THE STATE OF THE UNION
By JON D. HULL CHICAGO
Over since he voted last November, Vin Thomlin has won-dered whether it was worth it. Out of sheer indignation about the state of things in America, he went to the polls for the first time in more than a decade. And he voted Republican across the board for the first time in his life. He started having regrets almost immediately. ``I was only gone for about an hour, but when I got back to my apartment, I'd been burglarized. My stereo, TV, money, everything,'' says the 46-year-old Milwaukee, Wisconsin, handyman. As Thomlin tells the story, he slams the nearest piece of wood with his fist. ``You know what really kills me?'' he asks with a bitter chuckle. ``The whole goddam reason I voted was because I'm so sick of crime and the lack of values in this country.'' Now Thomlin relies on his own solution: he keeps a tire iron in his bedroom for protection.
Like Thomlin, other Americans are expressing their frustration on two fronts. At the polls last November, voters told Bill Clinton they were unhappy with his progress and urged Newt Gingrich & Co. to try something different. ``When you have a wholesale change of government during a period of peace and prosperity, that means the populace thinks something is really wrong,'' says James Newby, who retired this month as police chief of Dayton, Ohio. But there is another revolution, one that is happening in homes and neighborhoods and statehouses. Disgusted with American institutions ranging from the post office to the press, citizens are responding not just with anger and cynicism but with increased resourcefulness as well.
Pick just about any major institution, and chances are Americans are scrambling to find a more agreeable substitute. The Yankelovich Monitor, an annual survey of 4,000 Americans based on interviews conducted in their homes, shows a steep erosion of trust in traditional authority. Among the fallen: doctors, religious leaders, big companies, schools and especially the Federal Government. What makes people in the survey ``very angry,'' said 55% of them in 1994, up from 44% the previous year, is people in positions of power who ``say one thing and do another.''
Partly by default, perhaps, Americans now put more trust in themselves than in authority figures. In the 1994 Monitor survey, 80% expressed strong confidence in their own abilities, up 8 points from the previous year. The new measure of success, a growing majority declared, is being in control of their lives. Says Roger Conner, a Washington lobbyist for community organizations: ``Responsibility is the key word for the '90s.'' For better and for worse, that renewed self-reliance is reshaping the way Americans educate their children, protect their families, invest their savings, run their communities, maintain their health and view their government.
Yet if Gingrich thinks the new attitude is a function of resurgent idealism, rather than profound discontent, then he hasn't spent enough time with voters like Thomlin. What motivates them is a deep distrust, not only of authority figures but also of the national picture of peace and prosperity. In a Time/CNN poll conducted in early January, 53% agreed that the country is in ``deep and serious trouble,'' compared with 40% a decade ago. By most obvious and traditional measures, America is doing well. Unemployment is the lowest in five years, the economy is growing, and crime has eased somewhat. But underneath that surface is the accumulated wreckage of political paralysis, endemic violence, disintegrating families, two decades of wage stagnation and cultural vertigo. Marc Miringoff, director of Fordham University's Institute for Innovation in Social Policy, maintains an index of social health that factors in 16 social problems ranging from child abuse to the number of Americans on food stamps. In 1970, the index's first year, it stood at 73.8 out of a utopian 100. For 1994, Miringoff expects a record low of about 35. Says he: ``People are saying things were better in the old days, and they were.''
Whereas some Americans simply retreat behind bigger door locks, others are becoming increasingly active, joining street patrols, reforming schools and seeking alternative health care. Not every corrective impulse is completely benign. Many Americans have stocked up on guns and walled in their communities. The question that remains is whether America's notion of personal responsibility will prove to be selfish and inward-looking, or expansive and community-minded.
Sometimes the results are invigorating. Frustrated by poorly run public schools, activist parents are changing the face of American education with reforms from school vouchers to charter schools and the private management of public schools. ``I've seen schools that have been totally transformed,'' said Diana Nelson, a mother of two, during a convention earlier this month of parents serving on local public-school councils in Chicago. One by one, parents stood up and explained their concerns, some near tears. During a training session called Speak Up!, participants broke into small groups to practice testifying before state legislators. On one wall the word EMPOWER was written in red marker on a large chart. Below, parents added their definitions: ``Encourage, motivate, focus, organize.''
It's about time. Sadly, however, a growing number of parents feel compelled to opt out of public schools altogether: more than 700,000 children are educated at home, up from about 12,500 in the late 1970s. No small number of them are taught by Kenneth and Julie McKim of Pecan Gap, Texas, who started educating their 13 children at home more than a decade ago. Says Julie: ``We wanted our children to be protected before they had to face someone who was offering them drugs or before they had to make moral choices we would rather our children not make.''
Discontent with both the cost and the sometimes impersonal delivery of health care has fueled growth in alternative medicine, now a $14 billion-a- year industry. ``I can heal myself twice as fast,'' boasts Bill Ambrose, 44, a Denver energy-management technician who has been treating a minor leg injury with a homeopathic herb. Home-improvement retailers are profiting from consumers who find plumbers, contractors and electricians to be unaffordable, untrustworthy or both. Home Depot, the largest home-improvement retailer, posted record earnings of $141 million for the third quarter of 1994, a 36% increase over the same period in 1993.
A little Saturday-morning self-reliance is all well and good. But in many cases Americans are acting out of long-term necessity, unable to depend on a lifelong job or the pension that accompanies it. Those doubts help explain why more than 25 million American workers now take the wise step of investing in 401(k) and similar savings programs, up from fewer than 16 million in 1988. ``I'm looking out for myself,'' says Monica Phillips, 26, a Boston marketing executive who puts 10% of her $45,000 salary in her company's 401(k) and other investments. ``With layoffs and cutbacks, I need to save for my future.''
Self-reliance has even taken hold on the governmental level. Disenchantment with all things federal has helped spur a New Federalist movement led by such Governors as Utah's Michael Leavitt and Wisconsin's Tommy Thompson. Though voter turnout is lowest in elections for local government, that is the most popular form of government. In a 1993 survey, only 23% of Americans said they got the most for their tax dollars at the federal level, down from 39% in 1972. By comparison, support for spending at the local level rose from 26% to 38% during the same period.
Distrust of all levels of government is behind the national move toward privatization of public services. The pacesetter may be Indianapolis, Indiana, Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, who refers to taxpayers as customers and boasts that all public employees can break through the bureaucracy by sending him E-mail. (He scrolls through about 400 messages a day.) Since taking office in 1992, Goldsmith, 48, claims to have saved $115 million by privatizing more than 50 city services, from golf-course maintenance to window washing.
Not all privatizers are politicians. Since public-housing tenants assumed control of the notorious Abbottsford Homes in Philadelphia in 1991, rent collections have jumped from 70% to 90%, while calls to the police are down 30%. In Florida residents of the mixed-income Riverside Park neighborhood near Fort Lauderdale form volunteer crews to repave sidewalks, create parks and plant trees rescued from the path of highway construction. Says volunteer coordinator Tom Andrew: ``We're not waiting for the government to help us.''
That's fine when it comes to planting trees, but many American families and businesses are being forced to privatize security and sanitation by default. Community associations, ranging from small condominiums to sprawling planned communities, have grown from 10,000 in 1970 to 150,000 in 1993 and now include nearly 1 out of every 8 Americans. ``It's the fastest-growing form of local government,'' says William Eggers, who conducts an annual study of privatization in the U.S. ``People are saying that if the government can't protect them anymore or keep their streets clean, then they are going to do it themselves.''
The wholesale privatization of American life may give conservatives goose pimples, but it also produces a kind of civic isolation. And Fortress America, ringed with gated communities and checkpoints and motion detectors, is a foreboding example of self-sufficiency. Says urban planner Oscar Newman: ``People who live in these communities tend not to participate very much in the affairs of the surrounding communities. I find that a little scary.'' Privatization is also a lot less liberating for the millions of Americans who can't afford their own private police, schools, street cleaners and country clubs.
Most take-charge efforts are passive compared with some militant American responses to crime and other threats. A Colorado-based group called Safety for Women and Responsible Motherhood is composed of 1,500 women who want to liberalize Colorado's concealed-weapon law so they can carry handguns more readily. ``We have a growing obligation to protect ourselves,'' says Becki Tschirpke, the group's vice president. At the same time, from the forests of Montana to the orange groves of Florida, local militias have formed to do battle against perceived incursions by the Federal Government into individual rights.
The distrust of authority cuts across almost all aspects of American life, including the spiritual realm. Whereas religious leaders are enjoying a modest comeback in credibility, according to the Yankelovich Monitor, Americans want to keep their own counsel. ``We're finding that people are uncertain about things, but they've got their own moral tool kits,'' says Alan Wolfe, chairman of the sociology department at Boston University. ``So you can say authority has broken down, but you can also say that people have a great opportunity to make up their own understanding of the world. A lot of people are very excited by this.''
The self-reliance boom surely contributes to the growing intolerance toward those deemed overly dependent. ``I see people buying food with food stamps, and they're buying better stuff than I am,'' gripes Chicagoan Vicky Baron. ``I mean, they've got all their steaks just lined up!'' The revolt against the disadvantaged, ranging from calls for welfare reform to the backlash against illegal immigrants, has emerged as a national policy prescription. Will self-reliance turn mean? Will it lift America's spirits? Pessimists abound. Mario Cuomo, New York's ousted Governor, predicts that voters will keep reversing themselves: ``Unless the mood changes dramatically, you won't be able to do enough to satisfy them.''
For now, Americans are preoccupied with trying to satisfy and protect themselves. Although that renewed resourcefulness is perfectly in character, so too is a sense of charity and compassion for those who need a little help.
With reporting by DAVID BJERKLIE AND SHARON E. EPPERSON/NEW YORK, ANN BLACKMAN/WASHINGTON AND RICHARD WOODBURY/DENVER. CHARTS RESEARCHED BY DEBORAH L. WELLS, KATHLEEN ADAMS, ELIZABETH L. BLAND, RATU KAMLANI AND RICHARD RUBIN