Everyone has too much power. Well, everyone other than the military.
According a recent Gallup poll, that’s the pervading mindset across the country. Gallup surveyed a few thousand Americans and asked them whether they thought certain insitutions had too much, too little, or just enough power.
Alex Eichler of the Atlantic Wire wrote:
For lobbyists, 71 percent of respondents said they have too much power, versus just 8 percent who said they have too little power. That’s a net “too much” of 63 percentage points. Corporations got 58 net “too much,” banks 59, and the federal government 49. Labor unions got 19, state government 19, and courts 20. Bare one-point net majorities said that local governments and organized religion have too much power.
Presumably, the 8 percent who want lobbyists to have more power are also lobbyists. The only institution that respondents said needed more power was the military, with a 14-point difference.
So, Obama has finally driven the entire population to conservatism, right? No. The opinions are still pretty divided in the survey, with a large chunks looking at the various institutions as having enough power, in addition to having too much or too little.
From the corruption of lobbyists to the evil banking system and, well, most things about American politics, we’ve got reasons to question their power.
The survey is no surprise, really. It just speaks to the cynical society that we’ve become. Liberal or conservative, when we think of things like big banks, politicians, and lobbyists, we’re automatically skeptical. Even with officials we elect, we rarely give them the benefit of the doubt on controversial decisions if they don’t fit into that kind of imagined framework we have for our ideal politicians.
Here’s the survey’s full results:
—Photo AP/Mary Altaffer
Read the work of historian Barry Vann and the cultural mulch of this will become visible. American skepticism to instituions (that don’t involve war) has its roots in the plain old orneriness of the Scots-Irish who took to the Appalachians from the early 17th Century onwards. They started the trope expressed in the phrase,”Don’t Tread on Me.” To them and their psychological descendants, it’s worth wondering what they feel **doesn’t** tread on them.