Public trust in government has dropped to record lows under President Obama—10 percent in one poll—and the real wonder is why it isn’t even lower.
The Pew Research Center recently released its latest survey of the public’s trust in government, which the organization has been tracking since 1958. President Obama has the dubious distinction of receiving the lowest ratings of any president so far—even lower than Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon.
According to Pew, “Only 19% of Americans today say they can trust the government in Washington to do what is right ‘just about always’ (3%) or ‘most of the time’ (16%).”
Notice that only 3 percent trust the government to “just about always” do the right thing. Given the huge number of government scandals and failures during the Obama era, you have to wonder if those are people working for the administration.
These numbers refer to Pew’s moving average; some of the individual polls drop even lower—to 10 percent in October of 2011.
Trust in government reached a post-Vietnam peak under President George W. Bush shortly after the 9/11 attacks, but then began a steep and steady decline. Obama took that baton and carried the country to historic lows—in more ways than one.
Interestingly, it’s not just conservative white males—the only people the media think vote Republican—who have come to distrust the government. “A downward trajectory in trust in government also is seen across racial and ethnic lines. Currently, white non-Hispanics, black non-Hispanics and Hispanics all express historically low levels of trust in government,” according to Pew.
That finding spells trouble for Hillary Clinton, who will need those disillusioned minorities to show up at the polls if she’s to have a chance at winning the presidential election.
The irony here is that Obama came into office promising to restore the trust in big government. As he pontificated in his first inaugural address:
The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works … And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day, because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.
If the Pew survey is any indication, it appears Obama has utterly failed at “restoring that vital trust between a people and their government,” and little wonder. Look at the string of issues he said needed to be achieved. By any measure, he’s made all of those issues worse—much worse. The Pew survey suggests voters recognize those failures—and may hold his party “to account” come next November.