ABSTRACT
Headlines frequently point to the low levels of trust the public has in United States political institutions. As we wrote this chapter, a story circulated on various social media websites about how fewer people supported the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and the Congress as a whole than believe in Bigfoot. The absurd comparison of a political institution, a policy, and a mythical beast illustrates more than the notably low levels of support major national political institutions receive from the public. Embedded within this discussion is the notion that the public have opinions about specific policies, like the Affordable Care Act, as well as major political institutions. This specificity is at odds with major segments of the literature on trust in government and perceptions of major institutions. Most research, reviewed in the previous chapters, has focused on trust only at the more general levels of the regime as a whole (i.e., “trust in government”), regimes at different levels of government (e.g., “trust in local government”), and approval of major national institutions (e.g., the president, Congress, and the Supreme Court). However, the campaigning behaviors of politicians try to associate opponents with negatively perceived legislation. Strategies like these assume that people have opinions about specific policies—and that these opinions are firm enough to change their opinion of politicians associated with the legislation. This opens up the study of individual perceptions of more specific elements of the political system than these three major institutions.
