Citing a recent Gallup Poll, the White House reporter for a major news magazine, U.S. News and World Report, is saying out loud what many of us in the alternative media have felt for some time — the American people’s confidence in just about every institution in politics and society is at an all-time low.
That fall and continuing erosion of trust, in turn, has grave implications for the health and viability of democracy.
In an article for U.S. News and World Report on June 17, 2015, Kenneth T. Walsh writes:
Americans have little confidence in most of their major institutions including Congress, the presidency, the Supreme Court, banks and organized religion, according to the latest Gallup poll.
Here are the findings of the recent Gallup Poll:
- Congress: Only 8% have confidence in Congress, down by 16 points from a long-term average of 24% – the lowest of all institutions rated. The rating is about the same as last year’s 7%, the lowest Gallup has ever measured for any institution.
- Presidency: 33% have confidence in the presidency, a drop from a historical average of 43%.
- Supreme Court: 32% have confidence in the Supreme Court, down from 44%.
- Banks: 28% have confidence in banks, down from 40%.
- Big Business: 21% have confidence in big business, down from 24%.
- Organized labor (read: labor unions): 24% have confidence in organized labor, down from 26%.
- News media: 24% have confidence in newspapers, down from 32%. 21% have confidence in television news, down from 30%.
- Police: 52% of Americans saying they are confident in the police compared with 57% who have been confident in the police historically. The drop in public esteem for the police is the result of police being widely criticized in recent months for alleged abusive tactics toward African-Americans, which resulted in the deaths of several black men.
- Organized religion: 42% express confidence in organized religion, down from 55%.
The only exceptions to the above decline in confidence are:
- Military (which Obama systematically is undermining and destroying with his LGBT agenda and purges of top leaders): 72% of Americans still have confidence in the military, up from a historical average of 68%.
- Small business (the butt of Obama’s derision: “You didn’t build that!”): 67% of Americans express confidence in small business, up from 63%.
Given the decline in confidence in so many institutions, it is not surprising that only 28% of Americans are satisfied with the state of the nation. 2004 was the last year Americans’ satisfaction with the way things are going in the United States averaged better than 40%.
A Gallup spokesman said in a news release:
“Americans’ confidence in most major institutions has been down for many years as the nation has dealt with prolonged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a major recession and sluggish economic improvement, and partisan gridlock in Washington. In fact, 2004 was the last year most institutions were at or above their historical average levels of confidence. From a broad perspective, Americans’ confidence in all institutions over the last two years has been the lowest since Gallup began systematic updates of a larger set of institutions in 1993. Americans continue to show lower levels of confidence in most of the major institutions central to U.S. society, with only the military and small business getting ratings in 2015 that are above their historical averages. That speaks to the broader dissatisfaction Americans have with the state of the nation more generally over the past decade as the U.S. has faced serious economic, international and political challenges. Americans have tended to be more confident in U.S. institutions when the economy has been strong, such as in the mid-1980s and the late 1990s and early 2000s. Although Americans are now more upbeat about the economy than they were in 2008-2013, they are not yet convinced that the economy is good, given that their assessments of national economic conditions remain more negative than positive.”
Walsh concludes:
All in all, it’s a picture of a nation discouraged about its present and worried about its future, and highly doubtful that its institutions can pull America out of its trough. In a political context, the findings indicate that the growing number of presidential candidates for 2016 will have a difficult time instilling confidence in a skeptical electorate that they have the answers to the country’s problems.
~Éowyn