American Confidence in US Sinks to Record Lows: Poll
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Americans' trust and confidence in US institutions— such as the presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court — continue to dwindle, according to a new poll from Gallup.
Testing American trust in 16 separate institutions, Gallup found that 11 are facing "significant declines" in confidence, with the largest being the Supreme Court and the presidency, Yahoo News reported.
Since Gallup's last confidence survey in June 2021, American confidence in the Supreme Court fell 11 percentage points and the presidency dropped 15 points.
The survey, released Wednesday, found that only 27% of Americans have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in 14 major institutions in the country, down three points from the former low in 2014.
Compared to last year's survey, trust in Congress also declined. Last year, 12% of respondents stated they had "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in Congress. This year, however, only 7% gave the same response.
Amid record inflation and gasoline prices, partnered with his rocky withdrawal from Afghanistan and his handling of the crisis along the southern Border, President Biden's approval since the last Gallup confidence survey suffered a 15-point drop.
Five other institutions Gallup inquired about — including the organized religion, newspapers, the criminal justice system, big business, and the police — fell to their lowest points in at least three decades of measurement. Only trust in organized labor stayed at the same level as last year, with 28% expressing confidence.
Among political party affiliation, Gallup found that Republicans, Democrats, and independents are overall less confident in the 16 institutions than years prior. In addition, all three party groups are less confident in the presidency than they were in 2021, showing declines of at least 10 points.
Republicans' confidence in the military and police fell from 81% to 71% and 78% to 67%, respectively. Independents' confidence in the presidency shrank from 31% to 18% since the last survey, while Democrats' confidence in the Supreme Court fell from 31% to 13% over the last year.
Noting "historic lows" in the trust Americans place behind the institutions, Gallup's survey found that small business and the military are the two institutions which received positive ratings by each of the three party groups.
The Gallup poll was conducted from June 1 to June 20 and surveyed 1,015 adults. The margin of error for the poll is 4 percentage points.
Meanwhile, another survey from Monmouth University Poll released on Tuesday indicated that nearly 9 in 10 Americans say the country is headed on the wrong track, according to Hill.
The survey found that just 10 percent said the country is headed in the right direction — an all-time low since the pollster began asking the question in 2013 — while 88 percent said it is on the wrong track.
