Confidence in Institutions

The new Gallup poll on Americans' confidence in our institutions is out. Longtime Hall readers know I've watched this poll for a very long time. For a long time my great concern was that confidence in our democratic and constitutional organs was falling, while only coercive institutions -- the police and the military -- managed to stay above water. That suggested dangerous consequences, should the organs of constitutional government collapse while people still believed in and trusted institutions whose purpose is to force people to obey.

This year confidence in the military is down somewhat, but still above water; somewhat surprising, I think, given the massive recruitment troubles they're having. Confidence in the police is now below water at 45%, with the left wanting to defund them and everyone else noticing that they stopped enforcing the law during the recent riot seasons. Forty-five percent is still too much, if you ask me; indeed neither of these institutions deserve to be considered widely credible. 

Congress has generally enjoyed the lowest level of confidence from everyone, and this year has single digits across the board except among Democrats -- and even there they only rise to ten percent. But look at these Presidential numbers:

Republicans: 2%
Independents: 18% down from 31% last year
Democrats: 51% down from 69% last year.

Two percent is even lower than Congress, and even Democrats could barely muster a majority with faith in the institution with it firmly in their control. 

2 comments:

RonF said...

"... everyone else noticing that they stopped enforcing the law during the recent riot seasons."

Part of that is each officer's evaluation of what the likely outcomes are for him or her personally and for the offender should they need to use any force whatsoever to apprehend someone. Part of that is policies put into place restricting what the police can do, such as those in Chicago that basically forbid them from engaging in a foot chase with anyone that they didn't actually see kill or rob someone.

Grim said...

I'm sure it was in some sense rational at the level of the individual; but the consequence of the set of individual decisions is a loss of confidence in the institution that is equally rational. Your own eyes convey that the police in places will not come to help you, not in the face of mobs or riots or politically sensitive areas.