Why Trust Matters: Declining Political Trust and the Demise of American Liberalism

American public policy has become demonstrably more conservative since the 1960s. Neither Jimmy Carter nor Bill Clinton was much like either John F. Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson. The American public, however, has not become more conservative. Why, then, the right turn in public policy? Using both individual and aggregate level survey data, Marc Hetherington shows that the rapid decline in Americans' political trust since the 1960s is critical to explaining this puzzle. As people lost faith in ...