海角大神

Gail Chaddock: For the past several months, the Monitor has focused some attention on a project called Rebuilding Trust. It鈥檚 a critical theme in many realms, but nowhere more so than in U.S. politics 鈥� and at no time more critical than in the run-up to a presidential election.

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Chaddock: 鈥淭his is Why We Wrote This.鈥� I鈥檓 this week鈥檚 guest host, Gail Chaddock. We鈥檙e talking with Peter Grier, the Monitor鈥檚 senior staff writer based in Washington for the last 45 years, an astonishing record of achievement that we鈥檒l talk about more in next week鈥檚 podcast.聽

Peter, thank you for joining us.

Peter Grier: Certainly, Gail.

Chaddock: Polls for the last 20 years are documenting that Americans are losing trust in the Supreme Court, in American political parties, and each other. In April, you wrote a story headlined, 鈥�How America lost trust in elections 鈥� and why that matters.鈥� Why did you write this story now?聽

Grier: We鈥檙e in an unusual period in American political history where one party has much lower numbers in the polls for their trust in elections. Usually, things bounce back and even out after a few years. That鈥檚 not happening right now.聽

Chaddock: Was there a 鈥済olden era鈥� when Americans all trusted their elections?

Grier: That鈥檚 a good question. You know, most of the modern study of this dates from the year 2000, which was, of course, the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court decision which basically settled the very close race between Al Gore and George W. Bush. Since then, trust follows a zigzag pattern. When your candidate loses, for instance, after Al Gore lost that election, Democrats鈥� trust in elections plunged, according to the polls, Republicans鈥� rose. But it switches when the parties switch places in the Oval Office. In the Clinton and Obama eras, Democratic trust rose and Republican trust plummeted. When Trump won, Republican trust skyrocketed, Democratic trust lowered. But Republican trust didn鈥檛 go up as much as it really should have according to political science. And since then, the constant attack on elections from former President Trump has kept Republican trust much lower, much longer than it should have, basically, according to the bounce pattern.聽

Chaddock: You cite in this story the ever quotable William 鈥淏oss鈥� Tweed, the head of the Tammany machine in New York in the progressive era. He said, 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think there ever was an honest election in the city of New York.鈥�

Grier: In some ways, attacks on today鈥檚 election system, find a fertile ground because there is a history of American elections being not what we call entirely on the up and up. But that was a different era when it was much easier to do that kind of thing. American elections are much more professionally run now. There is fraud. But the difference is there鈥檚 not fraud on a scale that could change an election, especially on the national level, because it takes a lot of votes, and it鈥檚 a lot of work, and it would involve a lot of people. The conspiracy involved is really beyond the ability of typical people to organize. In that sense, I think our memories of the battle days when people bought votes with barrels of beer and a job is a bit of a misnomer.

Chaddock: You know, one of the things that always bothered me as a journalist, having to write tomorrow about issues like, are elections fair, with the evidence at hand. You read books like Robert Caro鈥檚 opus on LBJ. And he鈥檚 dug up all sorts of things about elections in that period, finding votes that had been cast in alphabetical order, for example. Suspected but not known at the time. Do we really have all the information we need to come to a conclusion on these issues right now in the middle or just after an election?聽

Grier: So, how do we not know there was fraud? Or how do we know there鈥檚 not fraud? If someone can bring me any evidence of that, I鈥檇 be happy to look at it. Nowadays, they cry fraud first and look for fraud later. And nowadays we have election officials from both parties saying that our elections are fair and honest. That鈥檚 a different situation, I think, than the LBJ era.聽

Chaddock: I love the end of your piece, where you talk about the task of rebuilding trust, and note that there are some within the Republican Party who haven鈥檛 bought into election denialism. And you see that as a kind of positive element for going forward.聽

Grier: We definitely have picked up on that in the sense that election denialism may not be as deeply ingrained in the voting population as it would appear to be from the way the elite of the Republican Party goes along with the idea that the 2020 election was stolen. That鈥檚 because many of the elite don鈥檛 believe it either. And they go along with it because they鈥檙e afraid of Mr. Trump鈥檚 ability to sway votes. An interesting aspect of trust in elections is that most people are pretty trusting about their own election. In other words, you ask them: 鈥淚s your vote going to be freely and fairly counted?鈥� You get large majorities that say yes it is. 鈥淪o why do you not trust elections?鈥� 鈥淲ell, it鈥檚 those people in Texas, or it鈥檚 those people in California, and particularly it鈥檚 those people in Detroit and Chicago and urban areas.鈥�

Chaddock: I had to laugh when I read that in your story, because when I was an education writer for the Monitor, exactly the same thing showed up in polling on education. When people were asked if they thought education in the United States was good. 鈥淥h, it was terrible.鈥� And then they were asked, how about education for your own kids. 鈥淕reat, wonderful teachers.鈥� So, this is a kind of general state of thought. I鈥檓 wondering if you have an explanation for it. I could never figure it out.聽

Grier: Well, I think that trust doesn鈥檛 really mean trust. I think that the word trust stands in for a lot of complex feelings about the larger processes we engage in, at least in this instance. So, when you say you don鈥檛 trust an election, I don鈥檛 think it necessarily means only or entirely that: 鈥淲ell, we think that the vote was fake.鈥� It means, also: 鈥淚 don鈥檛 like what happened.鈥� It means: 鈥淚 was uncomfortable.鈥� But it doesn鈥檛 always just mean: 鈥淲ell, that person just stuffed the ballot box.鈥� And you鈥檝e got to separate the intertwined emotions that people have about the result of an election.聽

Chaddock: That鈥檚 a really interesting point, especially when you think about questions like, there are many Republicans now who are looking at indictments and trials going on for their leading candidate, and seeing it not as no man is above the law, but that this is an effort to rig this election, and we don鈥檛 trust it.

Grier: Yes, that means a lot of things. As I said, it means they really don鈥檛 like it. They think it鈥檚 unfair. Does it really mean they think there鈥檚 a conspiracy to do it? I don鈥檛 know. Some of them do, but I don鈥檛 think all of them do.聽

Chaddock: What does rebuilding trust look like?聽

Grier: There鈥檚 a guy who runs the MIT election lab, which studies how elections are run, named Charles Stewart. Only half jokingly, he says the only way to increase trust in elections is for your candidate to win, or for the line to be a little shorter. So he says the only other real driver of negativity about elections is, as I said, being uncomfortable, having to stand in a long line to cast your vote.聽

He said we can鈥檛 aim to have trust in elections, because people are always upset when their candidate loses. We have to have trustworthy elections. That鈥檚 different. And by that he means an election that a reasonable person would say was fair and honest.

I think the other consensus point is that there is one great way to address the trustworthiness of elections, and that鈥檚 to talk about them. American elections, you鈥檝e got to remember, are a real Rube Goldberg sort of operation. Unlike many democracies, ours are not run by the nation. American elections are all run by individual states. So you have many different systems with many different kinds of ballots, many different kinds of machines, many different schedules. One lesson that a lot of election officials have taken away from the 2020 election is that a lot of things happened that weren鈥檛 really explained. Because it was a pandemic, rules changed. There were drop boxes where there had never been drop boxes before. The amount of time you had to ask for and deliver a mail-in ballot was extended. People didn鈥檛 understand that. And many people didn鈥檛 like it. And that鈥檚 what they don鈥檛 trust.聽

But, what they found is that Americans are reasonable when you explain it to them. A number of secretaries of state in different states now authorize tours of their election systems. They鈥檒l bring in groups like a church group, or a school group, and they鈥檒l go: 鈥淎nd this is how we do it. This is how we make sure there aren鈥檛 people going around just grabbing ballots off people鈥檚 doorstops and changing them to their preferred candidate.鈥� And when they do that, they find that actually to be a very powerful way to increase the way people feel about the electoral process.聽

Chaddock: That鈥檚 an interesting story.聽

Grier: Also, they always say that even if something maybe doesn鈥檛 make much of a difference, if people like it, it might be a good change to make. For instance ballot ID, which is, you have to show a picture ID to vote. There are some Democrats who believe that actually suppresses the vote, because not everybody has an ID. But in general, studies show that they鈥檙e not sure it suppresses the vote. Or at least not as much as it can increase the vote from people who are otherwise a little mistrustful. So, ballot ID is in fact spreading in the states. Kentucky recently passed a bill that implemented that, signed by a Democratic governor.聽

Chaddock: One of the trends in journalism is the desert of local news. There are a lot of efforts to fund the revival of it. But even localities that appear to have a local paper often don鈥檛 have a local correspondent. It鈥檚 a local paper that picks up wire copy and so forth. Without a vibrant local press, and localities tend to be not as polarized as the national leaderships are, is the message of trust more difficult to get through to people?聽

Grier: You do generally trust what happens to your own ballot. But there used to be, the old saying used to be all politics are local, from Tip O鈥橬eill. Well that鈥檚 not really true anymore. Now all politics is national. The rise of polarized parties, the closeness of the current balance between the parties, and the rise of the Trump era, which is undeniably more in your face than past years, has made national politics the driver for people鈥檚 opinions about a lot of things dealing with politics in general.

And that鈥檚 part of the reason that local journalism is dying. People have unfortunately become less interested in their own communities. It鈥檚 too bad that we don鈥檛 have our local papers, but it鈥檚 also too bad that we don鈥檛 have more people standing for places like the school board, which in many localities, you know, they have to beat the bushes to find people to run.聽

Chaddock: Interesting research going on about the pressure to get Trump Republicans into all of those precinct jobs that no one ever wanted before, and that that has happened, is happening, and what a difference that can make in this sense of local as being inherently nonpartisan. I see it in the little town I live in. You know, we never used to know whether the selectmen leaned Republican or leaned Democratic. But the Republican Party has started sending out emails in the last election informing us who was leaning Republican and who was leaning Democrat, something that was never known before.

Grier: One thing you鈥檒l find about that is when you bring those people, opponents of what you鈥檙e doing into the system, some of them will maintain their beliefs and leak your stuff to their partisan media and criticize you still. But many of them also figure out that you鈥檙e not wrong and switch and become helpers in the system. In our big city, we have many local issues like bike lanes or school and apartment extensions that鈥檒l split neighborhoods. And my wife鈥檚 heavily involved in local politics. And we find that when a group really hates something, the best thing to do is to go: 鈥淥kay, well, you can serve on the Neighborhood Commission as well.鈥� A lot of times, those people become the next generation of stalwarts who are supporting the neighborhood government.聽

Chaddock: Another group that鈥檚 often targeted for mistrust from the public is the media. Peter, how do you as a reporter and how does the Monitor work to establish a sense of trust with its readers.聽

Grier: I think we鈥檝e always tried to be trustworthy, by addressing both sides of an issue. And the phrase I like, which I heard recently from a younger colleague, was: 鈥淟et鈥檚 be thorough.鈥� I don鈥檛 want to necessarily say I鈥檓 balanced on both sides. Because the truth isn鈥檛 always balanced on both sides, but if I鈥檓 thorough. I can get at the truth.

Chaddock: It鈥檚 a good word.

Grier: Trustworthy media admits its mistakes. If you read a newspaper, or watch a TV show or listen to a podcast, that will discuss its errors and admit its own doubt. I would trust that a lot more than one that told you: 鈥淭his is the way it is.鈥�

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Chaddock: Peter, thank you for joining us for this podcast.聽

Grier: Any time, Gail.聽

Chaddock: And thanks to our listeners. Come back next week for a retrospective on a storied 45-year Monitor career, again with Peter Grier. You can find more, including our show notes, with a link to the stories we discussed in this podcast, at CSMonitor.com/WhyWeWroteThis. This episode was hosted by me, Gail Chaddock, edited and produced by Clay Collins, Jingnan Peng, and Mackenzie Farkus. Our sound engineers are Alyssa Britton and Jeff Turton, with original music by Noel Flatt. Produced by 海角大神. Copyright 2024.聽