With the elections just around the corner, progressives around the country received last week’s dismal Congressional approval ratings with considerable glee. An NBC/WSJ poll reported that a whopping 75% of likely voters “disapprove” of the job Congress is doing. On the heels of the Foley scandal and in the midst of a month on track to be one of the deadliest for American soldiers in Iraq since the start of the war, Democratic strategist Anita Dunn crowed to USA Today, “It's the absolute crystallization for people of everything they dislike about Washington and congressional Republicans.” While the numbers may indeed portend major victories for the Democrats in congressional races next month, progressives who want real policy change ought to be concerned.

Rock-bottom trust in government statistics may look good for an out-of-power party looking to clean house, but they cast a foreboding shadow over a major objective for progressives: an active role for government. The need for a strong, effective, and efficient government is at the core of the progressive project. Attenuation in public trust in government makes achieving this aim a particular challenge, as low levels of trust translate into a hostile climate for government action.

In a recent article in Public Opinion Quarterly, political scientists tracked public trust in government over nearly twenty years, and found that negative evaluations of Congress were associated with reduced support for a wide array of domestic policy proposals. Moreover, as sociologist William Gamson argues in his 1968 classic Power and Discontent, low levels of trust in government can create a vicious circle. Weak trust in government means that government proposals are treated as pandering, manipulative efforts aimed at political gain rather than good faith efforts toward achieving policy ends. The perception of politicians as disingenuous in turn further reduces public trust. For progressives hoping to leverage a Democratic takeover of one or both houses of Congress into a chance to begin policy reform, these findings should be troubling, to say the least.

What, then, should progressives do? The current crisis in confidence represents an opportunity to turn a vicious circle into a virtuous one. Assuming conventional wisdom bears out and the Democrats reclaim some measure of control over Congress in the coming weeks, the party has an opportunity to rebuild public trust and, in turn, lay the foundation for a progressive future with a strong and active role for government across an array of fields.

First and foremost, a renewed focus on ethics and good clean government are critical for the re-creation of public faith. Recent history’s most celebrated successful Democrat recognized this — President Clinton’s “Reinventing Government” initiative aimed to renew public trust in government by making it a more effective actor. The Lewinsky affair left Clinton a poor champion of ethics, however, and the party has yet to fully rebound. More importantly, major events of the last few years have given few reasons to have faith in government’s ability to serve its citizenry. From the bungled intelligence that has driven our national security policies to the failure to prevent and respond to Katrina’s wrath, to the Abramoff corruption circus, to the current Congressional page scandal, Americans have been given a million and one reasons to be cynical of government’s ability to handle major public problems. Progressives must focus their energies on rebuilding public trust in public institutions, not simply giving lip services to the problem, but through a concerted effort involving public hearings, the re-introduction of oversight in Congress, and an overarching commitment to a shared code of ethics and behavior.

Second, progressives must articulate a coherent vision for a role for government. Citizens have every reason to support proposals aiming to get government out of the business of just about everything these days. Forward-looking progressives know that the New Deal model of a massive federal government apparatus for handling social problems is out-dated and unlikely to adequately address today’s issues. Progressives need to express what, then, the role for government actually should be. What can government do that other institutions can’t, for instance, and why?

Specific policy reforms will only succeed if they build on these two basic foundational measures: 1) Rebuild trust and 2) Articulate a clear and coherent role for government. Neither of these are easy tasks, but they are integral to the long-term success of the progressive project in both a policy and a political sense. Indeed, the failure to do some version of this will likely cost a Democratic presidential candidate dearly in 2008. So while progressives may be eagerly anticipating the reclamation of some measure of control over Washington’s halls of power next month, they will have their work cut out for them.

Cross-posted at Foresight