The US’ “Great Compromiser” Henry Clay called government “the great trust,” but most Americans today don’t trust Washington as far as they can throw it.
Public confidence in government is at one of the lowest points in a half century, a survey by the Pew Research Center showed.
Nearly eight in 10 Americans say they don’t trust the federal government and have little faith it can solve the nation’s ills, the survey found.
The survey illustrates the ominous situation US President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party face as they struggle to maintain their comfortable congressional majorities in this fall’s elections.
Midterm prospects are typically tough for the party in power. Add a toxic environment like this and lots of incumbent Democrats could be out of work.
The survey found that just 22 percent of those questioned say they can trust Washington almost always or most of the time and just 19 percent say they are basically content with it. Nearly half say the government negatively effects their daily lives, a sentiment that’s grown over the past dozen years.
This anti-government feeling has driven the conservative anti-tax “Tea Party” movement, reflected in fierce protests this past week.
“Trust in government rarely gets this low,” said Andrew Kohut, director of the nonpartisan center that conducted the survey. “Some of it’s backlash against Obama, but there are a lot of other things going on. Politics has poisoned the well.”
The survey found that Obama’s policies were partly to blame for a rise in distrustful, anti-government views.
In his first year, Obama orchestrated a government takeover of Detroit automakers, secured a US$787 billion stimulus package and pushed to overhaul healthcare, but the poll also identified a combination of factors that contributed to the hostility — the recession that Obama inherited from former US president George W. Bush, a dispirited public, and anger with Congress and politicians of all political leanings.
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