US trust in government sucks

No matter how you slice the data, American trust in government is at an all time low. Whether it’s Gallup, or Pew or some other reputable polling organization, the numbers are pretty much the same. Americans say government can’t be trusted.

I often share Gallup information, but the Pew organization recently posted so many wonderful looking charts and graphs, I just had to share them. So without further ado, here they are:

As far as political affiliation, Pew states the following:

Currently, 28% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say they can trust government, compared with 15% of Democrats and Democratic leaners.

And here’s the graph:

Wanna see the numbers according to generational differences? Pew has that:

Historically, there have been modest differences between generational groups in trust in government and that remains the case today. Currently, 20% of Millennials (now ages 18-36) report trusting the government, similar to the shares of older generations who say the same. Trust in government remains at or near historically low levels across generational lines.

Here’s the same data by race:

There you have it. No matter how you slice it, American government is not enjoying any popularity contest. It will be interesting to see what that means for fundamental change, particularly if ideas like Copiosis gain even more ground in the coming years.