Independents were among the most distrustful
A recent nationwide Marquette University Law School poll found that 80 percent of Americans trust the government “only some of the time” or “never,” a widespread, intergenerational skepticism that experts say is not merely the result of the country’s increasingly cutthroat politics.
When asked in the November poll, “How much of the time do you think you can trust the government in Washington to do what is right?” 61 percent said “only some of the time” while 19 percent said “never.” Just 1 percent said they “just about always” trust the federal government, with another 19 percent saying they trust government “most of the time.”
Independents are more distrustful than Republicans or Democrats. Thirty-one percent of independents said they “never trust the government.” Those with “very liberal” inclinations led in the “never” category with 35 percent, compared to only 22 percent of moderates.
Pollster and Marquette University Law School professor Charles Franklin told the Badger Institute that partisanship is not a major driver of a lack of trust.
“For some cohorts, Republicans are a few points less trusting than Democrats, but that’s not always the case,” he said. “The difference is pretty small.”
“We probably shouldn’t be looking for purely political explanations for this decline in trust,” he added.
Public trust in government has experienced a steady decline since the 1960s, due to the way events such as the Vietnam War and Watergate played a critical role in reshaping Americans’ faith in Washington, Franklin said.
“[Governmental trust] has been somewhat stable in the last decade, but it’s stable at a low level, not stable at a high level,” Franklin said. “There were plenty of things there that you could understand why the public was becoming more cynical about government through that period.”
Franklin said these findings likely indicate younger Americans are more likely to interact with the government through a lens of skepticism.
“I think the obvious result here is a lot more caution about starting with the premise that people are trustworthy, or for that matter, starting with the premise that government can be trusted,” Franklin said. “You can certainly see this in modern rhetoric and modern political conflict, of a very prevalent view that the other side is not only not trustworthy but is downright misguided or evil.”
This, Franklin added, may even have a chilling effect on free speech and political discourse in the country.
“It’s much [easier] to start a political conversation at least on the premise that both sides are dealing in good faith rather than with some other ulterior motive,” he said.
Former U.S. Rep. Scott Klug, a Republican who represented the district that includes metro Madison during the 1990s, told Badger Institute he believes social media is to blame for spreading aggravating and emotionally provocative content in political circles.
“If you look at faith in institutions as a whole, they’ve pretty much collapsed over the last 20 years,” Klug said. “I would attest a pretty big part of it to social media. There’s rarely any celebration or applause lines. It all tends to be stories about institutions failing.”
Klug also highlighted ongoing election integrity complaints, such as concerns that Milwaukee’s absentee ballot count is being used to undermine elections. He called it a dangerous precedent that can quickly undercut Americans’ trust.
“The reason the ballots get counted late in Milwaukee is because Wisconsin law says you can’t count them until the polls close and so Milwaukee gets this deluge of votes after the polls close,” he said. “I think since the Bush-Gore [election] first raised serious election questions, I think we’ve seen a narrative of cutting away at elections, which then undercuts trust in government.”
“I’ve always thought that if I get four people I pull randomly out of a diner in South Milwaukee, we can figure out immigration reform in about 25 minutes,” he added. “Washington seems unable to solve a problem that most Americans completely understand.”
Klug acknowledged that hyper-partisanship in news could be to blame for sowing mistrust in America, which extends to other institutions beyond government. These media channels, he said, focus more on creating echo chambers than unity among viewers.
“We have no single unifying media moment anymore, aside from the Super Bowl and maybe the Academy Awards,” Klug said. “We’ve got all these fractured universes and nothing to rally people together.”
While Franklin’s findings mirrored data showing a similar decline in trust for one another among Americans, he said the results are driven by independent factors. Franklin also said his findings rule out internet use as a factor in either situation, which is leading pollsters to search for other potential causes.
“The data are pretty good at ruling out internet use as the explanation that we would otherwise lean to, but that leaves me without a clear explanation as to why this change occurred,” he said.
One leading theory, Franklin suggested, is distance from the spirit of unity America experienced in the wake of World War II. Each ensuing generation’s removal from this period could make it harder to feel positive about the government, he said.
“We have to be cautious about jumping to easy explanations, even though some of those easy explanations seem plausible,” Franklin said. Pew Research last week released new data showing public trust in government is nearing historic lows. While those who align with the party in control of the White House tend to be more trusting, overall sentiments are down to 17 percent trust in 2025, compared to 77 percent in 1964.
Jackson Walker is a native Wisconsinite and 2023 UW-Madison graduate.
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