Poll after poll finds American voters are in a sour mood, believing the country is on the wrong track. But a new survey from the Pew Research Center shows a complicating factor: Voters on the left and right don’t feel very good about Washington’s ability to fix the situation.
Pew has been measuring how Americans feel about Washington’s ability to make the right decisions for years and the general trend since 2000 has not been good.
There was a brief bump up in the public’s trust in government around the turn of the century, following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. In October of 2001, 60 percent of Americans said they trusted government “to do what is right just about always or most of the time.”
That moment of rallying around the flag did not last, however. Since then, the number has largely slid downward until today where the figure is stuck in the basement. CONTINUED
Dante Chinni, NBC News
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