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Trust In Government Hits New Low Pew Poll Says, Donald Trump Tapped Into Voter Anger

By Tara Dodrill
Published on: 08:55 PST, Nov 23, 2015

Americans have lost their trust in government, according to a new Pew poll. Only 19 percent of those surveyed said they trust the government most or all of the time. Donald Trump has been credited with tapping into the anger of voters and is seeing the benefit of his comments translate into constantly high poll numbers.

The Pew research poll also indicates that the trust in government by Americans has dropped to its lowest level in the past 60 years. A total of 32 percent of poll respondents who identified as Republican leaning said they are angry with the government. The Pew report also stated that 89 percent of Republicans polled said they only sometimes or never trust the United States government.

A total of 12 percent of those who told survey takers that they lean Democratic said they are angry with the federal government. A total of 72 percent of Democrats said they only sometimes or never trust the U.S. government, Fox News28 reports.

Almost six in every 10 Pew research poll respondents said they feel “frustrated” by the United States government. Another one in every five said they feel angry at the federal government. Unfortunately for establishment candidates such as Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, a total of three in every four trust in government. Pew poll respondents said they feel the government is run by a select set of “big interests” that look out only for themselves and not “run for the benefit of all the people.”

Nearly the same percentage of likely voters in both major political parties said they feel that the influence of money on politics has increased in recent years. Donald Trump and his self-funded campaign has been viewed as a bold breath of fresh air by some voters.

Just one in every five Pew research study respondents said they trust the government in Washington, D.C. to do the right thing most of the time. A distrust in government trend began in the mid-1990s and continued to emerge during the Barack Obama administration, according to the study.

Approximately three of every four surveyed by Pew said they believe the federal government does a good job on issues that are considered important on both sides of the political aisle, such as food and medicine safety, natural disaster response, and workplace safety rules, Personality Liberty notes in its trust in government Pew poll report.

The Pew research poll on trust in government included answers from approximately 6,000 potential American voters. The poll was conducted over the course of several weeks this fall, before the ISIS terror attacks in Paris.

When asked about what Pew considered 13 major government functions, the respondents gave a positive performance rating in 10 of the categories. The biggest disagreement between the ratings given among Republicans and Democrats was not surprisingly on the illegal immigration issue. A total of 28 percent of GOP leaning respondents felt the government was handling the illegal immigrants matter well.

More than half of those polled viewed the functionality of the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Veterans Affairs in a very negative light. The Veterans Affairs agency dropped sharply in ratings as compared to its numbers in similar Pew polls conducted during the past several years.

Government agencies, which received positive marks in job approval and trust categories include the Pentagon, the CIA, the FBI, and the Social Security Administration. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) only had a 52 percent approval rating with one in every three Pew trust in government poll respondents giving the federal entities a big thumbs down.

Do you trust the government?

[Image via AP Photo/Eric Schultz]

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