FILE - Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, House Judiciary chairman and staunch ally of Donald Trump, meets with reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Oct. 20, 2023. The Republican dysfunction that has ground business in the U.S. House to a halt as two wars rage abroad and a budget crisis looms at home is contributing to a deep loss of faith in American institutions.
About half of adults say they have “hardly any confidence at all” in the people running Congress, according to a poll fromthat was conducted in October. That’s in line with 49% who said that in March. Just 3% have a great deal of confidence in Congress, virtually unchanged from March. Rick Cartelli, 63, a health care worker in Rocky Hill, Connecticut, who identifies as an independent, said he is happy with his local and state government but the current environment, especially the chaos on Capitol Hill, has wiped out what little confidence he had in that institution.Cartelli also said he has little confidence in the executive branch, citing what he says are “mental lapses” by Biden that “are only probably going to become more and more pronounced.
Confidence in the country's foundational institutions has ebbed and flowed historically, though there’s been a long-term downward trend since at least the 1970s. Trust in government waned in the era of Watergate and thebefore making a slight recovery during Ronald Reagan's presidency in the 1980s — despite Reagan’s famous declaration that the nine most terrifying words in the English language were: “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.