Distrust In Government Essay

America, although it is one of the most powerful countries in the world, has problems with its citizens following their elected leaders, both locally and nationally, to this day. In most cases, it is not the leader’s fault for this occurrence, but the followers’ faults for not being open to the leader’s ideas and trusting them. The reason for this mistrust in government stems from the scandals of the late 1900s. Before this time, Americans had strong patriotism for their country due to World War 1 and 2 as well as Vietnam. However, when Richard Nixon was sworn in as president in 1969, this patriotism and trust in the government soon faded when the Watergate Scandal came to light. The American people felt betrayed to have such information concealed from them, but this betrayal did not stop there. In 1977, Jimmy Carter was elected president, and the
more time that passed in his term, the more angry citizens became with him as a leader. The Iran Hostage Crisis was the outlet for this anger, since Carter took so long to try to obtain the American hostages. This event made the end of Carter’s term gloomy and influenced the election of Ronald Reagan. The scandals of American government continued to occur up to Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky scandal. These scandals heavily have contributed to the growing popularity of government conspiracies.
Because the American people lost trust in their leaders and believed they weren’t being told the whole truth ever, conspiracy theorists have grown exponentially in the past fifty years. Not only does this create a wide disbelief in government, but it also fractures the relationship between the followers and their elected leaders. This problem has been observed in the past couple of years with President Obama and other local and state officials trying to pass bills in their restricted areas that would benefit the followers as a whole. Whether these bills have to do with gun control, health care, or sexual/racial equality, if they are shut down by the citizens voting, it is due to their inability to open up to new ideas. Stubbornness in beliefs contribute to the followership problem because if followers aren’t willing to be open to their leaders’ ideas, the leader cannot accomplish anything. This problem even exists in Congress, where they have declined one bill after another due to their rigid beliefs and inability to be
open. To try to limit the huge amount of distrust in America and solve the followership problem, small steps should be taken by the government, especially the President and/or other local officials of towns and states to win some trust back. Followers need to understand that leaders have their best interest in mind, and although sometimes these interests can be clouded by their own political beliefs, that they will continue to listen to others’ opinions and feedback. On the other side of this, followers need to open up to the ideas of their leaders and put past government scandals and lies where they belong: in the past.