From a story on politico.com by John F. Harris headlined “Fifty Years After Watergate, A Generation of Frightened Editors”:

The defining fact of American public life over the past generation has been the erosion of power and self-confidence within most traditional institutions.

In recent years, the most important dimension of this trend has been that the supposed leaders of these institutions, the people with impressive titles, are scared of the people they are ostensibly leading. In different contexts, the non-followers include voters, students, employees.