The past few years have been rocked by the Covid-19 pandemic, inflation, and debates over race relations, education and border security. But none of those are the biggest problem facing the nation, according to Americans. Rather, the government itself is the most important problem – and not for the first time.
In fact, this is the seventh time in the past 10 years that government has been the No. 1 problem in Gallup’s annual assessment, but the numbers have been trending down.
The highest rate of dissatisfaction occurred in 2019, at 27 percent, but has been declining and hit 19 percent this year.
Gallup notes in its summary that “government” is a catchall term that includes multiple response options that include the president, Congress, partisanship and gridlock.
As with most issues, there is a partisan divide on responses, with government ranking as a bigger problem among Republicans (25 percent) than Democrats (18 percent) and independents (16 percent).
The poll of 1,020 adults was conducted Nov. 9-Dec. 2. It has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.
The Fulcrum asked a number of experts on improving government their thoughts on how to restore trust in government.
Julia Roig, founder and chief network weaver, The Horizons Project:
In a democracy, what many have forgotten is that government is the responsibility of all of us, accountable to all of us, and the way in which we care for each other as citizens. If there is dissatisfaction, the answer is to get involved, be a part of the solution, participate actively and organize within your community while respecting the many different opinions and perspectives we have in such a diverse country. Americans have such ingenuity, but we are stuck in a story that government is the problem as opposed to an opportunity for innovation and positive change. It’s time to flip the script and imagine what’s possible, and then work for it together.”
Peter Levine, associate dean, Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University:
I suspect that the people who name ‘government’ as the biggest problem hold a wide range of opinions about why it’s problematic. They may include people from all the way across the political spectrum. This ideological diversity makes it hard to develop a response that would really improve public opinion across the board.
In my opinion, a priority is to spend the very large amounts of money authorized by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act in ways that are – and that appear – fair and that engage a lot of Americans. People should feel they can influence the spending and that they can be part of the actual work: for instance, helping to build infrastructure or reduce carbon emissions. In turn, spending the federal money well will require adequate investments in processes and training.
Norman Ornstein, emeritus scholar, American Enterprise Institute
The results didn’t surprise me. Let’s face it – if you go on a multi-decade assault against the government it’s going to have an impact. The thing I find unsettling about this is there isn’t much of a response to the direct threat to our democracy. … It’s a testament to the failure of our journalists in not sounding the appropriate alarms.
Thirty percent of Americans elect 70 percent of the U.S. senators. That is not representative of the country and its diversity. [Ornstein said he doubts whether even a tragedy like 9/11 could pull the country together today.
Prabha Sankaranarayan, president and CEO, Mediators Beyond Borders
This is quite frankly a time of national emergency and what I know is that we can come together with a resolve. Not a single person can afford to be uninvolved. People are working hard at every level and the country is abuzz with what is possible. We are in the middle of re-imagining our democracy, in lots of ways. We are engaged in creating shared narratives of who we want to be as a nation; we are focused on reforming our electoral system, we are addressing our history of harm and resilience ... and so much more.
So instead of taking this Gallup poll in isolation, I keep in mind all these activities (that don't get reported enough) as well as other things like More in Common's research on the “perception gap” in our views of each other and know that we have work to do.
We have to move beyond binaries – that is our job as peacebuilders – to introduce nuance and layers into every attempt to reduce things to simplistic dichotomies. We are capable of better than that. We are capable of creating this next iteration of our democratic republic.
What we can all do is encourage and support all forms of civic engagement – from parents in communities who want to ensure the best education for their children by reshaping their local school board meetings to be constructive spaces, to those involved in updating our electoral system, our healthcare, our safety and security systems.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.