more numerous and far more balanced this wouldn't be so much of an issue and the public could feel more comfortable, less confrontational.
