I buy the argument that a functioning democracy requires the populace to believe that the government is honest, competent, and working in their interests. Wate

I buy the argument that a functioning democracy requires the populace to believe that the government is honest, competent, and working in their interests. Watergate, Iran-Contra, and the Vietnam war (respectively) undermined those notions. As of ~2016, half of the US voting population had come of age after those events.