Americans trust in the U.S. government is at an all-time low in

countries. Trust or the lack thereof, one of the

elements. Trust has been declining for a while now. I mean this is not a new phenomenon.

The Pew Research Center has been polling Americans for decades. More and more they are

finding that Americans are growing less trusting of key institutions that make government function.

Why is that happening? It's a complicated picture that says Pew Researcher Katarina Eva-Mazza.

There's not one single element that we've seen in our data that we can pinpoint and say,

okay, this is what happened and this is why we are seeing decline.

Recently they've been going back through their surveys to chart this decline.

And while there's no one reason for the dip, one factor stands out party affiliation.

And that like the determines who you trust. We see deep parts and divides in which sources

people turn to, the sources that they trust, how they consume you. This is very much driven by their

political identity. And it's gotten worse in recent years. Never before, prior to 2016, we had seen

that huge divide between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to their views about the news media.

But it's not just the news media that's losing trust. Pretty regularly you see supporters of the

winning candidate having much more trust in the elections. That's Bradley Jones. He focuses on

US public opinion about politics at the Pew Research Center. Recently he's been looking into

public trust in our elections. And it doesn't look good. Elections are the primary way that

the public is connected to politicians, right? It's the way that we hold politicians accountable and

it really kind of underpins the whole system. And so if faith and trust in elections erodes,

then it's like the foundation of the building crumbling.

Consider this. Faith in two institutions critical for a functioning democracy is waning.

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