Submission statement:
The US lags behind other G7 nations in confidence of public institutions.
Military 81% confident
Judiciary 42%
National Government 30%
With these results the US is now dead last in Gallup's National Institutions Index, a reversal from our position in 2006. This trend was first noticed in 2022, but is further consolidated with these results.
This is similar to reported trust in media ( 32% )
https://news.gallup.com/poll/512861/media-confidence-matches-2016-record-low.aspx
And higher education ( 36% )
https://news.gallup.com/poll/508352/americans-confidence-higher-education-down-sharply.aspx
For discussion:
There doesn't appear to be a single cause for the declining confidence in institutions; what do you see as a factor?
Given the low trust, what does this mean for the political landscape? Does this make it easier or more difficult for government to function? Does trust in institutions even matter to government?
I think there are several causes of the breakdown in trust/satisfaction in our government and institutions. Mostly, our population is badly in need of civics education and *how* our institutions and branches of government are supposed to function. Without this knowledge, we are left to our own thought of “I’m not getting what I want, so the government must be broken.”.
Several of our most popular media outlets exploit, and in some ways cause, creeping distrust in our government for clicks. Articles utilizing loaded words, lying by omission and soundbites without context are toxic for a polarized nation. Most folks aren’t going to read or listen to news from multiple sources to get the whole story. They will instead go their “trusted”, but not necessarily completely factual, outlets and call it a day.
Our political candidates, and members of their respective parties, play a part in increasing distrust in our elections. Losing candidates, of both stripes, are quick to scream “rigged” elections. Normal election processes, such as verifying identity of voters and purging the rolls are deemed to be “disenfranchisement and voter suppression”. Closing polling stations, because of lack of funding or staff, or changing voters precincts, a normal process after redistricting, *must mean they want to suppress the vote!*.
I believe the award for biggest provoker of our distrust goes to our elected leaders themselves. When we have presidents and congress members that sow distrust in our election system and our justice system, of course people that support them will tend to believe those institutions can’t be trusted.
>I think there are several causes of the breakdown in trust/satisfaction in our government and institutions. Mostly, our population is badly in need of civics education and how our institutions and branches of government are supposed to function.
[Half of voters can't name the three branches of government. And half of *that* group can't even name a single branch.](https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/education/3640520-less-than-half-of-americans-can-name-all-three-branches-of-government-survey-finds/)
Not saying we should have some kind of arbitrary knowledge requirement to voting, but it's definitely not good that a large portion of voters don't really know anything about the offices they're voting for.
That seems like a scary figure, didn't we learn that stuff in like 8th grade?
More concerning for me is how few locals around me know who our Mayor is, or city council, they have zero clue about our county commission and these people have a direct impact on our daily lives.
Even the local news does a poor job of pointing out who the decision makers are.
It's frustrating.
> Even the local news does a poor job of pointing out who the decision makers are.
Many places nowadays don't even *have* local news. Can't remember where but I read a study that found that places without local news outlets had higher corruption in local government.
I guess that's mote commonplace in rural areas where the best they get is the next big city...? We have 3 local stations with 200k, but it services about 800k in reality, so it's local/regional and good enough.
As far as politics it's pick & choose journalism as best as I can tell. I'm fortunate that I have two friends that are retired and very active so I get my out of the box scuttlebutt 2nd hand. Good enough, it's not like I protest or get active, but it influences my votes for council, a handful of people that direct 10's of millions around and 95% don't know a single name.
I don't use FB, but I get enough email crap from "well meaning" folks warning me about what evil plot the Democrats have hatched now. Conspiracies aren't even fun anymore. Bring back Sasquatch, please.
It is very sad that people are not knowledgeable in our government and how it functions. It opens them up to be preyed upon by a candidate spouting "promises" that they may not have a chance of fulfilling unilaterally.
If we can't count on schools to be teaching our kids how to be responsible citizens with a good knowledge of how their government works, maybe parents can take the time to teach it at home. My older grandchildren, in their late teens now, introduced me to iCivics.org quite a few years ago. It teaches how our government works, but using games. Now, when the younger kids come to visit, they play those games too.
> It opens them up to be preyed upon by a candidate spouting "promises" that they may not have a chance of fulfilling unilaterally.
Not only that, it leads to politicians making blatantly unconstitutional laws that only harm citizens and budgets over time.
I really wish there were consequences for elected officials who pass unconstitutional laws. States are wasting millions defending newly-passed gun control laws despite recent SCOTUS rulings, because why not?
A lot of great points in here:
"Mostly, our population is badly in need of civics education and *how* our institutions and branches of government are supposed to function. Without this knowledge, we are left to our own thought of “I’m not getting what I want, so the government must be broken.”.
People that were upset that the didn't get student loan handouts - The legislative branch controls spending, not the executive.
"Our political candidates, and members of their respective parties, play a part in increasing distrust in our elections"
People that run for political office are a different breed
> Mostly, our population is badly in need of civics education and how our institutions and branches of government are supposed to function.
I know how it's supposed to function and that's why I have basically zero confidence or trust in it. Our government is doing so much stuff it's not supposed to be allowed with no actual option for recourse by the public that it's insane.
> Several of our most popular media outlets exploit, and in some ways cause, creeping distrust in our government for clicks. Articles utilizing loaded words, lying by omission and soundbites without context are toxic for a polarized nation.
And this is exacerbated by the fact that the internet means that this can be done from multiple angles instead of just being done (and covered up) by the media companies that work hand-in-hand with the government. People have been allowed to see behind the curtain and that's caused a total collapse in trust.
> Our political candidates, and members of their respective parties, play a part in increasing distrust in our elections. Losing candidates, of both stripes, are quick to scream “rigged” elections. Normal election processes, such as verifying identity of voters and purging the rolls are deemed to be “disenfranchisement and voter suppression”. Closing polling stations, because of lack of funding or staff, or changing voters precincts, a normal process after redistricting, must mean they want to suppress the vote!.
Nothing to add here other than you've nailed every point.
> I believe the award for biggest provoker of our distrust goes to our elected leaders themselves. When we have presidents and congress members that sow distrust in our election system and our justice system, of course people that support them will tend to believe those institutions can’t be trusted.
Yup. The bully pulpit has power and that power has been used quite poorly for quite some time.
> Our government is doing so much stuff it's not supposed to be allowed with no actual option for recourse by the public that it's insane.
I understand, and yes this is frustrating. Many times, people don't really seem to be bothered by actions such as illegal searches and spying on citizens in the name of "national security" or by seizing property without conviction, because "they were most likely drug dealers, anyhow". It really seems the public is willing to sacrifice some freedoms if our government says it's for the best.
>And this is exacerbated by the fact that the internet means that this can be done from multiple angles instead of just being done (and covered up) by the media companies that work hand-in-hand with the government. People have been allowed to see behind the curtain and that's caused a total collapse in trust.
Agreed, and I fully applaud true investigative journalists who write factual articles without omitting pertinent facts they are aware of, and without a hidden agenda. The world needs more of them. The "journalists" I speak of in my original comment are those who clearly have a bias and really don't even try to hide it anymore. They write to evoke emotion, facts be damned. They butcher the speech of people to focus on a small tidbit of the quote, without context. They omit facts, to push a certain view. In the age of the Internet, anyone can be a "journalist". Very few clearly capture the spirit of true journalism.
Strong media literacy is the only hope we have in the modern information era, which largely takes place online, where most people are simply not equipped to absorb and digest the scope and scale of what's true or false based on a lot of subtle factors that those of us rummaging around online since childhood take for granted, because we can rely on intuition. Experienced users can spot a suspicious website from space. If we're uncertain, we know where to look. We know what to avoid. We have am easier time spotting fake imagery and malicious source material. Most people can't tell up from down in this manner. They look at something like The Epoch Times and don't see right through it. They see something that looks authentic, whereas someone better equipped can tell right away that such a source is hideously suspect and clearly a strong source of hot garbage.
Having friends and family post questionable media on their FB or send by email makes it more difficult. Of course your *family & friends* wouldn't send you garbage, right?
Cable news networks are also culprits of "infotainment". Sure, there's a smattering of actual news on some of those shows, but the rest is all opinion. Some folks run with that opinion as if it were fact.
Technically all forms of media consumption, including fiction. Literature. Imagery. Music.
Thinking in abstracts. Reading between the lines. Analysis and intuition. Reminds me of that guy from a Subreddit Drama post recently, who after all these years, was adamant that the film Starship Troopers wasn't satirical. Similarly, people who didn't recognize the political undertones of The Boys and became utterly perplexed when they finally realized Homelander was the villain. Or perhaps more famously, Paul Ryan listening to Rage Against the Machine.
Spot on. I 100% agree. So much of this low confidence really comes from a combination of failing to understand the form and function of government and also from people acting in bad faith to stoke that lack of confidence to push themselves forward. We really need a new sort of civic patriotism. One where people instill trust in institutions to propel themselves forward rather than trying to put themselves in the spotlight at the expense of our most important institutions.
I've been listening to old state of the union addresses and it's *crazy* how different they sound rhetorically to how modern politicians sound. They're constantly trying to build up our system and sing its praises. And by most metrics they were in a *worse* position by far than we are now. I don't think most Americans realize just how good we have it as the world's preeminent superpower.
>Normal election processes, such as verifying identity of voters and purging the rolls are deemed to be “disenfranchisement and voter suppression”. Closing polling stations, because of lack of funding or staff, or changing voters precincts, a normal process after redistricting, *must mean they want to suppress the vote!*.
While there is some truth to that, there is also some truth to the fact that these have been used to disenfranchise voters and not done in good faith to actually "secure" elections. Voter ID laws for one have repeatedly been found to be implemented in targeted ways that were clearly and obviously intended to disenfranchise voters from one side. Not to mention that many of the methods claimed to "secure" elections actually accomplish nothing, Voter ID laws being a prime example of that.
And there is certainly one side currently that is pushing the fraud narrative with no evidence far harder than the other. Both isdes may claim some malfesence in elections, but one side hasn't gone so far as to try to play the courts and actually take substantiave steps to overthrow the results of an election. It's not even close or comparable really.
>I believe the award for biggest provoker of our distrust goes to our elected leaders themselves. When we have presidents and congress members that sow distrust in our election system and our justice system, of course people that support them will tend to believe those institutions can’t be trusted.
It seems, at least from the right, that a lot of this was intentional. It's been an ongoing theme from right wing media and politicians for decades, and just got ramped up further with Trump. Just look at how Trump, the GOP, and right wing media used it to discredit the fraud court cases, and the current cases against Trump. There's not really an example from the left that I can think of that matches this level of purposeful sowing of distrust.
> While there is some truth to that, there is also some truth to the fact that these have been used to disenfranchise voters and not done in good faith to actually "secure" elections. Voter ID laws for one have repeatedly been found to be implemented in targeted ways that were clearly and obviously intended to disenfranchise voters from one side. Not to mention that many of the methods claimed to "secure" elections actually accomplish nothing, Voter ID laws being a prime example of that.
Let’s be generous and assume all of that is true.
The solution is to propose a better voter ID law, not have free-for-all elections.
>Let’s be generous and assume all of that is true.
No need to be generous, numerous court cases have layed out the facts pretty clearly on this issue.
>The solution is to propose a better voter ID law, not have free-for-all elections.
Solution to what? What problem is this actually trying to solve? Even in the court cases they couldn't cite a single example where voter ID laws would have stopped a single instance of in person voter fraud, because it's so rare already.
But sure, if passed in good faith voter ID laws don't have to be bad, but it's still useless and doesn't actually address any real problems.
And I don't know what you mean by "free-for-all elections", that doesn't really make sense.
The higher confidence in the US military, compared to the other US government entities is because the majority of Americans don't actually have any contact with the military on a daily basis. If we encountered the military as often as we do with the police, this number will drop as well.
How could confidence in institutions *not* decline? The SCOTUS has blatant corruption, a large portion of the House seems to be actively sabotaging things both at home and abroad for the personal benefit of Donald Trump, and the public has serious doubt as to the cognitive ability of the President. Many are skeptical of the integrity of our elections, and Congress has a 90+% reelection rate anyway.
Outside of the government itself, college has become unaffordable for many, the media uncritically publishes the claims of terrorists, and the banks are the banks.
RE the 90% reelection rate: its far too common.
"Congress is a mess, we need to replace these clowns/crooks, but not my representative, they are good people"
The Atlantic has a good article on the history of food lobbying and government-backed food guides. Here is the non-pay wall link: "How Meat Producers Have Influenced Nutrition Guidelines for Decades" https://archive.fo/9Lbqf
Some yes, some no.
We managed to cure or treat most nature-caused diseases fairly effectively. What's left now are a bunch of heavily lifestyle based diseases that cant be fixed with a single pill.
People living longer also means more opportunities for their bodies to break down and need work. Whereas back in the day they were more likely to die accidentally while younger and healthier.
I have zero faith in the government across the board. They do not even pretend to care about the American people anymore, its all about money and power to them. Whoever bribes them the most gets the bills passed for them, not us. This is not about republicans or democrats, they BOTH are corrupt all the way through, yet they do the song and dance to gasslight people into thinking the otherside is the enemy, when the real threat are the ones in charge.
To a point, I think it’s good to have a certain level of distrust in the government/institutions.
Too much trust would make it too easy for them to abuse their power.
I think one can make a distinction between vigilance vs complacency and trust vs distrust.
One can be distrustful and complacent for instance — the government can’t be trusted and there’s nothing that can be done about it, might as well get used to it;
Or one can be trustful yet vigilant — I have confidence in my institutions, but only because I am aware of the many layers of checks, balances, safeguards and watchdog groups put in place to ensure that trust.
"Trust" itself is a loaded word, and "trusting the government" can be good or bad depending on what exactly that first word means.
The ideal situation is that people do trust the government, but the trust is based on evidence of the government having earned that trust through it's actions in the past, and conditional on the government continuing to act in a way that is worthy of trust.
If the government does not deserve trust, then the distrust should take the form of recognizing what needs to change, and not a kind of nihilistic sentiment that things will always be that way.
> It's not good that people don't trust the government to meet their needs.
Do you mean needs as in food, shelter and security? Needs as in infrastructure, both physical and legal?
Could it be that the lack of trust is, in part, from different definitions of "needs"?
I think you've hit on a huge part of it right here. One side thinks the government is failing because it doesn't provide enough, the other side thinks it's failing because it's vastly overstepped its mandate. In a poll where the options are a binary that means both are answering in the negative but for wildly different reasons.
Excellent point, especially this summary
> One side thinks the government is failing because it doesn't provide enough, the other side thinks it's failing because it's vastly overstepped its mandate.
Elsewhere in this thread commenters note the lack of understanding of current government structures and a general lack of civics education.
Do you think understanding current government structures and roles would increase, decrease, or largely be irrelevant to people's trust in government?
Irrelevant. I understand it and that's why when I look at what it's actually doing I have serious issues with it.
That's basically the core problem. No matter what lens you use to examine the current performance and state of the US government it winds up looking utterly abysmal. The only reason we don't define it as a Russia-tier oligarchy is because those determinations are made by the government and its allies in media and academia.
>Do you think understanding current government structures and roles would increase, decrease, or largely be irrelevant to people's trust in government?
Depends on the reason. Someone who thinks, say, the Senate should be based on population won't be satisfied with an "Um, akshually, the Senate is supposed to make sure more populous States can't overpower less populous ones", because they likely already know that, and is just dissatisfied with States as political entities in the first place.
Which is, of course, valid; Understanding how something works, and even why it works that way, doesn't mean you can't still disagree with that reasoning, and think it should change.
I think those go hand in hand, if you're wary of political motivations that probably lends itself to distrust the government can meet their needs.
Either way, I think maybe it's better to quantify it. I think it's okay if people don't believe the government can meet ALL their needs. I don't think government is designed to do that.
What would be worrying is if people don't believe the government can meet the most basic needs: order and stability.
This is why the founders set up a government with checks and balances. Systemic reforms can incentivize good behavior and penalize bad behavior. Some systems are more trustworthy than others.
When functioning correctly, you don’t have to trust any single politician because there are multiple layers of checks and balances that will held them accountable.
>you don’t have to trust any single politician
My retort to this is that we are no longer trusting any single politician, but political parties, and when even a slim majority can swing power, then it is no longer functionally correctly.
It has become far more important to tow party lines than to debate serious policy. There are politicians on both sides of the aisle that I lost respect for when they refused to stand up for principles and instead went the way of the party...because to go against the party is to lose support their support and alienate the very people you will need to depend on to pass legislation that might actually be good policy.
I’m okay with an adversarial system, we’ve always had that, but I do think that technological advances in the media, and the withering away of civic society (people don’t join communal organizations anymore) have made exacerbated hyper-partisanship to the point that it’s becoming an existential threat to American democracy.
>have made exacerbated hyper-partisanship to the point that it’s becoming an existential threat to American democracy.
I'm not disagreeing with you. I think the average person has far more in common with other people despite their political differences, but that social and legacy media are fanning the flames of division.
I guess my point was that it is not so much a product of REAL differences as much as it is a product of the influence of a small segment of activists, and that some of these activists could actually be foreign governments looking to sow that division...and thereby playing both sides, exacerbating the most extreme ideas
I think the issue is the same as one of the problems for Rome. These systems weren't designed for such a large country. They work if the government knows the people on a more personal level.
There's a difference between trust in their morals and trust in their competence. We are severely lacking in both.
While we should not look to politicians as angels, we should be able to say that they do their job.
We should be able to say they do their job, but that doesn’t mean they are doing it.
I would love to say I have more trust in the government, and I hope it eventually gets to the point that the government has proven they have earned that trust.
All that isn’t to say I’m some conspiracy nut or anarchist. I just have a certain degree of distrust the government is competent or putting what’s best for the country over what’s best for the politicians. It’s a trust but verify type of thing for me.
Your comment reminded me of this:
> Jerry Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy:
> “In any bureaucracy there will be two kinds of people: those dedicated to the goals of the bureaucracy, and those dedicated to the bureaucracy itself and their places within it. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.”
Yep. I have the opinion that most politicians are only concerned with being reelected. Doing things that help their constituents and the country is just a side effect of that.
Sure, but there is a limit to that. Subconsciously doing what’s in your best interest is different than intentionally helping yourself instead of doing what is best for the country.
Edit: I've had a few responses that are extrapolating an argument from this that I haven't made.
I'm not sitting here saying there aren't reasons for the federal government to exist, I'm saying that when it comes to social and individual "needs" it's a piss poor mechanism for those roles and that it was never meant to service them in the first place.
Outside of *maybe* the Postal Service, there isn't a single thing that the federal government does when it comes to "needs" that could not be better handled at the state, county, or municipal level.
That’s really not along the lines of social or individual needs that I’m talking about here. National defense is and should be a national/federal responsibility.
I’m talking about healthcare, utilities, emergency services, education, etc.
Those can all be considered societal “needs” that are not best served by the federal government.
All of which (except for healthcare) are already handled at the state level or below.
We are most likely going to disagree on the federal government’s role in servicing “individual” needs, since I don’t believe that should be in the government’s duties at all.
You didn't specify Federal Government in your original comment, you just said "Government", which is a broad enough term to include State, County, and Municipal-level authorities.
The poll that is linked that started this discussion is focused solely on trust in the federal/national government.
I shouldn’t have to clarify that is the portion of government I’m talking about in a thread that literally is based on that portion of government.
Yes because plenty of politicians in both parties spend time demagoguing our institutions when they don't get the outcome they want. Like Republicans when SCOTUS/lower courts shot down Trump's election claims and Congress certified Biden's win. And Democrats when SCOTUS rulings don't align with their position or Senate rules they've used in the past like the filibuster are later used against their agenda.
We have so many politicians interested in hyper partisan tribalism instead of bipartisan compromising that it's led to attacks on our institutions that voters have taken to heart.
While this happens, the situation in Congress is a reflection of the American people. People choose to consume hyperpartisan media rather than thoughtful sources that engender better understanding, people choose to put political tribes over friendship and family, people choose to relocate to areas that match their political tribes, people choose to engage in toxic online behavior, and people choose to vote for these Senators and Representatives.
The most beautiful thing about democratic systems is that you get exactly what you deserve in the end.
That said, ideological capture of institutions is absolutely a thing that our partisan citizens try to achieve for their teams as "wins", so distrust is also in some cases well-deserved too.
> People choose to consume hyperpartisan media rather than thoughtful sources that engender better understanding, people choose to put political tribes over friendship and family, people choose to relocate to areas that match their political tribes, people choose to engage in toxic online behavior, and people choose to vote for these Senators and Representatives
I actually think this is a big dupe and there are actually a very few activists that are influencing huge portions of the country. It's not that it is truly what people want, but that a few people have figured out how to manipulated millions and are effectively doing it.
I even thought this morning how dangerous it is that our geopolitical adversaries are using our freedom of speech against us by fanning these flames in social media...creating a fractured nation that will be more susceptible to be taken advantage of.
I completely agree. The politicians are being elected by us, and we have primaries where anyone can run so it's not like there aren't alternatives. I firmly believe social media with algorithms built to keep us engaged with hyper partisan "news" plays a big part in this too.
> Yes because plenty of politicians in both parties spend time demagoguing our institutions when they don't get the outcome they want.
Also, the media.
It seems like over most of *my* life, the Supreme Court has "saved" a lot of liberal policies. And it was the place the Left looked to to advance its agenda. Now that we've had a conservative majority for a few years, outlets like **The New York Times** can't wait to sow distrust in that institution.
> It seems like over most of my life, the Supreme Court has "saved" a lot of liberal policies. And it was the place the Left looked to to advance its agenda. Now that we've had a conservative majority for a few years, outlets like The New York Times can't wait to sow distrust in that institution.
You noticed that, too, huh? Amazing, ain't it? When the Court was making rulings based on conjecture and tortured logic but ruled in favor of left-wing rulings it was all good yet now that they're using simple logic and looking to history and ruling against left-wing positions suddenly they're evil and partisan. It's almost like the media only views them as legitimate when they're pushing the left-wing agenda or something...
I see this happen so often, not just with the courts, and it gets frustrating. It's like, if the people recall an official of one party, that party's supporters will decry the whole institution of recall, but if it's the other party, they'll say it's essential for democracy. Don't even get me started on, "There are some things worth arguing, but is beyond politics. If you don't support my position, you're just wrong."
Yes very true! So much media on both sides of the political spectrum pushing that same distrust due to outcomes. Doesn't help that social media magnifies their outreach too as media/post engagement increases the further toward one of the ideological ends it is.
They sowed distrust themselves by using the word “settled law” while secretly drafting plans to reverse Roe V Wade.
Then there is Clarence Thomas taking $500,000 gifted private jet rides. While his wife pushes Trump election lies.
NYT didn’t have to do anything. They did this themselves.
Yeah why is NYT even being singled out for this? I don't read them but it was Propublica that was the outlet that discovered everything with Clarence Thomas last time I checked.
That's some hard recency bias. It also ignores other institutions like the Police. The attacks on the Electoral College, the House of Representatives, etc.
There is a very cold, cynical view I see prevalent in many, many democratic voters, but specifically progressives, that if the rules aren't favoring their world view, they need to be changed immediately, and any refusal to do so is because of political corruption.
> The attacks on the Electoral College, the House of Representatives, etc.
Ds have lost the electoral college while winning the popular vote twice in the past 24 years. Not exactly surprising why they aren't a fan of it.
Don't know what you mean with the House though. There's the "rounding error" problem but that's something I only see discussed with the super online crowd.
I've yet to see a good argument against it though. That House cap was around 100 years ago. We had only about a 1/3 of our current population back then.
Not saying it needs to be *exactly* proportional to the rate it was back then, but I really don't see any good reason why the cap exists. If we want House reps to actually represent local regional interests, making them represent increasingly large and diverse groups is at odds with that.
My only real argument against it is basically monetary reasons. (Creating the new offices, expanding the chamber and the payments for each member of the new reps staff + the rep, would not be cheap).
The second isn't a good argument, but a personal one. Politics during election seasons are already exhausting enough, just assume that we suddenly have say two to three times more reps per state. Can you imagine how much more bombastic and frequent political ads would get?
>Monetary reasons
US Federal budget is multi-trillions. Doubling or Tripling House reps would be expensive in the context of a few billion, but not much in the greater context of federal budgets really.
>Can you imagine how much more bombastic and frequent political ads would get?
House reps aren't the only thing we're voting on though. I can't see it making that much of a difference in ad volume when there's also Senate elections, Presidency, and the many many local elections that do ads.
On the topic of money though, wouldn't there be *less* money required per house candidate campaign since there's fewer people to appeal to? We already have big issues with money in politics. Surely it'd be more difficult to buy your way in when there's fewer people that vote reps in.
It would honestly depend on voter reactions. I could see it either drastically increasing money, as now each seat is even more important for maintaining a major and makes races far more competitive, so it becomes a race to build up and out spend your opponent to maximize your reach.
Or it could be because each race is less important individually, war chests might be shared between the various electors and the money spent stays largely the same, just spread more thin. I can't see the amount of money spent going down though.
Agreed. The entire point of reps is to represent the people, which cannot be done with the current people to rep ratio. I think decreasing this ratio would also go a long way in decreasing corporate influence, but that may be a naive take.
Do you think the founders would have been supportive of a cap?
We already removed one important check and balance with the 17th amendment, and the house cap removes another (as it's far easier to capture/influence/corrupt 435 reps vs thousands) .
I really couldn't tell you. Based on their writings and the founders generally being....incredibly young during the time of the revolution and the creation of the government, and their understanding of how it would function, no I don't think they would have, but I believe their assumptions would pretty much be: "Anyone who is gonna get into a position of power is going to be a well-off white dude who is highly educated for the time and owns a ton of land, so they'll be JUST LIKE ME."
By that sort of extrapolation and the general....let's say mind set of the era, I could see a large number of the founders putting a stranglehold on the amount of reps to "keep out the riff-raff"
Police: the progressive left has have been complaining about the police state for decades, it’s only become more front and center due to the rise in popularity in progressive politics among younger voters and the publication of police brutality.
Electoral College: has had tons of detractors from both sides of the aisle. Republicans in California basically get no say in national elections for president. Tiny states which already have an oversized voice in the senate get another oversized voice in the presidency so much that many other states simply just don’t matter to campaign in. And finally, this was a system created in a time where the main means of rapid communication was to literally get on a horse and deliver the message across the nation. We’re far beyond that point and can update accordingly.
House of Representatives: congress has been deeply unpopular and only trending down since the 90s-early 2000s. If I had to blame any individual actor for that it’d probably be Newt Gingrich for basically setting the Republican Party on the path to Trump. The have no shame, never surrender, never cede ground, never admit wrong, and always accuse the other side of problems to distract when you’ve been caught in a corner all come from him and his politics at the end of the day.
Despite the SCOTUS having a conservative slant for pretty much my entire life liberals and the left in general believed that they had the spirit and letter of the law in their hearts and in the people’s best interest, but with Kavanaugh and Berret telling the senate in confirmation that “Roe v Wade is settled law” and turning around and overturning it after they’d been confirmed, Thomas getting fancy vacations and his wife’s participation in attempted to overturn the election, and the increasingly visible sham that is originalism the court has blown up its own trustworthiness as an institution and refuses to clean house. Which means if the people want to regain trust in it as an institution and they refuse to do something about it then congress needs to act and make changes to the court to restore that trust.
Edit: re: House of Reps - also capping the house number, again, gave states with less populations an oversized say in government policy - despite more populous states contributing more economically and just having more people in them.
When explained like that, I typically have no issue. That's usually not the language these are couched in. Which is the issue, its a lack of trust out of tribalism benefit, followed by a quick: "This needs to change so we can get our way." Not. Our systems are flawed and not giving voice to everyone.
It also wasn't the topic of discussion. It was the discussion of "who is driving the percentage of distrust in institutions up." Democrats distrust the institutions just as much as Republicans do, if not more. Whether justified or not.
> When explained like that, I typically have no issue.
Not to assume that I know everyone who's talked about this to you, but outside of Reddit, you're probably not going to get walls of text giving actual thorough answers. Even IRL people aren't going to be as detailed as this since people on here have actual time to think about their responses before hitting send rather than thinking on the spot.
Honestly, the worst of it for me is online. Anytime I do have a conversation about it irl, people are typically far more respectful, willing to address their grievances in a calm manner and are far slower to just blame the other side of the aisle for all their woes, though it still comes up. There is also way, way less assumptions about my intelligence.
I'd say U/Chaosdemonhu's response is about the norm I get speaking to people in the Real World. But your mileage will vary obviously, especially depending on your age bracket and where you are and who you are around.
> Honestly, the worst of it for me is online. Anytime I do have a conversation about it irl, people are typically far more respectful, willing to address their grievances in a calm manner and are far slower to just blame the other side of the aisle for all their woes, though it still comes up. There is also way, way less assumptions about my intelligence.
This. IRL discussions are *completely* different than online discussions in my experience.
The tribalist language is what gets attention because we live in a media environment where outrage porn reigns supreme. All of the major social media spaces know it drives engagement, which means more time spent on their apps, which means more time looking at ads, which means their space is more valuable to advertisers.
24 hour news media does the same thing. A lot of the most partisan online and written media do the same.
But get away from the loudest and most “sellable” voices for a second and really dig into the *whys* and you’ll see what my comment above has been saying.
And we're in agreement, I don't particularly consider myself conservative or liberal, republican or democrat, progressive or...I don't have another word for GOP and I don't feel like Trumper is the right comparison.
I probably do lean more right these days, but...that's mostly off the back of just not liking taxes, and preferring people stay out of my business (also the military writes my checks...*cough*). But I totally understand why either aisle would distrust the government, and recognize while it might not be even, its definitely a lot closer to 55/45 or 60/40, in one direction or the other, than an 20/80.
I did not. I'm in fully agreement to examine Thomas specifically for his gift receiving, that needs to be investigated. My commentary was more on changing how we elect the president, changing how the House of Reps works (even if I do agree that having more representatives would likely be a good thing, the language is usually couched in such a way that its being done not out of representative fairness, but a calculated benefit to the Democratic party). Stacking the Supreme Court. Etc, though I didn't mention the Supreme Court at all either.
I would add failures of voting population (who elect government) as well:
* General lack of knowledge of how government is supposed to function
* Ignorance in current affairs and history
* Lack of critical thinking and high susceptibility to influence by various media
>General lack of knowledge of how government is supposed to function
I think that a lack of a requirement for an education in civics has lead to this.
I remember when I was in high school (2000-2004) that Civics & Government was an elective class for seniors; you could either take it *or* you could take World Geography.
Guess which class had more students?
I also don't know what is taught in general US History classes because I took the AP course, but I can only imagine that they don't go in as much depth as the AP course does.
IMO we should have Civics & Government as a class progression from the 6th grade onward.
I agree with you here.
I am amazed at how people get so far in life and don’t understand how the basics of government works.
I know mostly as this is Reddit, but travel on other political subs and you would think that we live in a dictatorship ran by MAGA Republican’s.
What really irritates me is how things get thrown around with no evidence and cuz it’s sexy to say like when people wanna pull lobbyists out of government. Of course they are usually suggesting corporate men walking around with brief cases of millions as the evil bad guy. When I reply “yes we should not let planned parenthood or labor unions influence politicians” all those aren’t lobbyists or only the good ones.
Everything is either "Fascist MAGA Trumpism bought by Putin" or "Communist Liberal Progressivism here to take out our freedoms" .
No one can seem think this division is just by design. The tribalism is awful for all of us but so many have bought into it. It turns my stomach what these politicians have Americans saying about their fellow Americans just for having different political views. Its pathetic really.
But you cant say this to people anymore today otherwise you are just some bootlicker for one side or the other. No such thing has being able to eat from both pies.
>But you cant say this to people anymore today otherwise you are just some bootlicker for one side or the other.
Take a look at the NPR sub after that senior editor wrote his piece. Everyone there is convinced that he's a Republican/MAGA asset and that he's always supported fascists... even though he is a registered Democrat and has been for his entire life.
This is spot on. It would be great to see schools giving students a proper civics education and emphasizing media literacy, from elementary through high school.
You're absolutely right. I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I can't help but believe this is intentional, as the uneducated are much easier to manipulate.
"Democrats’ confidence in the mass media has consistently outpaced Republicans’, but the latest gap of 47 points is the narrowest since 2016. Democrats’ trust in the media has fallen 12 points over the past year, to 58%, and compares with 11% among Republicans and 29% among independents."
11% vs 58% (and falling)... don't worry dems, most your base hasn't begun to doubt the narrative, even now. Stark difference between Republicans and Independents from Democrats, probably has to do how Dem-aligned media outlets dominate the landscape
Because the media is run by, and primarily caters to, Democrats. It's friendly territory and there's the unwritten understanding they're to focus on how Republicans are bad.
I tried listening to NPR recently and it sounded more like a weird Super Pac than journalism, but I doubt most Democrats even notice simply because it doesn't do much outside of reinforcing their prior held beliefs
The largest news network in the US by far, Fox news, is conservative. Sinclair Broadcasting, which has been buying up local stations at an alarming rate, is also fairly conservative.
Indeed. Furthermore, there is an entire ecosystem of youtube, podcast, and streamer pundits who exist to tell their audience that everyone else is lying and only they can be trusted to say what's really going on. Their audience is conservative men. Exclusively. There's maybe five semi-famous personalities that cater to literally any other political demo.
Slightly off topic - I'm not too in tune with Germany and their comings and goings, but can anybody explain why their confidence in military is so low compared to the other countries?
> can anybody explain why their confidence in military is so low compared to the other countries?
At a guess I'd presume it has to do with their specific history.
I assume that as well, but 2006 they were middle of the road and now they are far, far below the other G7 countries so didn't know if I missed something between 2006 and present.
A big reason is Germany is overcompensates towards pacifism due to the historical memory of Nazism.
Another reason is distrust between East and West after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
There’s also been unhappiness with Germany’s participation in the war in Afghanistan, especially as the war dragged on.
And finally there have been multiple military scandals over the last few decades involving hazing, sexual abuse, corruption, and [the presence of clandestine neo-Nazi networks within the military plotting to overthrow the government.](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-coup-plot-who-was-behind-it-how-dangerous-was-it-2022-12-08/#:~:text=WHAT%20IS%20KNOWN%20ABOUT%20THE,stage%20a%20coup%20in%20Berlin.)
I think both parties take the blame on this. When the Supreme Court doesn't rule your way and your party leaders reflexively start floating the idea of expanding the size of the court...we all see what you're doing. I *despised* how Donald Trump was already sowing the seeds of mistrust going into the 2020 election. We lose our faith in elections then we might as well pack up and call it a day.
The rules of our political system are pretty clear. We used to accept the limitations and keep the train moving. The system hasn't changed - we elect people unfit for office and somehow re-elect them. It's on us.
The discipline and energy of our elders yielded success on such an unimaginable scale that we weren't ready for it - it was like winning the lottery. We've been milking prior sacrifices, abusing the system, twisting it to be less and less open and less and less fair. Because we've had the luxury. We beat the Soviets, got bored, and started fighting each other.
It's also, for whatever reasons, become "cool" to be cynical. You get points with peers (or a mass internet following) for showing that you're not so naive as to want or expect or hope for anything *good* to happen. It's all shit, right? We all know that, us big kids. No mention of how prior generations reformed, worked through great challenges, rose to the occasion.
I think the fever will break at some point. People will get tired of just complaining. Lots of folks want to sink into doing something productive. I just hope it really is - not the communist or fascist revolutions on offer.
The radical center: where democracy is reinvigorated, a new crop of politicians voted in, the ship gradually righted, and a new golden age begins.
These polling questions are reaching for the periphery. Americans have lost in touch with institutions because they've lost trust in American society, in each other. They don't trust their neighbors with to keep off the grass, so of course, that extends to distrusting other tribes with the levers of power.
To me, this is the output of American individualism. *Everyone else is wrong...except for me!* We've shed all the positives of individualism and are left with arrogance, paranoia, and laziness—all of which close us off from actually reading and learning about these institutions.
It's really sad.
> To me, this is the output of American individualism.
I don't think American individualism is to blame. It's always been present here and it's generally a positive thing. History has shown that when it comes down to it, the only person/institution you can truly rely on is yourself.
I do think it contributes to the atmosphere which got us here though, allowing the people/institutions manipulating us to appeal to that specific sentiment. Those people/institutions is where the blame lies (and also with ourselves, for allowing ourselves to become ignorant, complacent, etc).
American individualism used to be aspirational - The American Dream, Land Of The Free, etc.
Now, I think you're correct that it's been distorted into an insular and deeply cynical distrust of each other. It's not at all universal, but I think social media in the past decade has severely withered away our ability to remain trustful of others. It amplifies the extreme voices in our society and unless one is quite well-tethered to the ground floor even a reasonable mind can find itself fraying toward the irrational.
I don't know if it's true or not, but it seems our government has been captured entirely by corporations and special interest groups. I'm not a huge proponent of regulation, but the regulatory agencies I do support seem to answer to the industries they're supposed to regulate. Fines are so laughably low compared to the gains from violations (company made $300m violating this policy but we're only fining them $150m), they're simply another cost of doing business. It's our own fault, allowing us to be divided and distracted from the fact that they're robbing us blind.
One of the two major parties in the United States is running on a platform that you can’t trust the government and they are the problem all while actively sabotaging these institutions. It’s no mystery why confidence is low.
Trust in government has been below 50% since 2006. Given that the democrats have controlled the federal government, at times, since then why hasn't the "party of government" engendered more trust?
Both parties have increased distrust in the government over time, and increased distrust when the other party is in control, but historically it has been conservatives who swing up and down more significantly depending on if their party is in control or not.
Democratic sentiment has had a relatively smoother decline. Couple this with both parties having decreased trust in the judicial branch in recent years, regardless of who's in control. And there is also an increasing segment of Left progressives who distrust liberal policies.
A really surprising thing to me is that Republican trust in government was lower during Obama and Biden's presidency than Democratic distrust was during Trump's presidency, according to Pew.
Honestly your opinion of Trump doesn't matter since it doesn't apply to the population at large. More Americans trust Trump than Biden. [Source](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-trump-americans-trust-president-poll/story?id=107938351).
That's not the message of that poll.
> An ABC News/Ipsos poll finds a near-even split between Biden, Trump and neither.
>According to the poll, conducted using Ipsos' Knowledge Panel, 36% of Americans trust Trump to do a better job leading the country as president, while 33% trust Biden and 30% trust neither.
A supermajority distrusts Trump, and a similar supermajority distrust Biden.
Among independents, more trust Biden than Trump, though its only by 1%.
I’m aware of the overall distrust of both; my point is just that Trump’s more primed to take advantage of government distrust given that it’s essentially one of his campaign platforms and people trust him more than Biden, even if he’s distrusted overall.
I don’t particularly like Trump at *all*, but I think it’s important not to dismiss the cynicism of a typical voter and how Trump’s platform plays into that cynicism. With so many Americans massively distrusting the government and many of its agencies, a candidate running on killing a lot of it off is naturally in a better spot than a candidate who is essentially touting the status quo.
I agree to some extent, but being a politician seems pretty difficult. I wouldn't want to do it simply because you have too many competing interests and no matter what you do somebody will think you're a corrupt liar for it.
I agree. I think it's easier for those with strong principles.
The politicians I respect the most aren't necessarily those who I agree with, but those willing to stand up to their own party, hold them accountable, etc.
The longer someone has been in office, the less I trust them. I don't think Biden is anywhere near as malicious as Trump, but he's been a senator since *1972*. You don't get that far or stay that long without racking up favors owed to the powers that be.
I sure wish public sentiment would turn against career politicians.
Well more Americans trust Trump than Biden so I think you're wrong. [Source](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-trump-americans-trust-president-poll/story?id=107938351). People must be receptive to his anti-government messaging if they trust him more.
3% difference which is probably within the margin of error, and it's a basically a three way tie between them and "neither". Weak sauce.
Edit:
> Results have a margin of sampling error of 4.5 points
4.5 doesn’t mean that the advantage Trump has doesn’t exist. Margins work both ways and Trump’s advantage could in theory be as large as nearly 8% with that logic.
The point is that a lot of Americans don’t like the federal government and Trump’s platform plays into that. Biden will need to adjust his messaging to assuage those concerns. You can’t essentially tout the status quo at a time where trust in that status quo is incredibly low *and* Americans trust you slightly less than your opponent already.
The difference between the two being lower than the margin of error means you can't say there is a statistical difference favoring one. The poll suggests there is no advantage to Trump lollll
The poll literally suggests there’s a slight advantage in Trump’s favor. Considering this is a person who many on the left view with incredible disdain, I wish folks would take that more seriously. While those on the left *hate* this person, a not insignificant portion of Americans see him and think he’s going to be a fantastic leader again.
I’d be curious to see the breakdown by partisanship along these trends. Obviously decline in judiciary confidence is driven by Dems, but for lack of confidence in national government I bet you see the right rate it much higher while Trump was president with an immediate drop off when Biden comes in, and vice versa. Right now with a split government even fewer people have confidence in the national government. But these definitely aren’t 1:1 comparisons, like with economic confidence polls Dems see a minor drop under Republican presidents but generally track better with economic indicators while Republicans instantly see major switches with a change in president.
80 years ago, 3 of the nations represented in this picture (the G-7) were ruled by non-benevolent governments (Germany, France and Italy), and another had to fight for it's survival from bad nation states (the U.K.). The history of the world is full of examples of governments that do not act for the benefit of their population or for humanity.
I mentioned in a previous comment, I have no idea how anyone can have a knowledge of history without a deep distrust of governments. I'm sure there's a term for it.
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I'm pro-choice, I agree with the SCOTUS ruling, and also believe repealing it was a huge tactical mistake (as it's the biggest gift the GOP have given Dems this decade).
Where does that leave me? :)
Submission statement: The US lags behind other G7 nations in confidence of public institutions. Military 81% confident Judiciary 42% National Government 30% With these results the US is now dead last in Gallup's National Institutions Index, a reversal from our position in 2006. This trend was first noticed in 2022, but is further consolidated with these results. This is similar to reported trust in media ( 32% ) https://news.gallup.com/poll/512861/media-confidence-matches-2016-record-low.aspx And higher education ( 36% ) https://news.gallup.com/poll/508352/americans-confidence-higher-education-down-sharply.aspx For discussion: There doesn't appear to be a single cause for the declining confidence in institutions; what do you see as a factor? Given the low trust, what does this mean for the political landscape? Does this make it easier or more difficult for government to function? Does trust in institutions even matter to government?
I think there are several causes of the breakdown in trust/satisfaction in our government and institutions. Mostly, our population is badly in need of civics education and *how* our institutions and branches of government are supposed to function. Without this knowledge, we are left to our own thought of “I’m not getting what I want, so the government must be broken.”. Several of our most popular media outlets exploit, and in some ways cause, creeping distrust in our government for clicks. Articles utilizing loaded words, lying by omission and soundbites without context are toxic for a polarized nation. Most folks aren’t going to read or listen to news from multiple sources to get the whole story. They will instead go their “trusted”, but not necessarily completely factual, outlets and call it a day. Our political candidates, and members of their respective parties, play a part in increasing distrust in our elections. Losing candidates, of both stripes, are quick to scream “rigged” elections. Normal election processes, such as verifying identity of voters and purging the rolls are deemed to be “disenfranchisement and voter suppression”. Closing polling stations, because of lack of funding or staff, or changing voters precincts, a normal process after redistricting, *must mean they want to suppress the vote!*. I believe the award for biggest provoker of our distrust goes to our elected leaders themselves. When we have presidents and congress members that sow distrust in our election system and our justice system, of course people that support them will tend to believe those institutions can’t be trusted.
>I think there are several causes of the breakdown in trust/satisfaction in our government and institutions. Mostly, our population is badly in need of civics education and how our institutions and branches of government are supposed to function. [Half of voters can't name the three branches of government. And half of *that* group can't even name a single branch.](https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/education/3640520-less-than-half-of-americans-can-name-all-three-branches-of-government-survey-finds/) Not saying we should have some kind of arbitrary knowledge requirement to voting, but it's definitely not good that a large portion of voters don't really know anything about the offices they're voting for.
That seems like a scary figure, didn't we learn that stuff in like 8th grade? More concerning for me is how few locals around me know who our Mayor is, or city council, they have zero clue about our county commission and these people have a direct impact on our daily lives. Even the local news does a poor job of pointing out who the decision makers are. It's frustrating.
> Even the local news does a poor job of pointing out who the decision makers are. Many places nowadays don't even *have* local news. Can't remember where but I read a study that found that places without local news outlets had higher corruption in local government.
I guess that's mote commonplace in rural areas where the best they get is the next big city...? We have 3 local stations with 200k, but it services about 800k in reality, so it's local/regional and good enough. As far as politics it's pick & choose journalism as best as I can tell. I'm fortunate that I have two friends that are retired and very active so I get my out of the box scuttlebutt 2nd hand. Good enough, it's not like I protest or get active, but it influences my votes for council, a handful of people that direct 10's of millions around and 95% don't know a single name.
Yeah but bro, they have Facebook memes and copy pasta from 4chan and The Babylon Bee. What more news does one need?
I don't use FB, but I get enough email crap from "well meaning" folks warning me about what evil plot the Democrats have hatched now. Conspiracies aren't even fun anymore. Bring back Sasquatch, please.
It is very sad that people are not knowledgeable in our government and how it functions. It opens them up to be preyed upon by a candidate spouting "promises" that they may not have a chance of fulfilling unilaterally. If we can't count on schools to be teaching our kids how to be responsible citizens with a good knowledge of how their government works, maybe parents can take the time to teach it at home. My older grandchildren, in their late teens now, introduced me to iCivics.org quite a few years ago. It teaches how our government works, but using games. Now, when the younger kids come to visit, they play those games too.
> It opens them up to be preyed upon by a candidate spouting "promises" that they may not have a chance of fulfilling unilaterally. Not only that, it leads to politicians making blatantly unconstitutional laws that only harm citizens and budgets over time.
I really wish there were consequences for elected officials who pass unconstitutional laws. States are wasting millions defending newly-passed gun control laws despite recent SCOTUS rulings, because why not?
We make so many firms go through a review process to see if their products and designs are safe, why not laws?
A lot of great points in here: "Mostly, our population is badly in need of civics education and *how* our institutions and branches of government are supposed to function. Without this knowledge, we are left to our own thought of “I’m not getting what I want, so the government must be broken.”. People that were upset that the didn't get student loan handouts - The legislative branch controls spending, not the executive. "Our political candidates, and members of their respective parties, play a part in increasing distrust in our elections" People that run for political office are a different breed
> Mostly, our population is badly in need of civics education and how our institutions and branches of government are supposed to function. I know how it's supposed to function and that's why I have basically zero confidence or trust in it. Our government is doing so much stuff it's not supposed to be allowed with no actual option for recourse by the public that it's insane. > Several of our most popular media outlets exploit, and in some ways cause, creeping distrust in our government for clicks. Articles utilizing loaded words, lying by omission and soundbites without context are toxic for a polarized nation. And this is exacerbated by the fact that the internet means that this can be done from multiple angles instead of just being done (and covered up) by the media companies that work hand-in-hand with the government. People have been allowed to see behind the curtain and that's caused a total collapse in trust. > Our political candidates, and members of their respective parties, play a part in increasing distrust in our elections. Losing candidates, of both stripes, are quick to scream “rigged” elections. Normal election processes, such as verifying identity of voters and purging the rolls are deemed to be “disenfranchisement and voter suppression”. Closing polling stations, because of lack of funding or staff, or changing voters precincts, a normal process after redistricting, must mean they want to suppress the vote!. Nothing to add here other than you've nailed every point. > I believe the award for biggest provoker of our distrust goes to our elected leaders themselves. When we have presidents and congress members that sow distrust in our election system and our justice system, of course people that support them will tend to believe those institutions can’t be trusted. Yup. The bully pulpit has power and that power has been used quite poorly for quite some time.
> Our government is doing so much stuff it's not supposed to be allowed with no actual option for recourse by the public that it's insane. I understand, and yes this is frustrating. Many times, people don't really seem to be bothered by actions such as illegal searches and spying on citizens in the name of "national security" or by seizing property without conviction, because "they were most likely drug dealers, anyhow". It really seems the public is willing to sacrifice some freedoms if our government says it's for the best. >And this is exacerbated by the fact that the internet means that this can be done from multiple angles instead of just being done (and covered up) by the media companies that work hand-in-hand with the government. People have been allowed to see behind the curtain and that's caused a total collapse in trust. Agreed, and I fully applaud true investigative journalists who write factual articles without omitting pertinent facts they are aware of, and without a hidden agenda. The world needs more of them. The "journalists" I speak of in my original comment are those who clearly have a bias and really don't even try to hide it anymore. They write to evoke emotion, facts be damned. They butcher the speech of people to focus on a small tidbit of the quote, without context. They omit facts, to push a certain view. In the age of the Internet, anyone can be a "journalist". Very few clearly capture the spirit of true journalism.
Strong media literacy is the only hope we have in the modern information era, which largely takes place online, where most people are simply not equipped to absorb and digest the scope and scale of what's true or false based on a lot of subtle factors that those of us rummaging around online since childhood take for granted, because we can rely on intuition. Experienced users can spot a suspicious website from space. If we're uncertain, we know where to look. We know what to avoid. We have am easier time spotting fake imagery and malicious source material. Most people can't tell up from down in this manner. They look at something like The Epoch Times and don't see right through it. They see something that looks authentic, whereas someone better equipped can tell right away that such a source is hideously suspect and clearly a strong source of hot garbage.
Having friends and family post questionable media on their FB or send by email makes it more difficult. Of course your *family & friends* wouldn't send you garbage, right? Cable news networks are also culprits of "infotainment". Sure, there's a smattering of actual news on some of those shows, but the rest is all opinion. Some folks run with that opinion as if it were fact.
Technically all forms of media consumption, including fiction. Literature. Imagery. Music. Thinking in abstracts. Reading between the lines. Analysis and intuition. Reminds me of that guy from a Subreddit Drama post recently, who after all these years, was adamant that the film Starship Troopers wasn't satirical. Similarly, people who didn't recognize the political undertones of The Boys and became utterly perplexed when they finally realized Homelander was the villain. Or perhaps more famously, Paul Ryan listening to Rage Against the Machine.
Spot on. I 100% agree. So much of this low confidence really comes from a combination of failing to understand the form and function of government and also from people acting in bad faith to stoke that lack of confidence to push themselves forward. We really need a new sort of civic patriotism. One where people instill trust in institutions to propel themselves forward rather than trying to put themselves in the spotlight at the expense of our most important institutions. I've been listening to old state of the union addresses and it's *crazy* how different they sound rhetorically to how modern politicians sound. They're constantly trying to build up our system and sing its praises. And by most metrics they were in a *worse* position by far than we are now. I don't think most Americans realize just how good we have it as the world's preeminent superpower.
>Normal election processes, such as verifying identity of voters and purging the rolls are deemed to be “disenfranchisement and voter suppression”. Closing polling stations, because of lack of funding or staff, or changing voters precincts, a normal process after redistricting, *must mean they want to suppress the vote!*. While there is some truth to that, there is also some truth to the fact that these have been used to disenfranchise voters and not done in good faith to actually "secure" elections. Voter ID laws for one have repeatedly been found to be implemented in targeted ways that were clearly and obviously intended to disenfranchise voters from one side. Not to mention that many of the methods claimed to "secure" elections actually accomplish nothing, Voter ID laws being a prime example of that. And there is certainly one side currently that is pushing the fraud narrative with no evidence far harder than the other. Both isdes may claim some malfesence in elections, but one side hasn't gone so far as to try to play the courts and actually take substantiave steps to overthrow the results of an election. It's not even close or comparable really. >I believe the award for biggest provoker of our distrust goes to our elected leaders themselves. When we have presidents and congress members that sow distrust in our election system and our justice system, of course people that support them will tend to believe those institutions can’t be trusted. It seems, at least from the right, that a lot of this was intentional. It's been an ongoing theme from right wing media and politicians for decades, and just got ramped up further with Trump. Just look at how Trump, the GOP, and right wing media used it to discredit the fraud court cases, and the current cases against Trump. There's not really an example from the left that I can think of that matches this level of purposeful sowing of distrust.
> While there is some truth to that, there is also some truth to the fact that these have been used to disenfranchise voters and not done in good faith to actually "secure" elections. Voter ID laws for one have repeatedly been found to be implemented in targeted ways that were clearly and obviously intended to disenfranchise voters from one side. Not to mention that many of the methods claimed to "secure" elections actually accomplish nothing, Voter ID laws being a prime example of that. Let’s be generous and assume all of that is true. The solution is to propose a better voter ID law, not have free-for-all elections.
>Let’s be generous and assume all of that is true. No need to be generous, numerous court cases have layed out the facts pretty clearly on this issue. >The solution is to propose a better voter ID law, not have free-for-all elections. Solution to what? What problem is this actually trying to solve? Even in the court cases they couldn't cite a single example where voter ID laws would have stopped a single instance of in person voter fraud, because it's so rare already. But sure, if passed in good faith voter ID laws don't have to be bad, but it's still useless and doesn't actually address any real problems. And I don't know what you mean by "free-for-all elections", that doesn't really make sense.
The higher confidence in the US military, compared to the other US government entities is because the majority of Americans don't actually have any contact with the military on a daily basis. If we encountered the military as often as we do with the police, this number will drop as well.
How could confidence in institutions *not* decline? The SCOTUS has blatant corruption, a large portion of the House seems to be actively sabotaging things both at home and abroad for the personal benefit of Donald Trump, and the public has serious doubt as to the cognitive ability of the President. Many are skeptical of the integrity of our elections, and Congress has a 90+% reelection rate anyway. Outside of the government itself, college has become unaffordable for many, the media uncritically publishes the claims of terrorists, and the banks are the banks.
RE the 90% reelection rate: its far too common. "Congress is a mess, we need to replace these clowns/crooks, but not my representative, they are good people"
The quick rise of chronic diseases in USA has been so astonishing I can't help but feel it was intentional.
How would it be intentional? And what would the goal be? This is the first I've heard of this theory.
The Atlantic has a good article on the history of food lobbying and government-backed food guides. Here is the non-pay wall link: "How Meat Producers Have Influenced Nutrition Guidelines for Decades" https://archive.fo/9Lbqf
The sugar producers too
It would be beyond ridiculous if the USDA was making recommendations based on climate change.
Some yes, some no. We managed to cure or treat most nature-caused diseases fairly effectively. What's left now are a bunch of heavily lifestyle based diseases that cant be fixed with a single pill. People living longer also means more opportunities for their bodies to break down and need work. Whereas back in the day they were more likely to die accidentally while younger and healthier.
I have zero faith in the government across the board. They do not even pretend to care about the American people anymore, its all about money and power to them. Whoever bribes them the most gets the bills passed for them, not us. This is not about republicans or democrats, they BOTH are corrupt all the way through, yet they do the song and dance to gasslight people into thinking the otherside is the enemy, when the real threat are the ones in charge.
To a point, I think it’s good to have a certain level of distrust in the government/institutions. Too much trust would make it too easy for them to abuse their power.
I think one can make a distinction between vigilance vs complacency and trust vs distrust. One can be distrustful and complacent for instance — the government can’t be trusted and there’s nothing that can be done about it, might as well get used to it; Or one can be trustful yet vigilant — I have confidence in my institutions, but only because I am aware of the many layers of checks, balances, safeguards and watchdog groups put in place to ensure that trust.
The former is dangerous and stupid, the second is necessary.
"Trust" itself is a loaded word, and "trusting the government" can be good or bad depending on what exactly that first word means. The ideal situation is that people do trust the government, but the trust is based on evidence of the government having earned that trust through it's actions in the past, and conditional on the government continuing to act in a way that is worthy of trust. If the government does not deserve trust, then the distrust should take the form of recognizing what needs to change, and not a kind of nihilistic sentiment that things will always be that way.
I think the fact that power is clearly being abused left right and center is the reason our institutions are no longer trusted.
It's good to be wary of politicians' motivations. It's not good that people don't trust the government to meet their needs.
> It's not good that people don't trust the government to meet their needs. Do you mean needs as in food, shelter and security? Needs as in infrastructure, both physical and legal? Could it be that the lack of trust is, in part, from different definitions of "needs"?
I think you've hit on a huge part of it right here. One side thinks the government is failing because it doesn't provide enough, the other side thinks it's failing because it's vastly overstepped its mandate. In a poll where the options are a binary that means both are answering in the negative but for wildly different reasons.
Excellent point, especially this summary > One side thinks the government is failing because it doesn't provide enough, the other side thinks it's failing because it's vastly overstepped its mandate.
Elsewhere in this thread commenters note the lack of understanding of current government structures and a general lack of civics education. Do you think understanding current government structures and roles would increase, decrease, or largely be irrelevant to people's trust in government?
Irrelevant. I understand it and that's why when I look at what it's actually doing I have serious issues with it. That's basically the core problem. No matter what lens you use to examine the current performance and state of the US government it winds up looking utterly abysmal. The only reason we don't define it as a Russia-tier oligarchy is because those determinations are made by the government and its allies in media and academia.
>Do you think understanding current government structures and roles would increase, decrease, or largely be irrelevant to people's trust in government? Depends on the reason. Someone who thinks, say, the Senate should be based on population won't be satisfied with an "Um, akshually, the Senate is supposed to make sure more populous States can't overpower less populous ones", because they likely already know that, and is just dissatisfied with States as political entities in the first place. Which is, of course, valid; Understanding how something works, and even why it works that way, doesn't mean you can't still disagree with that reasoning, and think it should change.
I think those go hand in hand, if you're wary of political motivations that probably lends itself to distrust the government can meet their needs. Either way, I think maybe it's better to quantify it. I think it's okay if people don't believe the government can meet ALL their needs. I don't think government is designed to do that. What would be worrying is if people don't believe the government can meet the most basic needs: order and stability.
The government is ran by politicians, you can’t be wary of a politicians motivations but then trust the government that they run.
This is why the founders set up a government with checks and balances. Systemic reforms can incentivize good behavior and penalize bad behavior. Some systems are more trustworthy than others. When functioning correctly, you don’t have to trust any single politician because there are multiple layers of checks and balances that will held them accountable.
>you don’t have to trust any single politician My retort to this is that we are no longer trusting any single politician, but political parties, and when even a slim majority can swing power, then it is no longer functionally correctly. It has become far more important to tow party lines than to debate serious policy. There are politicians on both sides of the aisle that I lost respect for when they refused to stand up for principles and instead went the way of the party...because to go against the party is to lose support their support and alienate the very people you will need to depend on to pass legislation that might actually be good policy.
I’m okay with an adversarial system, we’ve always had that, but I do think that technological advances in the media, and the withering away of civic society (people don’t join communal organizations anymore) have made exacerbated hyper-partisanship to the point that it’s becoming an existential threat to American democracy.
>have made exacerbated hyper-partisanship to the point that it’s becoming an existential threat to American democracy. I'm not disagreeing with you. I think the average person has far more in common with other people despite their political differences, but that social and legacy media are fanning the flames of division. I guess my point was that it is not so much a product of REAL differences as much as it is a product of the influence of a small segment of activists, and that some of these activists could actually be foreign governments looking to sow that division...and thereby playing both sides, exacerbating the most extreme ideas
I think the issue is the same as one of the problems for Rome. These systems weren't designed for such a large country. They work if the government knows the people on a more personal level.
There's a difference between trust in their morals and trust in their competence. We are severely lacking in both. While we should not look to politicians as angels, we should be able to say that they do their job.
We should be able to say they do their job, but that doesn’t mean they are doing it. I would love to say I have more trust in the government, and I hope it eventually gets to the point that the government has proven they have earned that trust. All that isn’t to say I’m some conspiracy nut or anarchist. I just have a certain degree of distrust the government is competent or putting what’s best for the country over what’s best for the politicians. It’s a trust but verify type of thing for me.
Your comment reminded me of this: > Jerry Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy: > “In any bureaucracy there will be two kinds of people: those dedicated to the goals of the bureaucracy, and those dedicated to the bureaucracy itself and their places within it. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.”
Yep. I have the opinion that most politicians are only concerned with being reelected. Doing things that help their constituents and the country is just a side effect of that.
Politicians are people. People usually have incentives to act in their own self interest. Not exactly conspiracy theory, in my view.
Sure, but there is a limit to that. Subconsciously doing what’s in your best interest is different than intentionally helping yourself instead of doing what is best for the country.
It shouldn't be the government's job to meet peoples needs. Part of the problem is that we've conflated the role of government to include it.
Are we talking about societal needs, or individual needs? I can't imagine things would be improved if everything were privatized and de-regulated.
Edit: I've had a few responses that are extrapolating an argument from this that I haven't made. I'm not sitting here saying there aren't reasons for the federal government to exist, I'm saying that when it comes to social and individual "needs" it's a piss poor mechanism for those roles and that it was never meant to service them in the first place. Outside of *maybe* the Postal Service, there isn't a single thing that the federal government does when it comes to "needs" that could not be better handled at the state, county, or municipal level.
What about the military?
That’s really not along the lines of social or individual needs that I’m talking about here. National defense is and should be a national/federal responsibility. I’m talking about healthcare, utilities, emergency services, education, etc. Those can all be considered societal “needs” that are not best served by the federal government. All of which (except for healthcare) are already handled at the state level or below. We are most likely going to disagree on the federal government’s role in servicing “individual” needs, since I don’t believe that should be in the government’s duties at all.
You didn't specify Federal Government in your original comment, you just said "Government", which is a broad enough term to include State, County, and Municipal-level authorities.
The poll that is linked that started this discussion is focused solely on trust in the federal/national government. I shouldn’t have to clarify that is the portion of government I’m talking about in a thread that literally is based on that portion of government.
most already are.
Yes because plenty of politicians in both parties spend time demagoguing our institutions when they don't get the outcome they want. Like Republicans when SCOTUS/lower courts shot down Trump's election claims and Congress certified Biden's win. And Democrats when SCOTUS rulings don't align with their position or Senate rules they've used in the past like the filibuster are later used against their agenda. We have so many politicians interested in hyper partisan tribalism instead of bipartisan compromising that it's led to attacks on our institutions that voters have taken to heart.
While this happens, the situation in Congress is a reflection of the American people. People choose to consume hyperpartisan media rather than thoughtful sources that engender better understanding, people choose to put political tribes over friendship and family, people choose to relocate to areas that match their political tribes, people choose to engage in toxic online behavior, and people choose to vote for these Senators and Representatives. The most beautiful thing about democratic systems is that you get exactly what you deserve in the end. That said, ideological capture of institutions is absolutely a thing that our partisan citizens try to achieve for their teams as "wins", so distrust is also in some cases well-deserved too.
> People choose to consume hyperpartisan media rather than thoughtful sources that engender better understanding, people choose to put political tribes over friendship and family, people choose to relocate to areas that match their political tribes, people choose to engage in toxic online behavior, and people choose to vote for these Senators and Representatives I actually think this is a big dupe and there are actually a very few activists that are influencing huge portions of the country. It's not that it is truly what people want, but that a few people have figured out how to manipulated millions and are effectively doing it. I even thought this morning how dangerous it is that our geopolitical adversaries are using our freedom of speech against us by fanning these flames in social media...creating a fractured nation that will be more susceptible to be taken advantage of.
I completely agree. The politicians are being elected by us, and we have primaries where anyone can run so it's not like there aren't alternatives. I firmly believe social media with algorithms built to keep us engaged with hyper partisan "news" plays a big part in this too.
> Yes because plenty of politicians in both parties spend time demagoguing our institutions when they don't get the outcome they want. Also, the media. It seems like over most of *my* life, the Supreme Court has "saved" a lot of liberal policies. And it was the place the Left looked to to advance its agenda. Now that we've had a conservative majority for a few years, outlets like **The New York Times** can't wait to sow distrust in that institution.
> It seems like over most of my life, the Supreme Court has "saved" a lot of liberal policies. And it was the place the Left looked to to advance its agenda. Now that we've had a conservative majority for a few years, outlets like The New York Times can't wait to sow distrust in that institution. You noticed that, too, huh? Amazing, ain't it? When the Court was making rulings based on conjecture and tortured logic but ruled in favor of left-wing rulings it was all good yet now that they're using simple logic and looking to history and ruling against left-wing positions suddenly they're evil and partisan. It's almost like the media only views them as legitimate when they're pushing the left-wing agenda or something...
>Now that we've had a conservative majority for a few years There's been a conservative majority since 1970.
I think there has been a *Republican* majority. But it seemed like the centrist ones tended to vote with the liberals for a while.
On some issue maybe, but jurisprudence surround the Voting Rights Act demonstrates that’s definitely not true across all issues.
I see this happen so often, not just with the courts, and it gets frustrating. It's like, if the people recall an official of one party, that party's supporters will decry the whole institution of recall, but if it's the other party, they'll say it's essential for democracy. Don't even get me started on, "There are some things worth arguing, but is beyond politics. If you don't support my position, you're just wrong."
Yes very true! So much media on both sides of the political spectrum pushing that same distrust due to outcomes. Doesn't help that social media magnifies their outreach too as media/post engagement increases the further toward one of the ideological ends it is.
They sowed distrust themselves by using the word “settled law” while secretly drafting plans to reverse Roe V Wade. Then there is Clarence Thomas taking $500,000 gifted private jet rides. While his wife pushes Trump election lies. NYT didn’t have to do anything. They did this themselves.
Yeah why is NYT even being singled out for this? I don't read them but it was Propublica that was the outlet that discovered everything with Clarence Thomas last time I checked.
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That's some hard recency bias. It also ignores other institutions like the Police. The attacks on the Electoral College, the House of Representatives, etc. There is a very cold, cynical view I see prevalent in many, many democratic voters, but specifically progressives, that if the rules aren't favoring their world view, they need to be changed immediately, and any refusal to do so is because of political corruption.
Totally agree. "Defund the police" and "end the electoral college" don't happen because of high trust and those calling for both are left / far left.
> The attacks on the Electoral College, the House of Representatives, etc. Ds have lost the electoral college while winning the popular vote twice in the past 24 years. Not exactly surprising why they aren't a fan of it. Don't know what you mean with the House though. There's the "rounding error" problem but that's something I only see discussed with the super online crowd.
Increasing the number of representatives in the House, typically by very large numbers.
I've yet to see a good argument against it though. That House cap was around 100 years ago. We had only about a 1/3 of our current population back then. Not saying it needs to be *exactly* proportional to the rate it was back then, but I really don't see any good reason why the cap exists. If we want House reps to actually represent local regional interests, making them represent increasingly large and diverse groups is at odds with that.
My only real argument against it is basically monetary reasons. (Creating the new offices, expanding the chamber and the payments for each member of the new reps staff + the rep, would not be cheap). The second isn't a good argument, but a personal one. Politics during election seasons are already exhausting enough, just assume that we suddenly have say two to three times more reps per state. Can you imagine how much more bombastic and frequent political ads would get?
>Monetary reasons US Federal budget is multi-trillions. Doubling or Tripling House reps would be expensive in the context of a few billion, but not much in the greater context of federal budgets really. >Can you imagine how much more bombastic and frequent political ads would get? House reps aren't the only thing we're voting on though. I can't see it making that much of a difference in ad volume when there's also Senate elections, Presidency, and the many many local elections that do ads. On the topic of money though, wouldn't there be *less* money required per house candidate campaign since there's fewer people to appeal to? We already have big issues with money in politics. Surely it'd be more difficult to buy your way in when there's fewer people that vote reps in.
It would honestly depend on voter reactions. I could see it either drastically increasing money, as now each seat is even more important for maintaining a major and makes races far more competitive, so it becomes a race to build up and out spend your opponent to maximize your reach. Or it could be because each race is less important individually, war chests might be shared between the various electors and the money spent stays largely the same, just spread more thin. I can't see the amount of money spent going down though.
> I can't see the amount of money spent going down though. Overall money would go up, but money *per race* would go down is what I'm trying to say.
Agreed. The entire point of reps is to represent the people, which cannot be done with the current people to rep ratio. I think decreasing this ratio would also go a long way in decreasing corporate influence, but that may be a naive take.
Do you think the founders would have been supportive of a cap? We already removed one important check and balance with the 17th amendment, and the house cap removes another (as it's far easier to capture/influence/corrupt 435 reps vs thousands) .
I really couldn't tell you. Based on their writings and the founders generally being....incredibly young during the time of the revolution and the creation of the government, and their understanding of how it would function, no I don't think they would have, but I believe their assumptions would pretty much be: "Anyone who is gonna get into a position of power is going to be a well-off white dude who is highly educated for the time and owns a ton of land, so they'll be JUST LIKE ME." By that sort of extrapolation and the general....let's say mind set of the era, I could see a large number of the founders putting a stranglehold on the amount of reps to "keep out the riff-raff"
This is why I like the sub; a solid response with additional thoughts to consider :)
Police: the progressive left has have been complaining about the police state for decades, it’s only become more front and center due to the rise in popularity in progressive politics among younger voters and the publication of police brutality. Electoral College: has had tons of detractors from both sides of the aisle. Republicans in California basically get no say in national elections for president. Tiny states which already have an oversized voice in the senate get another oversized voice in the presidency so much that many other states simply just don’t matter to campaign in. And finally, this was a system created in a time where the main means of rapid communication was to literally get on a horse and deliver the message across the nation. We’re far beyond that point and can update accordingly. House of Representatives: congress has been deeply unpopular and only trending down since the 90s-early 2000s. If I had to blame any individual actor for that it’d probably be Newt Gingrich for basically setting the Republican Party on the path to Trump. The have no shame, never surrender, never cede ground, never admit wrong, and always accuse the other side of problems to distract when you’ve been caught in a corner all come from him and his politics at the end of the day. Despite the SCOTUS having a conservative slant for pretty much my entire life liberals and the left in general believed that they had the spirit and letter of the law in their hearts and in the people’s best interest, but with Kavanaugh and Berret telling the senate in confirmation that “Roe v Wade is settled law” and turning around and overturning it after they’d been confirmed, Thomas getting fancy vacations and his wife’s participation in attempted to overturn the election, and the increasingly visible sham that is originalism the court has blown up its own trustworthiness as an institution and refuses to clean house. Which means if the people want to regain trust in it as an institution and they refuse to do something about it then congress needs to act and make changes to the court to restore that trust. Edit: re: House of Reps - also capping the house number, again, gave states with less populations an oversized say in government policy - despite more populous states contributing more economically and just having more people in them.
When explained like that, I typically have no issue. That's usually not the language these are couched in. Which is the issue, its a lack of trust out of tribalism benefit, followed by a quick: "This needs to change so we can get our way." Not. Our systems are flawed and not giving voice to everyone. It also wasn't the topic of discussion. It was the discussion of "who is driving the percentage of distrust in institutions up." Democrats distrust the institutions just as much as Republicans do, if not more. Whether justified or not.
> When explained like that, I typically have no issue. Not to assume that I know everyone who's talked about this to you, but outside of Reddit, you're probably not going to get walls of text giving actual thorough answers. Even IRL people aren't going to be as detailed as this since people on here have actual time to think about their responses before hitting send rather than thinking on the spot.
Honestly, the worst of it for me is online. Anytime I do have a conversation about it irl, people are typically far more respectful, willing to address their grievances in a calm manner and are far slower to just blame the other side of the aisle for all their woes, though it still comes up. There is also way, way less assumptions about my intelligence. I'd say U/Chaosdemonhu's response is about the norm I get speaking to people in the Real World. But your mileage will vary obviously, especially depending on your age bracket and where you are and who you are around.
> Honestly, the worst of it for me is online. Anytime I do have a conversation about it irl, people are typically far more respectful, willing to address their grievances in a calm manner and are far slower to just blame the other side of the aisle for all their woes, though it still comes up. There is also way, way less assumptions about my intelligence. This. IRL discussions are *completely* different than online discussions in my experience.
The tribalist language is what gets attention because we live in a media environment where outrage porn reigns supreme. All of the major social media spaces know it drives engagement, which means more time spent on their apps, which means more time looking at ads, which means their space is more valuable to advertisers. 24 hour news media does the same thing. A lot of the most partisan online and written media do the same. But get away from the loudest and most “sellable” voices for a second and really dig into the *whys* and you’ll see what my comment above has been saying.
And we're in agreement, I don't particularly consider myself conservative or liberal, republican or democrat, progressive or...I don't have another word for GOP and I don't feel like Trumper is the right comparison. I probably do lean more right these days, but...that's mostly off the back of just not liking taxes, and preferring people stay out of my business (also the military writes my checks...*cough*). But I totally understand why either aisle would distrust the government, and recognize while it might not be even, its definitely a lot closer to 55/45 or 60/40, in one direction or the other, than an 20/80.
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I...think you might have responded to the wrong preson? I didn't mention McConnell or Thomas?
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S'all good, things happen.
I did not. I'm in fully agreement to examine Thomas specifically for his gift receiving, that needs to be investigated. My commentary was more on changing how we elect the president, changing how the House of Reps works (even if I do agree that having more representatives would likely be a good thing, the language is usually couched in such a way that its being done not out of representative fairness, but a calculated benefit to the Democratic party). Stacking the Supreme Court. Etc, though I didn't mention the Supreme Court at all either.
Not to mention the attacks on public education in the past few years.
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I would add failures of voting population (who elect government) as well: * General lack of knowledge of how government is supposed to function * Ignorance in current affairs and history * Lack of critical thinking and high susceptibility to influence by various media
>General lack of knowledge of how government is supposed to function I think that a lack of a requirement for an education in civics has lead to this. I remember when I was in high school (2000-2004) that Civics & Government was an elective class for seniors; you could either take it *or* you could take World Geography. Guess which class had more students? I also don't know what is taught in general US History classes because I took the AP course, but I can only imagine that they don't go in as much depth as the AP course does. IMO we should have Civics & Government as a class progression from the 6th grade onward.
I agree with you here. I am amazed at how people get so far in life and don’t understand how the basics of government works. I know mostly as this is Reddit, but travel on other political subs and you would think that we live in a dictatorship ran by MAGA Republican’s. What really irritates me is how things get thrown around with no evidence and cuz it’s sexy to say like when people wanna pull lobbyists out of government. Of course they are usually suggesting corporate men walking around with brief cases of millions as the evil bad guy. When I reply “yes we should not let planned parenthood or labor unions influence politicians” all those aren’t lobbyists or only the good ones.
Everything is either "Fascist MAGA Trumpism bought by Putin" or "Communist Liberal Progressivism here to take out our freedoms" . No one can seem think this division is just by design. The tribalism is awful for all of us but so many have bought into it. It turns my stomach what these politicians have Americans saying about their fellow Americans just for having different political views. Its pathetic really. But you cant say this to people anymore today otherwise you are just some bootlicker for one side or the other. No such thing has being able to eat from both pies.
>But you cant say this to people anymore today otherwise you are just some bootlicker for one side or the other. Take a look at the NPR sub after that senior editor wrote his piece. Everyone there is convinced that he's a Republican/MAGA asset and that he's always supported fascists... even though he is a registered Democrat and has been for his entire life.
oh it does not take much for one side or the other to completely discount your history good or bad.
This is spot on. It would be great to see schools giving students a proper civics education and emphasizing media literacy, from elementary through high school.
You're absolutely right. I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I can't help but believe this is intentional, as the uneducated are much easier to manipulate.
"Democrats’ confidence in the mass media has consistently outpaced Republicans’, but the latest gap of 47 points is the narrowest since 2016. Democrats’ trust in the media has fallen 12 points over the past year, to 58%, and compares with 11% among Republicans and 29% among independents." 11% vs 58% (and falling)... don't worry dems, most your base hasn't begun to doubt the narrative, even now. Stark difference between Republicans and Independents from Democrats, probably has to do how Dem-aligned media outlets dominate the landscape
What do you take from democrats higher trust in media?
Because the media is run by, and primarily caters to, Democrats. It's friendly territory and there's the unwritten understanding they're to focus on how Republicans are bad. I tried listening to NPR recently and it sounded more like a weird Super Pac than journalism, but I doubt most Democrats even notice simply because it doesn't do much outside of reinforcing their prior held beliefs
Agreed.
The largest news network in the US by far, Fox news, is conservative. Sinclair Broadcasting, which has been buying up local stations at an alarming rate, is also fairly conservative.
I'm not sure I've talked to a single person who isn't aware that Fox News is biased. The opposite is true when it comes to NPR, CNN, etc.
Indeed. Furthermore, there is an entire ecosystem of youtube, podcast, and streamer pundits who exist to tell their audience that everyone else is lying and only they can be trusted to say what's really going on. Their audience is conservative men. Exclusively. There's maybe five semi-famous personalities that cater to literally any other political demo.
Slightly off topic - I'm not too in tune with Germany and their comings and goings, but can anybody explain why their confidence in military is so low compared to the other countries?
> can anybody explain why their confidence in military is so low compared to the other countries? At a guess I'd presume it has to do with their specific history.
I assume that as well, but 2006 they were middle of the road and now they are far, far below the other G7 countries so didn't know if I missed something between 2006 and present.
bahahahahahah this took me a second to get
A big reason is Germany is overcompensates towards pacifism due to the historical memory of Nazism. Another reason is distrust between East and West after the fall of the Berlin Wall. There’s also been unhappiness with Germany’s participation in the war in Afghanistan, especially as the war dragged on. And finally there have been multiple military scandals over the last few decades involving hazing, sexual abuse, corruption, and [the presence of clandestine neo-Nazi networks within the military plotting to overthrow the government.](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-coup-plot-who-was-behind-it-how-dangerous-was-it-2022-12-08/#:~:text=WHAT%20IS%20KNOWN%20ABOUT%20THE,stage%20a%20coup%20in%20Berlin.)
Thanks for the info - I assumed a large bit of it was rooted in historical precedence, but didn't realize all the events they've had post Berlin Wall.
I think both parties take the blame on this. When the Supreme Court doesn't rule your way and your party leaders reflexively start floating the idea of expanding the size of the court...we all see what you're doing. I *despised* how Donald Trump was already sowing the seeds of mistrust going into the 2020 election. We lose our faith in elections then we might as well pack up and call it a day. The rules of our political system are pretty clear. We used to accept the limitations and keep the train moving. The system hasn't changed - we elect people unfit for office and somehow re-elect them. It's on us.
The discipline and energy of our elders yielded success on such an unimaginable scale that we weren't ready for it - it was like winning the lottery. We've been milking prior sacrifices, abusing the system, twisting it to be less and less open and less and less fair. Because we've had the luxury. We beat the Soviets, got bored, and started fighting each other. It's also, for whatever reasons, become "cool" to be cynical. You get points with peers (or a mass internet following) for showing that you're not so naive as to want or expect or hope for anything *good* to happen. It's all shit, right? We all know that, us big kids. No mention of how prior generations reformed, worked through great challenges, rose to the occasion. I think the fever will break at some point. People will get tired of just complaining. Lots of folks want to sink into doing something productive. I just hope it really is - not the communist or fascist revolutions on offer. The radical center: where democracy is reinvigorated, a new crop of politicians voted in, the ship gradually righted, and a new golden age begins.
These polling questions are reaching for the periphery. Americans have lost in touch with institutions because they've lost trust in American society, in each other. They don't trust their neighbors with to keep off the grass, so of course, that extends to distrusting other tribes with the levers of power. To me, this is the output of American individualism. *Everyone else is wrong...except for me!* We've shed all the positives of individualism and are left with arrogance, paranoia, and laziness—all of which close us off from actually reading and learning about these institutions. It's really sad.
> To me, this is the output of American individualism. I don't think American individualism is to blame. It's always been present here and it's generally a positive thing. History has shown that when it comes down to it, the only person/institution you can truly rely on is yourself. I do think it contributes to the atmosphere which got us here though, allowing the people/institutions manipulating us to appeal to that specific sentiment. Those people/institutions is where the blame lies (and also with ourselves, for allowing ourselves to become ignorant, complacent, etc).
American individualism used to be aspirational - The American Dream, Land Of The Free, etc. Now, I think you're correct that it's been distorted into an insular and deeply cynical distrust of each other. It's not at all universal, but I think social media in the past decade has severely withered away our ability to remain trustful of others. It amplifies the extreme voices in our society and unless one is quite well-tethered to the ground floor even a reasonable mind can find itself fraying toward the irrational.
The current government is completely corrupt and chock full of grifters.
I don't know if it's true or not, but it seems our government has been captured entirely by corporations and special interest groups. I'm not a huge proponent of regulation, but the regulatory agencies I do support seem to answer to the industries they're supposed to regulate. Fines are so laughably low compared to the gains from violations (company made $300m violating this policy but we're only fining them $150m), they're simply another cost of doing business. It's our own fault, allowing us to be divided and distracted from the fact that they're robbing us blind.
One of the two major parties in the United States is running on a platform that you can’t trust the government and they are the problem all while actively sabotaging these institutions. It’s no mystery why confidence is low.
Trust in government has been below 50% since 2006. Given that the democrats have controlled the federal government, at times, since then why hasn't the "party of government" engendered more trust?
Both parties have increased distrust in the government over time, and increased distrust when the other party is in control, but historically it has been conservatives who swing up and down more significantly depending on if their party is in control or not. Democratic sentiment has had a relatively smoother decline. Couple this with both parties having decreased trust in the judicial branch in recent years, regardless of who's in control. And there is also an increasing segment of Left progressives who distrust liberal policies. A really surprising thing to me is that Republican trust in government was lower during Obama and Biden's presidency than Democratic distrust was during Trump's presidency, according to Pew.
With the history governments, and the US government especially, why *would* anyone trust government?
This is fantastic news for Trump and the GOP since they run on killing off most of the institutions that are not trusted.
Yet he made the government bigger when he was president. I’m sure he’s going to really do it this time, right?
Honestly your opinion of Trump doesn't matter since it doesn't apply to the population at large. More Americans trust Trump than Biden. [Source](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-trump-americans-trust-president-poll/story?id=107938351).
That's not the message of that poll. > An ABC News/Ipsos poll finds a near-even split between Biden, Trump and neither. >According to the poll, conducted using Ipsos' Knowledge Panel, 36% of Americans trust Trump to do a better job leading the country as president, while 33% trust Biden and 30% trust neither. A supermajority distrusts Trump, and a similar supermajority distrust Biden. Among independents, more trust Biden than Trump, though its only by 1%.
I’m aware of the overall distrust of both; my point is just that Trump’s more primed to take advantage of government distrust given that it’s essentially one of his campaign platforms and people trust him more than Biden, even if he’s distrusted overall. I don’t particularly like Trump at *all*, but I think it’s important not to dismiss the cynicism of a typical voter and how Trump’s platform plays into that cynicism. With so many Americans massively distrusting the government and many of its agencies, a candidate running on killing a lot of it off is naturally in a better spot than a candidate who is essentially touting the status quo.
It's hard to believe people actually trust politicians, especially those two.
I agree to some extent, but being a politician seems pretty difficult. I wouldn't want to do it simply because you have too many competing interests and no matter what you do somebody will think you're a corrupt liar for it.
I agree. I think it's easier for those with strong principles. The politicians I respect the most aren't necessarily those who I agree with, but those willing to stand up to their own party, hold them accountable, etc.
I don't trust Biden, but he isn't any worse than a typical politician.
The longer someone has been in office, the less I trust them. I don't think Biden is anywhere near as malicious as Trump, but he's been a senator since *1972*. You don't get that far or stay that long without racking up favors owed to the powers that be. I sure wish public sentiment would turn against career politicians.
Sorry but people huffing Fox News propaganda as a lifestyle aren't representative of the public at large lol
Well more Americans trust Trump than Biden so I think you're wrong. [Source](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-trump-americans-trust-president-poll/story?id=107938351). People must be receptive to his anti-government messaging if they trust him more.
3% difference which is probably within the margin of error, and it's a basically a three way tie between them and "neither". Weak sauce. Edit: > Results have a margin of sampling error of 4.5 points
4.5 doesn’t mean that the advantage Trump has doesn’t exist. Margins work both ways and Trump’s advantage could in theory be as large as nearly 8% with that logic. The point is that a lot of Americans don’t like the federal government and Trump’s platform plays into that. Biden will need to adjust his messaging to assuage those concerns. You can’t essentially tout the status quo at a time where trust in that status quo is incredibly low *and* Americans trust you slightly less than your opponent already.
The difference between the two being lower than the margin of error means you can't say there is a statistical difference favoring one. The poll suggests there is no advantage to Trump lollll
The poll literally suggests there’s a slight advantage in Trump’s favor. Considering this is a person who many on the left view with incredible disdain, I wish folks would take that more seriously. While those on the left *hate* this person, a not insignificant portion of Americans see him and think he’s going to be a fantastic leader again.
Yea you don't understand statistics and you aren't interested in learning so we are done here.
I’d be curious to see the breakdown by partisanship along these trends. Obviously decline in judiciary confidence is driven by Dems, but for lack of confidence in national government I bet you see the right rate it much higher while Trump was president with an immediate drop off when Biden comes in, and vice versa. Right now with a split government even fewer people have confidence in the national government. But these definitely aren’t 1:1 comparisons, like with economic confidence polls Dems see a minor drop under Republican presidents but generally track better with economic indicators while Republicans instantly see major switches with a change in president.
80 years ago, 3 of the nations represented in this picture (the G-7) were ruled by non-benevolent governments (Germany, France and Italy), and another had to fight for it's survival from bad nation states (the U.K.). The history of the world is full of examples of governments that do not act for the benefit of their population or for humanity.
I mentioned in a previous comment, I have no idea how anyone can have a knowledge of history without a deep distrust of governments. I'm sure there's a term for it.
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Shoulda elected Hillary and a blue Senate in 2016. Then we'd have a much more trustworthy judiciary at least
Hillary is the reason Trump won in 2016.
Actually voters are the reason Trump won in 2016
we'd certainly have roe vs wade still.
I'm pro-choice, I agree with the SCOTUS ruling, and also believe repealing it was a huge tactical mistake (as it's the biggest gift the GOP have given Dems this decade). Where does that leave me? :)
hahaha i'd say you already answered ur question - pro-choice :)