Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

A profound distrust is corroding American politics

A profound distrust is corroding American politics

"It is reasonable to expect political leaders will be able to express strong values but also cooperate enough to do the basics of governing such as pass a budget on time and avoid government shutdowns," argues Glenn Nye.

mj0007/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Nye is president of the nonprofit and nonpartisan Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress. He was a Democratic member of the House from Virginia from 2009 to 2011.

Americans' lack of faith in our political institutions is a deeply troubling challenge to the success of our democracy and serves as an undercurrent in American politics, overshadowing and poisoning our ability to process every other question in Washington. Left unaddressed, this disillusionment will continue to cause serious disruption to all efforts to move our country forward.

While not the hottest topic driving the daily media dramatics, solving this crisis of faith by reforming the corrupted elements of our politics is the best way to get our country back on track.


American voters understand the real problem. A recent Georgetown University poll found super-majorities wanting leaders to stand up for their values, but also expect that compromise and common ground should be their goal. It is reasonable to expect political leaders will be able to express strong values but also cooperate enough to do the basics of governing such as pass a budget on time and avoid government shutdowns. It is unsurprising then that a Congress that consistently fails to do this, as yet another potential shutdown looms, enjoys only a dismal 18 percent approval rating. That profound lack of faith has consequences. In the same poll, 90 percent expressed exhaustion with "politicians in Washington who work with powerful special interests instead of standing up to them." A system awash with campaign cash and unfettered access by moneyed interest drives a deep and destructive derision among the citizens. The story of a payday lender bragging about bought access to the White House doesn't help. Politicians' relentless efforts, on both sides, to rig electoral maps to their partisan advantage only further deepens the mistrust.

Systemic disgust makes every other political process suspect. While the current impeachment drama provides a useful example of the exercise of congressional responsibility to practice oversight on the most troubling presidential behavior, relentless political and media focus on impeachment suggests that the biggest problems confronting our republic boil down to the actions of one individual — that somehow the question of removing or replacing that one person is the key question at hand. It feels like something is missing in that debate, a focus on the larger issue of systemic corruption that has riled the American electorate for many years and put our politics on this seemingly inescapable downward spiral. It is difficult to see the current process resulting in a definitive outcome because it is a case of one mistrusted institution trying to assert a sadly non-existent moral authority over the other.

The Democratic presidential debates also seem to be focused on varying approaches to legislative issue policies that will require some unlikely consensus in Congress to enact. Again, the conversation seems grounded in the assumption that a body deemed dysfunctional by the American people will rise to America's challenges given the right presidential stewardship, a notion which feels disconnected from the current lack of faith in both of these institutions. There is, of course, room for presidential leadership to improve the dynamic. But a successful challenger to President Trump would need to both convince Americans that Trump is part of the same systemic corruption they have always disdained, and present a vision of a reformed system that could restore faith in our institutions. That means a significant focus on electoral system reform and a serious change to the relationship between money and political power.

Trump campaigned successfully on voter anger against a broken and corrupted system. By many measures, his approach has made voter faith in that system worse. In order to restore faith, one would need a specific vision for a convincingly game-changing better way.

One idea would be a ban on federal politicians accepting any campaign contributions until they completed the annual budget and appropriations for the coming year. That would end shutdowns forever and create a "quiet time" for governing and allocating resources, free from the corrupting influences of fundraising calls and events.

There are many other worthwhile ideas for reform, including ending gerrymandering, realigning incentives for compromise and increasing fundraising transparency, but there is an urgent need to restore American faith in our political system by enacting real reforms.

It's high time to fix the system.

Read More

Veterans’ Care at Risk Under Trump As Hundreds of Doctors and Nurses Reject Working at VA Hospitals
Photo illustration by Lisa Larson-Walker/ProPublica

Veterans’ Care at Risk Under Trump As Hundreds of Doctors and Nurses Reject Working at VA Hospitals

Veterans hospitals are struggling to replace hundreds of doctors and nurses who have left the health care system this year as the Trump administration pursues its pledge to simultaneously slash Department of Veterans Affairs staff and improve care.

Many job applicants are turning down offers, worried that the positions are not stable and uneasy with the overall direction of the agency, according to internal documents examined by ProPublica. The records show nearly 4 in 10 of the roughly 2,000 doctors offered jobs from January through March of this year turned them down. That is quadruple the rate of doctors rejecting offers during the same time period last year.

Keep ReadingShow less
Protecting the U.S. Press: The PRESS Act and What It Could Mean for Journalists

The Protect Reporters from Excessive State Suppression (PRESS) Act aims to fill the national shield law gap by providing two protections for journalists.

Getty Images, Manu Vega

Protecting the U.S. Press: The PRESS Act and What It Could Mean for Journalists

The First Amendment protects journalists during the news-gathering and publication processes. For example, under the First Amendment, reporters cannot be forced to report on an issue. However, the press is not entitled to different legal protections compared to a general member of the public under the First Amendment.

In the United States, there are protections for journalists beyond the First Amendment, including shield laws that protect journalists from pressure to reveal sources or information during news-gathering. 48 states and the District of Columbia have shield laws, but protections vary widely. There is currently no federal shield law. As of 2019, at least 22 journalists have been jailed in the U.S. for refusing to comply with requests to reveal sources of information. Seven other journalists have been jailed and fined for the same reason.

Keep ReadingShow less
Democrats Score Strategic Wins Amid Redistricting Battles

Democrat Donkey is winning arm wrestling match against Republican elephant

AI generated image

Democrats Score Strategic Wins Amid Redistricting Battles

Democrats are quietly building momentum in the 2025 election cycle, notching two key legislative flips in special elections and gaining ground in early polling ahead of the 2026 midterms. While the victories are modest in number, they signal a potential shift in voter sentiment — and a brewing backlash against Republican-led redistricting efforts.

Out of 40 special elections held across the United States so far in 2025, only two seats have changed party control — both flipping from Republican to Democrat.

Keep ReadingShow less
Policing or Occupation? Trump’s Militarizing America’s Cities Sets a Dangerous Precedent

A DC Metropolitan Police Department car is parked near a rally against the Trump Administration's federal takeover of the District of Columbia, outside of the AFL-CIO on August 11, 2025 in Washington, DC.

(Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Policing or Occupation? Trump’s Militarizing America’s Cities Sets a Dangerous Precedent

President Trump announced the activation of hundreds of National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., along with the deployment of federal agents—including more than 100 from the FBI. This comes despite Justice Department data showing that violent crime in D.C. fell 35% from 2023 to 2024, reaching its lowest point in over three decades. These aren’t abstract numbers—they paint a picture of a city safer than it has been in a generation, with fewer homicides, assaults, and robberies than at any point since the early 1990s.

The contradiction could not be more glaring: the same president who, on January 6, 2021, stalled for hours as a violent uprising engulfed the Capitol is now rushing to “liberate” a city that—based on federal data—hasn’t been this safe in more than thirty years. Then, when democracy itself was under siege, urgency gave way to dithering; today, with no comparable emergency—only vague claims of lawlessness—he mobilizes troops for a mission that looks less like public safety and more like political theater. The disparity between those two moments is more than irony; it is a blueprint for how power can be selectively applied, depending on whose power is threatened.

Keep ReadingShow less