Poll Shows Americans Want Government To Take Public Opinion More Seriously

A new poll seeking to measure public attitudes toward government and participatory democracy is out, and it’s showing some truly extraordinary results: Americans are not happy with the state of democracy in this country:

• When asked whether government leaders should consider public opinion polls in making decisions, 81 percent said they should.
• When asked whether the public’s participation in democracy should be limited to voting in elections (as Dana Perino believes), “… 94 percent [said] that government leaders should pay attention to the views of the public between elections.”
• When asked whether the country is run with the benefit of all the people in mind, or just for the benefit of a small number of corporate interests, a stunning 80% said the country is run for the benefit of a small number of corporate interests.

Conclusions:

The net effect seems to be a diminished trust in government. Asked, “How much of the time do you think you can trust the national government in Washington to do what is right?” 60 percent say “only some of the time” while 37 percent say most of the time and 3 percent just about always.

Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org and PIPA, comments, “While Americans do not say that leaders should always follow the will of the public, they do think that American leaders should be considerably more responsive to the people and should even pay attention to polls. Dismissing the public as irrelevant and incompetent only contributes to already low levels of trust in government.”

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