Growing Political Disillusionment

• Polls indicated increasing disillusionment with politics


  • % of Americans who felt that GOV will 'do what is right most of the time'- 1969- 56%- 1979- 29%
  • % of Americans believing GOV officials were 'smart people who know what they are doing'- 1969-69%- 1979- 29%
  • % of Americans who felt that US affairs were run for the benefit of a few big interests rather than people- 1969-28%- 1979- 65%
  • % of Americans who agreed that the 'people running the country do not really care about what happens to you'- 1966- 26%- 1977- 60%
• Liberals had mocked Eisenhower & his fellow Americans


  Vietnam War caused the 'credibility gap' that damaged faith in Johnson & Presidency
• Watergate & the pardon

  Exacerbated the disillusionment in Presidents
• Media coverage of Ford's fall

  Demonstrated growing disrespect
• Disillusionment increased under Carter

  Half the electorate felt alienated from the political process & never bothered to vote
• Turnout in presidential election: 53% in 1976, 53% in 1980
• Confirmed the alienation of a significant proportion of the electorate
• Some of the alienated electorate were turning to single-issue politics like environmentalism