On faith in our elected officials

In our ongoing debate, commenter Tosser, a Republican, had the following to say regarding our elected officials:

We've elected our representatives, and we need to trust them to do the job, even if we don't agree with them. Yes, I'd be disappointed if the Republicans didn't debate what was happening, but we're a nation of people, and the people speak every few years as to the shape of the government. While I didn't agree with all of President Clinton's work, I see that the government needs to get its work done. I know I don't know the best thing for everyone. I trust that the Framers of the Constitution were wise men who set forth a great government, and I trust that the people of the United States vote their conscience, and put primarily good men and women into power.

I agree that we're a nation of people. But I think that people can be easily misled and forced to make voting decisions against their own best interests. This, in my opinion, is what has been happening since 2000. The war in Iraq was built on lies and half-truths. The war on terror has needlessly led to an erosion of our civil liberties. And all thanks to the Orwellian doublespeak of the Bush administration. The American people make decisions based on the evidence in front of them. If the preponderance of evidence is as flimsy and fraudulent as it has been, then there's no other result than a questionable one.

I'm not even trying to dispute the 2000 and 2004 election results (another time, another entry), but we, as Americans, have been repeatedly lied to by the current administration. The more we've heard these lies, the more we come to accept them as truth. That's why you've seen the rise of Republicans in power.

Want a real-world example of what I'm talking about? Look no further than the 2003 Program on International Policy (PIPA)/Knowledge Networks poll on Americans' misperceptions related to the Iraq war and their relation to respondees' news sources. The results were amazing – and quite telling.

For instance, an analysis of their polling showed three key misperceptions: That links between Iraq and al Qaeda had been discovered, that WMDs had been found in Iraq and that world public opinion favored our going to war with Iraq. On the whole, 60 percent of respondees had at least one of those three misperceptions. Of those with none of the three, support for the war checked in at a paltry 23 percent. One misperception resulted in 53 percent support for the war. Two resulted in 78 percent. Three a remarkable 86 percent.

Here's where it gets interesting.

PIPA/Knowledge Networks also examined the source of news of those it polled. Eighty percent said from "TV and radio," compared to 19 percent from "newspapers and magazines." Then, when asked what their primary news network was, here are the results:

1. Two or more networks (30 percent)
2. Fox (18)
3. CNN (16)
4. NBC (14)
5. ABC (11)
6. CBS (9)
7. PBS-NPR (3)

So, you see a heavy reliance on Fox News. Now, here's a breakdown of respondees showcasing one or more misperception sorted by media outlet:

1. Fox (80 percent)
2. CBS (71)
3. ABC (61)
4. NBC (55)
5. CNN (55)
6. Print media (47)
7. PBS-NPR (23)

Shocking, isn't it? According to the study, Republicans and those with lower education were more likely to have misperceptions.

Even more important, however, than party affiliation was support for President Bush versus a Democratic nominee for the office (the poll, remember, came out a year before the 2004 election). Those who, according to the poll, supported President Bush had an average frequency of misperception of 45 percent. The Democratic nominee? Only 17 percent.

With these revealing results in mind, it's hard to believe that the American people made a well-informed decision last fall. That decision already made, I find it even harder to place my trust in those responsible for the spread of these – and many more – misperceptions: The Republicans in power. Both parties claim to have faith in the American people, who, in turn, typically show faith in their elected officials; however, how can the radical Republicans claim to have faith in the people they serve with a straight face when they have consistently done their best to use lies and cooked-up arguments to sway voters?

People were led to believe that their tiny towns were under a terrorist threat. People were led to believe that gay people were a greater threat to marriage than Osama bin Laden was/is to America. People were led to believe that Iraq had WMDs. People were led to believe that massive handouts to the wealthy constituted common-sense tax relief for the middle class. People were led to believe that Bush's policies – policies that have paid lip service to real homeland security, instead leaving us more vulnerable – would protect us more than Kerry's.

Led as we were, many of us made terribly uninformed decisions, decisions that stood directly against our own best interests. With bad evidence comes bad decision-making. "Voting," as Daily Kos commenter ohiolibrarian pointed out, "is only effective when both sides are honorable." It has been proven that one side has not been honorable. And now we're all paying.

To me, it boils down to this: I believe in leaders who choose to put their faith in the people they've been elected to serve, not in the corporate masters and wealthy few to whom they far too often find themselves beholden. And I believe in the American people, though it has been proven how easily we can all be misled. When misled, it has also been proven – starting in 2000 – the American people tend to elect officials falling into the second category, making our blind faith in their actions questionable and, to be honest, quite dangerous.