What’s the most serious problem facing the United States?
Political reporters will answer that the top issue on voters’ minds is typically the economy, especially the cost of living. It’s a claim borne out by data. Ahead of the 2024 election, Gallup found the economy was a significant factor for roughly 9 in 10 voters.
But a recent Gallup poll calls that truism into question.
Yes, 36% of Americans said economic issues were the most serious problem facing the country as of last month, including 14% who cited inflation and 13% who pinned the label on the economy in general.
But 73% pointed to non-economic problems. At the top of the list: 26% cited the government or poor leadership. The next-highest non-economic problem cited was immigration, at 9%.
(If you said “the media” was our most serious problem, you’re in the 1% who said as much in the poll.)
We’re in a Dark Place, Politically
The complaint about government has been true all year, according to Gallup’s data, and appears to have peaked in January, when 32% said government or poor leadership was the top problem.
The new poll highlights how America is living through a collapse of civic trust that is tarnishing all three branches of government. It’s not the only data point we have.
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Not great.
A Recipe for Trouble?
This mistrust creates a volatile political environment in which bashing the government and promising to take on “the system” – or even burn it down – pays electoral dividends. So does offering populist policies with broad appeal no matter how unworkable they might be in practice.
It can also make policy compromises, which are the lifeblood of a republic and the core mechanic for legislative achievement, be perceived more like treason than tradecraft. Which makes it harder for government to function. Which deepens public mistrust of government. You can see where this is going.
To this toxic cocktail you add the incentives for nationalizing every race – making it about everything except what constituents actually want on a day-to-day basis – and you end up with a system (as I have said before) that is packed full of incentives to skip legislating and focus on composing incendiary tweets in the back seat of a town car on the way to an enraged cable TV performance.
As long as our system rewards the viral social media post over the complicated legislative fix, it’s going to be hard to clean up this civic mess.
