As the Obama administration slouches onward with its bungled response to the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and as Russia continues its expansion westward, Americans’ faith in the federal government’s ability to handle international problems has fallen to an all-time low, according to recent Gallup polling data.
An equally disturbing number of voters also say they have little faith in Washington’s ability to deal with domestic problems.
Gallup found that only 43 percent of respondents in a survey conducted Sept. 4 to 7, believe the government is competent enough to handle crises overseas. Similarly, only 40 percent of the 1,017 survey U.S. adults aged 18 and older say they have faith in the government’s ability to resolve domestic issues.
It hasn’t always been this way. In fact, there was a time when an impressive 83 percent of voters said they trusted the federal government to handle international issues. Of course, those numbers came shortly after the September 11 attacks on U.S. soil, an extraordinarily unique moment in U.S. history.
Faith in the federal government has fluctuated significantly since 1997, when Gallup began to gauge voters regularly on the issue. It hit a high point during the early Bush administration and has been gradually declining ever since.
The fluctuation in voter confidence — especially the slow and steady downwards trend — likely comes as a frustration to White House speechwriters, who try very hard to assure voters that they should trust Washington resolve both domestic and foreign problems.
“[W]e’ve got to change the way government does business, fundamentally,” former President Bill Clinton said in 1992 during his Democratic National Convention acceptance speech. “Until we do, we’ll continue to pour billions of dollars down the drain….[T]ogether we will revitalize America.”
He continued, promising that he would bring about an “America with the world’s strongest defense, ready and willing to use force when necessary,” an “America at the forefront of the global effort to preserve and protect our common environment — and promoting global growth” and an America that “champions the cause of freedom and democracy from Eastern Europe to Southern Africa — and in our own hemispheres, in Haiti and Cuba.”
Clinton left office with 58 percent of voters saying they trust Washington to handle domestic issues and 72 percent saying they trust the federal government to deal with international problems.
Later, former President George W. Bush made a similar pitch to revive America and restore faith in the nation’s public institutions.
“Our nation’s leaders are responsible … to confront problems, not pass them on to others,” Bush told a crowd in 2000. “[W]e can begin again. After all of the shouting, and all of the scandal. After all of the bitterness and broken faith. We can begin again.”
“A prosperous nation is ready to renew its purpose and unite behind great goals … and it won’t be long now,” he added. “An era of tarnished ideals is giving way to a responsibility era. And it won’t be long now.”
Bush left office with an average of 59 percent of voters saying they trust Washington to handle domestic issues and 65 percent saying they trust the federal government to deal with international problems.
President Obama ran for president in 2008 on the promise of restoring the U.S.’ image both at home and abroad.
“[T]his was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth,” Obama told an adoring crowd in 2008.
“This was the moment — this was the time — when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals,” he added.
So far, under the Obama administration, an average of 55 percent of voters say they have faith in the government’s ability to handle international issues, while only 45 percent say they trust the government with domestic problems.
“Beginning in 2001, Gallup routinized the asking of the trust in government to handle domestic and international affairs questions to once per year in our annual September Governance poll (which began in 2001),” Gallup Editor-in-Chief Dr. Frank Newport told the Washington Examiner Thursday. “Those questions have thus been asked every September from 2001 to the present. Prior to 2001 these questions had been asked occasionally.”
