With hope flagging, whom can you trust?

When it comes to politics, whom can you trust?

On Tuesday, I was part of a panel asked to answer that question during a fascinating 90-minute discussion on KNPR-FM 88.9's "State of Nevada" program. Led by Rich Harwood of the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, our group of religious and political leaders and thinkers tried to dissect what ails our country and how to solve it.

One thing Harwood said early on rings true, and he's heard it repeatedly in focus groups he's conducted around the country (including one right here in Las Vegas): People simply don't find the political debates -- and the media's coverage of them -- relevant to their lives. While they worry about jobs, finances and their children's future, they see politicians argue about the particular date of a "jobs speech" by the president, and whether or not it's wise to raise or lower the top tax rate for U.S. corporations.

To turn John Kerry's 2004 slogan on its head, hope isn't on the way. And as a result, Harwood argued, people have withdrawn from public life and politics.

"We need to marshal groups and organizations … that can pry open space for people to re-enter public space," Harwood said.

Something tells me that doesn't mean the tea party, which has created a venue for plenty of people to enter the public debate … and demand the dismantling of public institutions on the premise they cost too much or have exceeded their constitutional mandate. Yes, it's political involvement, but of the type that resists and even demonizes consensus building, rather than builds it.

Maybe that's why Harwood contends people don't trust anybody, either in government or in media, as they see the status quo unchanged after decades. "People are bereft of hope," he said. And just two years after President Obama ran on hope as a campaign slogan, too!

Little did we know at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, but voters in New York's 9th Congressional District were in the process of sending a Republican to represent them in Congress for the first time since 1920. At least one Democrat tried to spin the stunning loss by saying, according to Politico, the district was "a low priority for us. This wasn't a race that ever held a lot of interest for us." Presumably, the fact that the 9th District will be subsumed by redistricting this year meant it no longer mattered.

But surely the voters in the 9th District -- three-to-one Democratic, by the way -- still matter, don't they? Surely the message they were trying to send -- whether they were dissatisfied with Obama's policy on Israel or lack of progress in helping spur a flagging economy marked by 9.1 percent unemployment -- still matters, doesn't it? Even if we're to believe the line from the left in the Democratic Party -- that Democrats are losing faith in Obama because he's not fighting hard enough for liberal causes -- the results in New York should still be troubling to the president and his advisers, shouldn't they?

Toward the end of Tuesday's show -- which are available on the web at KNPR.org -- a caller reminded the audience of a very simple truth. Former state Sen. Joe Neal, a staunch Democrat and 2002 candidate for governor, said he took his cues during more than 30 years in office from Article I, Section 2 of Nevada's constitution, which reads: "All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for the protection, security and benefit of the people; and they have the right to alter or reform the same whenever the public good may require it."

Ditto, he said, of the U.S. Constitution, which defines the purpose of government as to "form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessing of liberty or ourselves and our posterity."

For Neal, the purpose of government was to benefit the people, and he said he pursued a legislative agenda to do just that. As a result, he said, "the people were on my side."

Might that have been because, at last, they saw government and its policies as finally relevant to their lives and their struggles? Because instead of being told government is the problem and that it must be truncated, they finally saw government as the people collectively working to make life better for their fellow citizens?

Might that be the answer to the question Harwood posed, and the way back for a fractured America?

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist, and author of the blog SlashPolitiics.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/SteveSebelius or reach him at 387-5276 or SSebelius@reviewjournal.com.