The U.S. Just Won the Gold Medal for Thinking the Government is Corrupt
New data from Gallup shows Americans have hit a historic peak in distrust, and the numbers are honestly kind of impressive.
Nearly 90% of the country now believes that government corruption is widespread. That is a massive jump, even for a country that usually treats cynicism as a national pastime. We are officially beating out almost everyone else in the OECD in this specific category.
The most fascinating part is how partisan this is. Democrats have seen their corruption-radar spike sharply since the last election cycle, while Republicans have stayed consistently grumpy about it regardless of who sits in the Oval Office. It turns out the only thing that unites the two sides of the political aisle is the shared belief that everything is fundamentally rigged.
We are currently sitting in the same league as countries like Nigeria and Peru when it comes to how little we trust our own leadership. Meanwhile, the gap between how much we distrust politicians versus business owners remains huge. People seem to think the boardrooms are saints compared to the halls of power.
Democracy functions best when everyone assumes the people in charge are actively plotting their own gain.
Source: Gallup
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