Trust in government forever tainted

The crisis began with a bungled burglary at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in a Washington, D.C., office complex. It ended on Aug. 9, 1974, as Richard Nixon gave one final wave before boarding his helicopter to leave the White House in disgrace.

"Watergate," as the events came to be known, exposed a web of deceit and political corruption unrivaled in American history. Nixon and his aides had used the Office of the President to intimidate political rivals, to secure campaign donations, and, ultimately, to subvert the democratic process. As journalist Walter Lippmann wrote at the time, Nixon’s "dirty tricks" provided an uncomfortable reminder to Americans about "how very vulnerable our constitutional system is. If the national government falls into the hands of sufficiently unprincipled and unscrupulous men, they can do terrible things before anyone can stop them."

Richard Nixon would spend the rest of his life trying to convince the American people that he was not one of these unscrupulous men. But his actions during the Watergate years forever damaged the American public’s trust in government and tainted the reputation of all public officials. Forty years after Nixon’s resignation, the primary legacy of Watergate is our own politics of cynicism.

It is worth remembering just how much things have changed. Polls in 1958 recorded that 73 percent of Americans trusted their government. Although these numbers began to decline during the social turmoil of the 1960s, Watergate sent them into free fall. After Nixon’s resignation, the public’s trust in government plummeted to historic lows and never recovered. Today, according to the Pew Research Center, only about 24 percent of Americans believe that the government mostly does the right thing.

Skepticism, of course, is healthy for a democracy. But one need only consider the vile comments that fill any online forum to realize that we have moved far beyond that. Today, elected officials are quick to accuse their opponents of unspeakable crimes on national television — actions that may score them a few political points, but do incalculable damage to democratic institutions.

What is more concerning is that Americans born long after Watergate hold these attitudes. According to an April 2014 poll by Harvard’s Institute of Politics, only 20 percent of citizens under 30 trust the federal government to do the right thing, and fewer than 30 percent find the idea of working in some form of public service appealing.

I find similar attitudes among my own students at UH-Manoa, many of whom have inherited a breathtaking cynicism about the political process. Nixon himself recognized this as one of Watergate’s most dangerous legacies, and in later life, he lamented that it might discourage young people from entering government service.

Yet Watergate also provides some hopeful lessons for American democracy that we should not forget.

When tested, the system worked. The Senate, guided by Hawaii’s own Dan Inouye, conducted a thorough and fair investigation. In the years that followed, a series of laws were adopted to make the government more open and transparent, including the Government in Sunshine Act and the Presidential Records Act.

Watergate also proved the value of a free and independent press. We may never have known about Nixon’s actions had Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, two young journalists at The Washington Post, not doggedly pursued the story.

To be sure, Watergate is a sad illustration of how a small group of officials can abuse the public trust and subvert democratic institutions. But it is also a story of how politicians, judges and other public servants put aside partisan differences to follow the law and, ultimately, to expose corruption at the very highest levels of government.

Just hours after Nixon left the White House, Gerald Ford gave a short inauguration speech. "My fellow Americans," he said, "our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here, the people rule."

In our contemporary age of political cynicism, we would do well to remember that this is part of Watergate’s legacy, too.