CNN Poll: Trust in Government Lower than an Arthropod on a Gravel Parking Lot Low

“See how low to the ground I am? Research shows that trust in government is even lower.”

“The number who trust the government all or most of the time has sunk so low…”

CNN‘s Paul Steinhauser delivers the bad news: Four decades after President Richard Nixon resigned, a slight majority of Americans still consider Watergate a very serious matter, a new national survey shows. But how serious depends on when you were born.

” …that it is hard to remember that there was ever a time when Americans routinely trusted the government.”

— CNN Polling Director Keating Holland

The CNN/ORC International poll’s release comes one day before the 40th anniversary of Nixon’s resignation on August 9, 1974. With the Watergate scandal escalating, the second-term Republican president had lost much of his political backing, and he faced almost certain impeachment and the prospects of being removed from office by a Democratic-dominated House and Senate.

There’s a big generational divide over the significance of the scandal, with a majority of those older than 40 describing Watergate as a very serious problem and those under 40 saying it was just politics.

“Just 13% of Americans say the government can be trusted to do what is right always or most of the time.”

The poll also indicates that the public’s trust in government is at an all-time low.

Just 13% of Americans say the government can be trusted to do what is right always or most of the time, with just over three-quarters saying only some of the time and one in 10 saying they never trust the government, according to the poll.

“The number who trust the government all or most of the time has sunk so low that it is hard to remember that there was ever a time when Americans routinely trusted the government,” CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said…(read more)

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