Just going back to the Hearst papers in the 1890's and the wall-to-wall coverage of the lurid murder trial of Harry Thaw who killed his wife's wealthy and socially conncected lover, Stanford White(The Girl on the Swing). During the World's Fair in 1893 the discovery of the serial murderer, H.H. Holmes, drove all mention of the new Ferris Wheel and the Depression off the front pages of the McCormick owned Chicago Tribune.

The LA Times and the old Los Angeles Tribune put out special editions for the death of Rudolph Valentino(the LAT still prints a first page article on the actor every year on the anniversary of his death, on the front page usually with a phot showing the over one million people who lined Hollywood Blvd). All during the 20's and 30's the LA Times constantly ran boldfaced headlines recounting the exploits and law problems of Fatty Arbuckle, Charlie Chaplin and others. The Black Dahlia murder, the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, and my personal favorite The Woo Woo Kid(a minor youth that was caught running away with several women old enough to be his mother).All were front page news for days if not weeks in both the yellow papers and the serious ones.

All of these events were prominently displayed on the serious papers with just as much slavering hysteria as necessary to sell newspapers. Newspapers in the US were mass popular entertainments from the very beginning(the most popular and widely read periodical of the early Republic was The Farmer's almanac and the most popular newspaper was the old New York Observer which featured Bible quotations, weather reports and wedding announcements on the front page. It has only been scholars, J-schools and internet users that are convinced of the serious nature of the press. Randolph Hearst told an interviewer once that the front page with all the murders and celebrities was for the citizens and the editorial pages were for his wife's friends.

The popular image in the US is that indeed voters distrust their politicians which would seem indicate more participation not less. But because we are a republican form of democracy the system of checks and balances also applies to the relationship between citizens and politicians. Whereas in parliamentary democracies the citizens have much less ability to change the type and use of power of politicians thus it becomes more critical to control who can exercise that power.

In the US powers that are exercised, local or national, are merely on loan and can be taken back, albeit with some difficulty via initiative or disavowal through referendum at the local level and amendment at the national. For example in California via initiative much of the state budget is mandated by percentage of revenue; schools, parks, police and fire, etc. Just recently an initiative was passed that required that gasonline taxes which had been traditionally used for freeway building and maintinence to be dedicated to that purpose again. Over the years the state had siphoned off that money into the general fund.

I think cynically it could be said that politicians in the US are seen as interchangeable but unchanging. And when there is some catastrophic mistake then the option is there to simply take that power away from them as well as the more noted method of "Throwing the rascals out."