I think it’s rather that, in a bicameral parliamentary representative democracy one knows that one is ultimately partially responsible for those in office, and one cannot just shrug and blame higher ups.
Maybe it’s time to fix your government instead of acting disengaged and cynical?
In other news: people in corrupt places have low faith in their systems.
America certainly has its problems and corruption, but if you look at what are considered the least corrupt nations on earth, say Finland, you find higher trust in society and government etc.
So I’ll contend that trauma traumatizes people, aka you are stating a tautology