HIGH above Washington, hidden in the western lee of the Capitol’s dome, stands a clutch of mini-flagpoles. As an ugly, unhappy election grinds to a close, those flagstaffs suggest that Americans have not lost all faith in their democracy. The poles are used to supply members of the House of Representatives and the Senate with flags certified to have flown above the Capitol, whenever constituents request them. Some recipients may assume that their flag snapped in the breeze all day. The truth is more prosaic: each Stars and Stripes flies for a few seconds before being folded and boxed: at the busiest times, staff must fly thousands of flags in a single day.The workload of the Capitol Flag Office is worth pondering. With the odd bump and dip, public confidence in Congress has slipped remorselessly downwards since the mid-1980s, hitting record lows this year. If opinion polls are to be believed, even the scoundrels who write and edit newspapers inspire more confidence. In television advertisements, incumbent congressmen denounce the capital (“I wouldn’t wish Washington on a dawg,” says one), while challengers make Congress sound like a fever-swamp of corruption,...
from The Economist: United States http://ift.tt/103ERcd
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