DEMOCRACY IN PERIL AS DISTRUST IS WEAPONIZED

With primary season under way around the country — and elections in California taking place soon — I find myself wondering why people still run for public office.

Once upon a time, there was a certain cachet associated with being a public servant. We admired our senators, our members of Congress, our state officials. We voted with a sense of pride and optimism, believing in the candidates whose names appeared on our ballots — and believing in the democratic process.

Now, our trust in government — and the people who run it — is at an all-time low. According to Pew Research Center and National Election Studies, only about one-quarter of Americans today say they can trust the federal government to do what is right “just about always” (2 percent) or “most of the time” (22 percent). When the study began in 1958, the inverse was true: About three-quarters of Americans trusted the federal government to do the right thing.

And confidence in the Supreme Court has continued its decline since the leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s early draft opinion that would strike down the constitutional right to abortion. It was already wavering: In September, a Gallup poll found that 54 percent of Americans had a “great deal” or “fair amount of confidence” in the court, an alltime low; now, nearly the same percentage say they have “no confidence” (28 percent) or “only a little” (23 percent).

For so long, we have trusted that the American justice system is above the political fray. But in December, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that a reversal in 50 years of abortion rights would shatter this trust. She asked, “Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?” While Sotomayor didn’t answer the question, it’s obvious what she thinks.

At a local level, I haven’t seen any polling about the public’s confidence in their school boards, but I imagine it’s abysmal. And so, I was delighted to meet someone recently who’s running for a school board seat here. With a child attending a district school, she has a vested interest in the board’s decision making and wants to contribute her own voice — just not from the sidelines.

You could call her brave, when you consider the mistreatment of school board members across the country. I’ve written before about the “schoolyard brawls” that have become commonplace, with meetings disrupted and board members harassed (and even threatened).

And I haven’t yet forgotten about the chaos at the San Diego County Board of Supervisors meeting last November. Nearly 70 people attended the meeting to speak out against vaccine mandates. One of the speakers spewed insults and threats at the supervisors, including Chair Nathan Fletcher. The speaker’s vile remarks were cheered by others in the group.

Two months later, Fletcher’s home was damaged by a fire that was purposefully set while the family was inside.

At the opposite corner of our country, there’s been a lot of consternation over chalk. Maine’s Bangor Daily News reported that Sen. Susan Collins called the police earlier this month after someone wrote a pro-abortion rights message in chalk on the sidewalk outside her home.

The message read, “Susie, please … Mainers want WHPA — vote yes, clean up your mess.” WHPA refers to the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would codify the right to abortion. (It was defeated in the Senate soon after the chalking.) Bangor police concluded that the message wasn’t overtly threatening and had it washed away.

It’s easy enough to laugh at Collins for calling the cops. After all, the offenders used the word “please” in their message. But that misses the larger point. People know where Susan Collins lives, just as they know where Nathan Fletcher lives. No public official today can assume that knowledge will be used for peaceful purposes, as Fletcher and his family found out.

The incivility and loss of trust both point to the fragility of our democracy.

Writing about public opinion in the aftermath of the Supreme Court leak, Calvin Woodward and Hannah Fingerhut of The Associated Press imagined a new American motto: “In nothing we trust.” They continued: “By lots of measures, most in the U.S. lack confidence in large institutions and have for years. Americans are distrustful of big business, unions, public schools and organized religion. Indeed, they hold abysmal views of the functioning of democracy itself.”

Yet we still have people who are willing to step up and serve. On June 7, Election Day, I will honor them in the best way possible: by voting.