ABSTRACT
In 1979 President Jimmy Carter spoke to the American public about a growing “crisis of confidence” that, in his view, threatened “to destroy the social and political fabric” of our nation. Carter predictably criticized Congress for contributing to the tendency toward “paralysis and stagnation and drift” by allowing itself to be “twisted and pulled in every direction by hundreds of well-financed and powerful special interests.” Carter may have overstated the depth of alienation the mass public felt in the late 1970s, but he was quite correct in pointing out that the connection between citizens and their chosen leaders had become somewhat frayed. Even the modest rise in public trust observed during the era of Ronald Reagan did little to produce a genuine turnaround in the long-term trend; especially after the Iran-contra revelations began to unfold in 1986–1987, opinion polls indicated that the so-called confidence gap was alive and well in American politics.
