People are not stupid when their immediate interest is threatened. Now, we could argue that people as a whole have problems with estimating risk ( they do ) and predicting long term consequences ( they do ), but they can usually notice when a politician is telling them its raining, when said politician is directly pissing at them.

Then again, I am from the old country, where parents ingrain in you distrust for the government. By comparison, US population really does trust its decision-makers. Or maybe trusted, if the article is to be believed.