In 1786, George Washington told the public about Shays’ Rebellion, “I am mortified beyond expression.” What a triumph for the advocates of despotism, to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves & that little rebellion had citizens cowering in their homes from fear of their armed neighbors out to stop farm foreclosures.

The Progressive movement of the 1890s sent a one-eyed, rabid racist, Pitchfork Ben Tillman, to the U.S. Senate  along with other colorful characters. It also produced Mary Lease, a foul-mouthed rabble-rouser who matched the publics anger with her powerful oratory.

In 1931, hundreds of Iowa, Nebraska and Wisconsin farmers, angry over plummeting milk prices, halted trucks and spilled their cargo of milk over the highway. They compared their event to the Boston Tea Party.

Wild candidates and furious citizens wrapping themselves in the language of the American Revolution appear frequently in our history. Id like to say, This too shall pass.

However, electorate unrest goes much deeper than mortgages, milk prices and robber barons. Todays public anger and oddball candidates reflect an institutional breakdown of peoples trust in their government.

It began with the publics disillusionment and furor over Watergate and Vietnam. Former Senator Fred Harris said we have never recovered from the great skepticism of government those elected officials produced. We are left, he says, a legacy that government cant do anything right, and everything you try turns out badly.

Here, I must call out the emperor who has no clothes: the opportunists now running the Republican Party. With the departure of George W. Bush, the party has lost its integrity. Its once principled soul is gone. It has but one aim, power. If it succeeds in regaining power and continues its cynical, manipulative governing, be prepared for a long-term decline in public trust.

Originally published: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/10/24/is-outsider-politics-here-to-stay/the-deep-roots-of-public-distrust