CV NEWS FEED // A historic number of Americans consistently view the government or poor leadership as the most important problem facing the U.S. today, according to a report from Gallup Poll Editor-in-Chief Frank Newport.
According to Gallup’s latest data from March, 27% of Americans currently think the government is America’s most important problem. Newport noted that prior to 2001, spikes or upticks in concern about the government correlated with specific events, such as the Watergate scandal, government shutdowns, or the scandals surrounding former President Bill Clinton. In the past two decades, however, concerns about the government have steadily risen.
“In recent years, the government’s presence on the top problem list has been a fairly consistent phenomenon, in contrast with the historical pattern by which increased mentions of government were more temporary and mostly connected to specific events like government shutdowns,” Newport wrote.
Democrats are currently almost twice as worried about the government compared with Republicans (40% vs. 22%), which Newport said matches recent trends. Republicans also considered the government the most important problem facing the U.S. in 2021, when former President Joe Biden took office, he noted. Democrats similarly raised concerns about leadership in 2017 at the beginning of President Donald Trump’s first term. However, Newport added that historically, worries about the state of the government haven’t always directly correlated with the party not in control.
To find out what specific concerns Democrats and Republicans have over the government, Newport fed responses from the March poll to an AI model and asked it to give a summary.
The AI model returned with “Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who cite government as the most important problem overwhelmingly frame it as a crisis of democratic backsliding and authoritarianism — personified most clearly in Donald Trump.”
According to the summary of Republicans’ concerns, they are less likely to focus on a specific individual and more likely to center around deep state and corruption.
The AI model said that Republicans’ worries deal with “Democratic leadership, seen not just as opposition, but as a source of radical or dangerous policy; systemic corruption, bureaucratic overreach and ineffective governance. A belief that government is not representing or protecting the interests of the American people and anxiety about America’s future, especially regarding global power and domestic stability.”
The analysis added, “Whereas Republicans frame the government as corrupt, incompetent and ideologically extreme against their values, Democrats frame the government as being co-opted and undermined by authoritarian forces, with Trump as the existential threat.”
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