Americans’ distrust of major U. S. institutions like medicine, universities, corporations, government, the media, and even religious organizations has grown over the years. However, distrust of religious leaders has been far less than the others. In fact it appears evangelicals are gaining control and have used their distrust of others to identify and abuse their enemies.
Between 1958 and 2004, trust in the government has gone from 73 percent to 47 percent for those who felt they trusted the government “just about always” or “most of the time”.
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More on Voter Demographics
On December 9, 2005, the New York Times published an article titled “Take Your Best Shot; New Surveys Show That Big Business Has a P.R. Problem.” Here is a quote from a reprint of this article:
“It is not clear whether such views will bring significant change, but it is clear that the disaffection is spreading. In a Roper poll conducted from July 28 to Aug. 10, 72 percent of respondents felt that wrongdoing was widespread in industry; last year, 66 percent felt that was the case.
Only 2 percent checked off ‘very trustworthy’ to describe the chief executives of very large companies, down from 3 percent last year. And only 9 percent said they had full trust in financial services institutions, down from 14 percent last year.
Nor do Americans expect much help from Washington: 90 percent of respondents to a Harris poll, conducted Nov. 8-13, said big companies had too much influence on government, up from 83 percent last year.
Business is certainly not the only big institution viewed with suspicion. Recent surveys by the Pew Research Center show that a growing number of Americans believe that government is inefficient. And 68 percent of the respondents to the Harris Poll said the news media were too powerful, while 43 percent said unions were too strong. About 35 percent felt even religious leaders had too much power.”
In September of 2004, a Reuters/DecisionQuest Poll stated, “A nationwide poll found more than 61 percent of Americans report losing trust in leaders and institutions over the last four years in the wake of election recount, war, and corporate scandals. ”
The table below is from page 256 of “The Untied [sic] States of America, Polarization, Fracturing, and Our Future,” by Juan Enriquez, published in 2005.
Three Decades Ago End of the 1990s Government 75% 25% Medicine 73% 29% Universities 61% 30% Major Corporations 55% 21% Journalism (press) 29% 24%
On the next page the book also states that there is a growing lack of trust of one another, “Four decades ago, 58% of Americans believed ‘most people could be trusted.’ In 2003, only 35% did.”
Even our neighbors to the north have trust issues. In May of 2005, a CBC report stated, “When it comes to religious leaders, 40 per cent said they had little or no confidence. That’s down three percentage points from 2004.” However, note that at 40%, religion is still ranked higher than the institutions listed in the table above.
A 2004 study by DecisionQuest also shows that individuals still hold their religious leaders in higher esteem than other political, media, and corporate leaders. This is shown in the table below in response to the following question, “If you were a juror in a trial where each of the following was giving testimony, on a scale of 0 to 10 with zero being no trust at all and 10 being total trust, how much would you trust the testimony of this witness?” Religious leaders were ranked below firefighter, doctor, police officer, small business owner, and a military leader. Those ranked less were politicians, media, and corporate leaders.
However, note the timing and context of the 2004 survey: “This study was designed to explore how Americans’ trust in leaders and institutions has been impacted by the events and scandals of the last four years. Among the events examined were the 2000 election controversy, white-collar crime scandals, sexual abuse allegations against the clergy, the Abu Graib prisoner abuse reports, and several others.” With the reference to the sexual abuse allegation against the clergy, isn’t this primarily applicable to the Catholic church? How would religious leaders rank on the above survey question for just those that consider themselves evangelical/fundamentalist?
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Maybe the responses to another DecisionQuest survey question can shed some light on how the rankings above might have changed if only fundamentalists had been surveyed. The question was, “As a result of events in the last four years, the church sex abuse scandals, the white collar crime scandals like Enron and Martha Stewart, the controversy over the 2000 presidential election, and the Iraq prison abuse scandals, do you trust the following groups and individuals more, the same, or less?” The table below shows the responses.
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On the one hand President Bush ranked second behind corporate leaders in terms of lost trust. However, he also had a 22.2 percent increase in trust – ten fold greater than the corporate leaders. Might this gain come from the Protestant fundamentalists?
Another study by The Pew Research Center, seems to validate this support for President Bush by the Protestant fundamentalists as they gain control over the future of the U.S.
The following chart from the Pew Research study shows that Republicans are quite happy with the leaders in the nations’ capitol. More importantly, it shows that the difference between the Republicans and Democrats (the evil enemy) has grown significantly from an average of 12 percentage points to over 27. But who are these happy Republicans?
The next table shows how strongly participants in the Pew Research study “affirmed the importance of prayer, belief in Judgment Day and strong belief in God…” As you can see, it is the conservative Republicans that are so happy with the leadership in Washington, D.C. But where do these conservative happy Republicans fall in the sphere of religion?
As you can see from the next chart from the study, they are heavily evangelical or Protestant Fundamentalists and they probably believe they are in control.
What does this mean for those that are distrusted by the fundamentalists who have far more trust in religious leaders and political leaders that wear their religion on their sleeve?
Before answering this question, we need an understanding of what a true fundamentalist is. One list of the characteristics of a fundamentalist can be found on pages 34-35 of Jimmy Carter’s latest book, “Our Endangered Values – America’s Morale Crisis.” I have paraphrased his words below and included [personal comments]:
Most fundamentalist movements require authoritarian males for leaders. These males consider themselves superior to others [They can never admit to mistakes.], are committed to subjugating women [But may not feel comfortable enough yet to say so.] , and dominate their followers [Group Think is required for all members of the inner circle of followers].
Fundamentalists, as conservatives, prefer living in the ‘good ole’ days, but will use both historical self-beneficial religious beliefs and modern technology to promote their agenda.
Fundamentalists take great care in identifying those that are in awe of their leader and those that are ignorant and evil. [Naturally, you must, by definition, distrust the ignorant and evil enemy.]
Fundamentalists are militant and will use both verbal and physical abuse against those who oppose their agenda. [Consider all the verbal abuse coming from the conservative radio talk shows, Pat Robertson, mass mailings and internet emails, and Fox News.]
Fundamentalists suffer from tunnel vision and isolate themselves from their enemies [They only meet with supporters and avoid press conferences]. They demagogue emotional issues, and consider change, cooperation, negotiation, or any effort to resolve differences between his beliefs and those of the enemy as signs of weakness.
So, what does the fundamentalist control of the United States mean for the institutions and individuals that do not agree with them? It means federal funding is taken from those on the enemy list and given to those in the inner circle. It means the enemy is labeled over and over as evil or at least as liberal. It means verbal abuse will become physical abuse and physical abuse will spread from terrorists to other enemies. It means evil liberal ‘activist’ judges will be replaced with conservative ‘activist’ judges. It also means subjugation of women will increase, increased world violence based on our decision for preemptive war, and the standard for human rights has been lowered worldwide by our lead. It means, do something before it’s too late.
Let me conclude with a few quotes from Juan Enriquez’s book, “The Untied[sic] States of America,” referred to earlier in this article.
“As trust in legislators, presidents, and courts erodes, few leaders maintain the personal and institutional legitimacy required to resolve increasingly bitter disputes. So, staying in power becomes a matter of building and maintaining a fundamentalist base.
The U.S., in turn, becomes increasingly polarized by religion-politics-race-class; issues like abortion, right to die, flag burning, and gay marriage further stir the pot.
Political parties reinforce these divisions, exploiting and promoting lack of trust in and hatred in others. (Paul Krugman argues that the 2004 election was about keeping America safe from married gay terrorists.
Words such as change, openness, foreigner, and compromise become dirty words. Moderates are increasingly reviled by all sides. [Boy am I in trouble]
In April 2005, the senate majority leader joined Christian conservatives in a series of national telecasts. They denounced Democrats as opponents of ‘people of faith.’ Meanwhile, Delay argued the judiciary is to liberal and hostile to Christianity.
If this was merely a problem of leadership, or politics, or big business, it would not be a fatal flaw.
It is when people, when communities, stop trusting each other that there is a real problem.”
For more on fundamentalism in America, visit American Fundamentalists by Joel Pelletier.
Andy Hailey