Americans lack faith in institutions. Here’s why and how to fix it
The answer to bridging our divides is to take deliberate steps to get to know your neighbors, practice civics, and develop a more-balanced diet of media outlets
On July 15, I participated in a Tennessee Immigrant and Minority Business Group leadership panel held in Southeast Nashville and we addressed divisions in American politics at one point.
Congressman John Rose, R-cookeville, looked at me as he talked about the responsibility of the press not to foment the divide and he challenged journalists to do better.
He was on to something in terms of perceptions of media organizations. The previous day, Gallup published its annual poll on citizens’ confidence in 14 U.S. institutions. Only 33% of Americans surveyed said they had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of faith in them. The number was 21% for newspapers. As for Congress: 12%.
The previous year, 36% of Americans reported having faith in those institutions and 24% and 13% for newspapers and Congress, respectively.
I am not trying to throw shade at the congressman because neither figure is good. What’s worse is the wide gap between the views of Republicans and Democrats on how they see institutions. That bodes poorly for efforts to combat growing polarization, misinformation and echo chambers, all which destabilize democracy and create dangerous animus between citizens, as Americans saw on Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol.
Republicans and Democrats are most divided on police and Biden
Gallup has conducted the institutional confidence poll since 1973 in the wake of the Watergate scandal during the Nixon administration, and Americans’ confidence in institutions has averaged at around 37% over the last two decades.
In 2021, however, public schools and the medical profession saw the biggest drop in confidence from the previous year: 41% to 32% for schools and 51% to 44% for medical professions.
That’s no surprise given the COVID-19 pandemic and the school shutdowns, learning loss, masks, medical restrictions and the debate over vaccines.
Still, it is disheartening that the pandemic has been so politicized. The Delta variant of COVID-19 is causing a rapid rise in cases and hospitalizations and the virus discriminates against no political party.
Meanwhile, Democrats viewed both institutions more favorably than Republicans by margins of 23 and 14 percentage points.
The largest divide came in how respondents viewed police and the presidency. 76% of Republicans had confidence in law enforcement versus 31% of Democrats. Meanwhile, 62% of Democrats had faith in the presidency compared with 13% of Republicans.
The former is tied to the national conversation around police reform in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minnesota in 2020. Gallup reports that 56% of white adults have faith in police, but only 27% of Black adults do.
As for the presidency, the gap is unsurprising given that Joe Biden, a Democrat, is in office. In 2020, when Republican Donald Trump held the presidency, 83% of Republicans viewed the presidency favorably compared with 16% of Democrats.
What do we do now?
This survey reflects the opinions of only 1,381 Americans who responded to Gallup’s poll from July 1-5, but it is significant. The results mirror the perceptions of Americans based upon the media they consume. Social media, in particular, especially Facebook, tends to feed citizens’ confirmation bias, thus, showing them primarily articles that validate their viewpoints. In a way, it is a fabricated reality.
At the same time, the figures do not always reflect what is real.
While Congress had the lowest confidence level (12%) among institutions in the survey, 96% of incumbents were reelected in 2020.
The answer to bridging our divides — as my colleagues and I have learned through the Civility Tennessee campaign that started in 2018 — is to take deliberate steps to get to know your neighbors, practice civics, and develop a balanced media diet.
This is not easy and requires discipline, empathy and intentionality. In addition, it means being purposeful about being respectful and avoiding trolling, insults or other obnoxious behavior.
The first step may involve inviting someone you want to know better to go for a cup of coffee.
The second can manifest itself in many ways: Writing a letter to the editor or to your member of Congress, joining a protest, voting or attending a local government meeting.
The third requires putting aside perceptions of media sources, and then reading, asking questions, and demanding that news outlets commit themselves always to accuracy and fairness.
If more Americans took these steps, we would go a longer way to bridging our divides and having conversations that will illuminate us even if we hold disagreements.
Let’s all strive to do better.
David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee. He is an editorial board member of The Tennessean. He hosts the Tennessee Voices videocast. Call him at (615) 259-8063, email him at dplazas@tennessean.com or tweet to him at @davidplazas.