A recipe for civil unrest
More depressing polling, this time about Americans’ faith in government. The problem is that the country is completely divided about what the problem is. It’s bad.
A majority of American voters across nearly all demographics and ideologies believe their system of government does not work, with 58 percent of those interviewed for a New York Times/Siena College poll saying that the world’s oldest independent constitutional democracy needs major reforms or a complete overhaul.
The discontent among Republicans is driven by their widespread, unfounded doubts about the legitimacy of the nation’s elections. For Democrats, it is the realization that even though they control the White House and Congress, it is Republicans, joined with their allies in gerrymandered state legislatures and the Supreme Court, who are achieving long-sought political goals.
For Republicans, the distrust is a natural outgrowth of former President Donald J. Trump’s domination of the party and, to a large degree, American politics. After seven years in which he relentlessly attacked the country’s institutions, a broad majority of Republicans share his views on the 2020 election and its aftermath: Sixty-one percent said he was the legitimate winner, and 72 percent described the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol as a protest that got out of hand.
The survey results come as the House committee investigating Jan. 6 revealed new evidence this week that Mr. Trump and his aides had a hand in directing the mob to the Capitol to try to maintain his hold on the executive branch.
Among all voters, 49 percent said the Capitol riot was an attempt to overthrow the government. Another 55 percent said Mr. Trump’s actions after the 2020 election had threatened American democracy. As with so many other issues, voters saw the riot through the same partisan lens as other issues.
Seventy-six percent of Republican voters said Mr. Trump had simply been exercising his right to contest his loss to Joseph R. Biden Jr. Asked if Mr. Trump had committed crimes while contesting the election, 89 percent of Democrats and 49 percent of independent voters said yes, while 80 percent of Republicans said he had not.
“If I’d have been Trump, I’d have been very pissed off about the whole situation,” said Charles Parrish, 71, a retired firefighter from Evans, Ga.
Among Democrats, 84 percent said the Capitol attack was an attempt to overthrow the government and 92 percent said Mr. Trump threatened American democracy.
Democrats’ pessimism about the future stems from their party’s inability to protect abortion rights, pass sweeping gun control measures and pursue other liberal priorities in the face of Republican opposition. Self-described liberals were more likely than other Democrats to have lost trust in government and more likely to say voting did not make a difference.
Americans’ bipartisan cynicism about government signals a striking philosophical shift: For generations, Democrats campaigned on the idea that government was a force for good, while Republicans sought to limit it. Now, the polling shows, the number of Americans in both parties who believe their government is capable of responding to voters’ concerns has shrunk.
In one indicator of how Americans’ perception of the government has transformed, the poll found that Fox News viewers were more optimistic than any other demographic about the country’s ability to get on the right track over the next decade: Seventy-two percent were hopeful for such a scenario.
Ray Townley, 58, a retiree from Ozark, Ark., and a regular Fox News viewer, said he was very optimistic about the country’s future because he anticipated major changes in Washington.
“They’re going to vote the Democrats out,” he said.
More than half of all voters surveyed, 53 percent, said the American political system was too divided to solve the nation’s problems, an increase from 40 percent in a Times/Siena poll from October 2020. The sentiment is now most acute among Black voters and the youngest voters.
The lack of faith is starkest among the young, who have little to no memory of a time when American politics didn’t function as a zero-sum affair. Nearly half — 48 percent — of those surveyed between the ages of 18 and 29 said voting did not make a difference in how their government operates.
Here’s the really depressing part:
Mitch Toher, a 22-year-old independent from Austin, said there was little reason to vote because the country would not function as long as its government operated under the two-party system.
Mr. Toher, who works in information technology, said he was not optimistic that the American political system or its elected officials were responsive enough to address the needs of young voters. Voting for either Democrats or Republicans, he said, would do little to change things in his life for the better.
“The largest divide is not necessarily left versus right, but those that are generationally old versus young,” he said. “I don’t think those types of changes are coming any time soon, or at least forthcoming in my point in lifetime.”
Rosantina Goforth, 55, of Wagoner, Okla., said officials at every level of government needed to be removed and replaced with people “who believe in the United States.”
Ms. Goforth, who is retired from the Army and said she got her news from Christian news programs, is one of the Republicans who falsely believe Mr. Trump won the 2020 election. Voting, she said, has little bearing on how the government operates.
“Our say really doesn’t matter,” she said. “I know Trump won that election. It’s a given. He won that election. But somehow or another, you know, people got paid and votes were mismanaged.”
Some voters expressed frustration with a political system they saw as ill equipped to address problems from across the ideological spectrum. Felix Gibbs, 66, a retired forklift operator from Niagara Falls, N.Y., said the government was not prepared the solve the two issues he saw as most pressing: illegal immigration and a lack of universal health coverage.
“I’m sure there are other issues I can bring up that will show that our political system is not working,” said Mr. Gibbs, who said he voted for Mr. Trump in 2020 and would do so again.
The report goes on to show that media diets have a lot to do with this. Surprise.
The country has always been divided going all the way back to the beginning. No surprise there. But the divide seems wider now, with the disagreement not being about how to interpret the same reality. Now we are living in two different realities and it’s all turbo charged by the new media. We are living in separate worlds.