This can't be good.

From Alex Knight:

“The founding document of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, states that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Today, however, just 21% of voters nationwide believe that the federal government enjoys the consent of the governed.”

That is staggering. Just a generation ago, those numbers would’ve been the direct opposite. Now, this means only one in five Americans WHO VOTE believe in the U.S. government. This is to say nothing of the far greater numbers, myself most heartily included, who don’t participate in elections at all.

...

“Seventy-one percent (71%) of all voters now view the federal government as a special interest group, and 70% believe that the government and big business typically work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors.”

“That helps explain why 75% of voters are angry at the policies of the federal government, and 63% say it would be better for the country if most members of Congress are defeated this November. Just 27% believe their own representative in Congress is the best person for the job. “

“Among voters under 40, 25% believe government has the consent of the governed. That compares to 19% of those ages 50 to 64 and 16% of the nation’s senior citizens.”

“Seventy-eight percent (78%) of Republicans say the government does not have the consent of the governed, and that view is shared by 65% of voters not affiliated with either of the major parties. A plurality of Democrats (44%) agrees, but 32% of those in President Obama’s party believe the government has the necessary consent. “

“From an ideological perspective, most moderate and conservative voters say the government lacks the consent of the governed. Liberals are evenly divided. “

...

Now ingest, if you will, this stat: “63% of the Political Class think the government has the consent of the governed, but only six percent (6%) of those with Mainstream views agree.”

...

But hope springs eternal: “In his new book, In Search of Self-Governance, Scott Rasmussen observes that the American people are ‘united in the belief that our political system is broken, that politicians are corrupt, and that neither major political party has the answers.’ He adds that ‘the gap between Americans who want to govern themselves and the politicians who want to rule over them may be as big today as the gap between the colonies and England during the 18th century.’”

Percentage of Americans who favor socialism: 20

Percentage of Americans involved in Tea Party Movement: 11 (Support for Tea Party is also about 12%).

Number of mentions of "Tea Party" past month in Lexis radio and tv transcript search: 1042*

Number of mentions of "socialism" past month in Lexis radio and tv transcript search: 69+

Moral of the story: If you're in the top 1% of the population, and you can keep middle 67% of people scared of the right 12%, you can completely ignore the leftmost 20% and give the 67% very little.

So for the cost of keeping 12% of the population in placards and bumper-stickers and rallies, and the cost of running television stations and radio outlets, you can do pretty much whatever the fuck you want and forget about 99% of the population. That's a pretty sweet return on investment.

(NB -- with a little extra seed money to throw an "election", you can offset the cost of the tv and radio stations by getting about 70% of the population to send money to pay for it every two to four years, thus increasing your margin.)