President Myths

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The long and winding road that is our nation's history was not paved solely off of the goodness of people's hearts and the belief of what our republic could become. Rather, our whole society and what we know as our political system today was paved off of something completely different. For years, political scientists have discussed this notion that the entire makeup of our political system is held together by “myths”. When people hear the word myth, they naturally think of a false story or narrative usually pertaining to a hero of an event that took place a long time ago. However, when we describe myths in a political sense, they not only hold together a lot of our beliefs, they serve one of the most major jobs in our society. The five major …show more content…

If we lose these large myths, it won't be long until the others follow. One of these myths that is a topic for discussion, in recent light of the election of President Donald Trump, is the myth of the the all powerful position of the president. This myth has dated back to the creation of our republic and the first president of the united states, George Washington. During the period of the most famous american presidents, citizen often looked towards them as “savior”, or the person that was going to solve all possible problems that could be solved. Even today, Americans look back at presidents picturing these legendary men with wooden teeth riding horseback into battle. Americans have believed this myth of the all powerful president because they had no true knowledge of what the president was doing. Fred Smoller, an Assistant professor of political science at Chapman College, suggests that “. . . the emergence of television news as the nation's primary source of information about the president may contribute to the decline and fall of modern presidents” (Smoller). This increase in media presence with the help of technology is part of the reason President Trump is having such an impact on the reputation of the president. Now, people can see every move he makes and every decision that he follows through with. This myth is such a crucial …show more content…

According to the Pew Research center, in the 1960’s, people trust in the federal government “to do the right thing nearly always or most of the time reached an all-time high of 77% in 1964” (Pew Research Center). Then, after Vietnam, “trust had fallen by more than half, to 36%. By the end of the 1970s, only about a quarter of Americans felt that they could trust the government at least most of the time” (Pew Research Center). Since this myth started to disintegrate, the public's trust in the federal government is hitting all time lows, with 3% of the population saying that they “just about always” trust the government and 16% saying that “most of the time” they trust the government (Pew Research Center). This myth is now being replaced with a new myth, or the belief that congress is a “broken branch”. Gary Orren, professor of public policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, claims that one of the main reasons the public trust in the government is declining is because “based on government's previous performance, people have high expectations about what it can do” (Orren). With the evident rise in this broken congress myth and the fall of public opinion in our government, the consequences could prove to be detrimental. Jane Jebb Mansbridge, another political scientist teaching at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University,

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