In lieu of a post today, here is a link to my article on The Democratic Strategist, number six in a symposium on distrust in government, organized by Demos. The previous five contributions have been helpfully diverse, but all have shared the premises that: 1) deep distrust is an obstacle to progressive politics; 2) distrust […]
Whether you trust other people (in general) affects whether you collaborate voluntarily. Trust has been linked to prosperity, happiness, and health. It has been falling for young Americans–not in a smoothly downward path, but notably. And 2008 set the record, in a bad way, with just 21.4 percent of young Americans saying that other people […]
I was quoted on NPR’s Morning Edition earlier this week, commenting on a new Pew survey that finds 32 percent of young adults trust the federal government. That’s not exactly a resounding vote of confidence, but it’s much higher than the level of trust observed in older people today. For instance, just one in five […]
President Obama took office during a terrible recession whose main scourge has been unemployment. He signed a $787 billion stimulus package, billed as a strategy for creating jobs. One year later, the unemployment rate is still almost 10%. According to the CBS/New York Times poll conducted on Feb. 5-10, just six percent of Americans believe […]
I’d be willing to bet that any climate change bill Congress passes this year will be an incremental improvement, but far from satisfactory. Likewise for health care. Not only will these bills have too little impact; they will also cost too much because corporate interests will have been bought off. Health and environmental reform could […]