Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Americans have negative views of all three branches of government

Supreme Court

Americans' approval of the Supreme Court dropped significantly after justices declined to block Texas' controversial abortion law, recent Gallup polling shows.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Public opinion of the Supreme Court dropped to its lowest point in two decades after the justices declined to block Texas' controversial abortion law, new polling shows, echoing poor marks for the other branches of government.

Two-fifths of Americans approve of the job the Supreme Court is doing — a sharp decline from July when 49 percent of people indicated approval, according to a new Gallup report released Thursday. Public opinion of the high court has been worsening since it last peaked at 58 percent — one of its highest ratings — just over a year ago.

Similarly, President Biden's approval rating fell 6 percentage points over the last month to 43 percent, the lowest mark in his presidency, per a separate poll by Gallup released Wednesday. Congressional approval remains low, with just 27 percent of Americans satisfied with the job lawmakers are doing.


Americans across the political spectrum expressed disapproval of the Supreme Court. Democrats held the lowest positive opinion, at 36 percent. Roughly two-fifths of independents approved of the high court and 45 percent of Republicans indicated approval.

The Supreme Court's ratings last dropped this low in 2016, after the justices ruled colleges could continue to use race as a factor in admissions and in 2005 after the court expanded the federal government's eminent domain power. Both times the court received a 42 percent approval rating.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

The Gallup poll also found trust and confidence in the judicial branch fell significantly over the last year. The percentage of Americans who expressed "a great deal" or "fair amount" of trust in the Supreme Court dropped from two-thirds in 2020 to 54 percent this month.

Additionally, more Americans see the Supreme Court as being "too conservative" — at 37 percent, it's an increase of 5 percentage points from a year ago. The confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett last fall solidified the high court's conservative majority.

Biden's low approval rating comes on the heels of the United States evacuating more than 120,000 people from Afghanistan, ending the country's longest war. At the same time, the Delta variant continues to drive higher Covid-19 infection rates nationwide.

For the first six months of his presidency, Biden's approval rating hovered just above a majority, peaking at 57 percent after his inauguration and again in April. Except for Donald Trump, every president since Harry Truman has enjoyed a honeymoon period of high approval ratings during the start of their presidency. (In comparison, Trump's approval rating in September 2017 was 37 percent.)

Although Democrats' approval of Biden has dipped slightly, to 90 percent, they remain strongly in favor of the job the president is doing. Conversely, just 6 percent of Republicans approve of Biden. Independents' views toward Biden have been steadily declining over the past few months, with just 37 percent approving — a 24-point drop from January.

For the first time, Gallup also asked survey respondents to rate how Vice President Kamala Harris is doing. Americans were split down the middle, with 49 percent approving and 49 percent disapproving. Similar to Biden, Democrats rate Harris very highly (92 percent) while few Republicans approve of her as vice president (4 percent). Nearly half of independents (46 percent) have a favorable opinion of Harris, explaining why her approval rating is slightly higher than Biden's.

Congress continues to have the lowest approval ratings out of the three branches of government. Less than one-third of Americans are satisfied with the job lawmakers are doing, a number that has remained relatively unchanged since June but is down from the 36 percent approval rating in March.

This is likely due to the partisan polarization and dysfunction that has prevented Congress from passing a major infrastructure bill, a spending package, two significant voting and election reform bills, and a raise or suspension of the debt ceiling to prevent an impending government shutdown, among other important policy proposals.

For these surveys on public approval of the Supreme Court, the president and Congress, Gallup interviewed 1,005 American adults over the phone Sept. 1-17. The margin of error is 4 percentage points.

Read More

Podcast: How do police feel about gun control?

Podcast: How do police feel about gun control?

Jesus "Eddie" Campa, former Chief Deputy of the El Paso County Sheriff's Department and former Chief of Police for Marshall Texas, discusses the recent school shooting in Uvalde and how loose restrictions on gun ownership complicate the lives of law enforcement on this episode of YDHTY.

Listen now

Podcast: Why conspiracy theories thrive in both democracies and autocracies

Podcast: Why conspiracy theories thrive in both democracies and autocracies

There's something natural and organic about perceiving that the people in power are out to advance their own interests. It's in part because it’s often true. Governments actually do keep secrets from the public. Politicians engage in scandals. There often is corruption at high levels. So, we don't want citizens in a democracy to be too trusting of their politicians. It's healthy to be skeptical of the state and its real abuses and tendencies towards secrecy. The danger is when this distrust gets redirected, not toward the state, but targets innocent people who are not actually responsible for people's problems.

On this episode of "Democracy Paradox" Scott Radnitz explains why conspiracy theories thrive in both democracies and autocracies.

Your Take:  The Price of Freedom

Your Take: The Price of Freedom

Our question about the price of freedom received a light response. We asked:

What price have you, your friends or your family paid for the freedom we enjoy? And what price would you willingly pay?

It was a question born out of the horror of images from Ukraine. We hope that the news about the Jan. 6 commission and Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court nomination was so riveting that this question was overlooked. We considered another possibility that the images were so traumatic, that our readers didn’t want to consider the question for themselves. We saw the price Ukrainians paid.

One response came from a veteran who noted that being willing to pay the ultimate price for one’s country and surviving was a gift that was repaid over and over throughout his life. “I know exactly what it is like to accept that you are a dead man,” he said. What most closely mirrored my own experience was a respondent who noted her lack of payment in blood, sweat or tears, yet chose to volunteer in helping others exercise their freedom.

Personally, my price includes service to our nation, too. The price I paid was the loss of my former life, which included a husband, a home and a seemingly secure job to enter the political fray with a message of partisan healing and hope for the future. This work isn’t risking my life, but it’s the price I’ve paid.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Given the earnest question we asked, and the meager responses, I am also left wondering if we think at all about the price of freedom? Or have we all become so entitled to our freedom that we fail to defend freedom for others? Or was the question poorly timed?

I read another respondent’s words as an indicator of his pacifism. And another veteran who simply stated his years of service. And that was it. Four responses to a question that lives in my heart every day. We look forward to hearing Your Take on other topics. Feel free to share questions to which you’d like to respond.

Keep ReadingShow less
No, autocracies don't make economies great

libre de droit/Getty Images

No, autocracies don't make economies great

Tom G. Palmer has been involved in the advance of democratic free-market policies and reforms around the globe for more than three decades. He is executive vice president for international programs at Atlas Network and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.

One argument frequently advanced for abandoning the messy business of democratic deliberation is that all those checks and balances, hearings and debates, judicial review and individual rights get in the way of development. What’s needed is action, not more empty debate or selfish individualism!

In the words of European autocrat Viktor Orbán, “No policy-specific debates are needed now, the alternatives in front of us are obvious…[W]e need to understand that for rebuilding the economy it is not theories that are needed but rather thirty robust lads who start working to implement what we all know needs to be done.” See! Just thirty robust lads and one far-sighted overseer and you’re on the way to a great economy!

Keep ReadingShow less
Podcast: A right-wing perspective on Jan. 6th and the 2020 election

Podcast: A right-wing perspective on Jan. 6th and the 2020 election

Peter Wood is an anthropologist and president of the National Association of Scholars. He believes—like many Americans on the right—that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and the January 6th riots were incited by the left in collusion with the FBI. He’s also the author of a new book called Wrath: America Enraged, which wrestles with our politics of anger and counsels conservatives on how to respond to perceived aggression.

Where does America go from here? In this episode, Peter joins Ciaran O’Connor for a frank conversation about the role of anger in our politics as well as the nature of truth, trust, and conspiracy theories.

Keep ReadingShow less