WASHINGTON (AP) – Only a fragment of Americans believe that democracy thrives in the US, even though broad majorities agree that the representative government is one of the fundamental principles of the country, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Only 16% of Americans say democracy works well or extremely well, a pessimism that spans the political spectrum. Nearly half of Americans, 45%, think democracy is not functioning properly, while another 38% say it works just fine.
The core elements of the democratic government, including free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power, have been put to the test by the unfounded allegations of electoral fraud. led by former President Donald Trump. These allegations of fraud were a major cause of the deadly violence at the US Capitol last month, which damaged the country’s reputation as a model for democracy.
Trump to receive unprecedented second indictment this week in the Senate for his role in inciting violence. About half of Americans says the Senate should convict the former Republican president.
“At every turn, it got worse,” said Curtis Musser, a 55-year-old independent Republican in Clermont, Florida, who did not vote for Trump. “You could see it was brewing even before the election. And everything just turned down from there. ”
The poll’s findings are consistent with the way Americans rated democracy before the election. But there are signs that Trump’s attacks on the democratic process, including his repeated and discredited argument that the election was “stolen” because of the irregularities of voters., appealed to Republicans.
In October, about two-thirds of those who identify with the GOP, 68%, said democracy works at least somewhat well. That figure dropped to 36% in January. Democratic views have tossed in the opposite direction, while 70% of democracy works at least somewhat well compared to 37% in the fall.
Overall, about two-thirds of Americans say Joe Biden was legally elected president, but only a third of Republicans are of the opinion.
The debate is now playing out in Congress, with a clear split among Republican leaders such as Senator Mitch McConnell, Representative Liz Cheney and others who have rejected Trump’s allegations and ratified Biden’s victory. Still, more than 140 House Republicans refused to accept Biden’s victory, a sign of the far – right’s grip on the party.
GOP officials in several battlefield states that Biden carried, including Arizona and Georgia, said the election was fair. Trump’s claims rejected outright in court, including by judges appointed by Trump, and by his former attorney general, William Barr.
Fred Carrigan, a 58-year-old industrial heating mechanic in Portland, Indiana, said he did not believe Trump’s argument that the election was stolen. But he also sees the pressure to accuse and condemn Trump as an insult to democracy. A conviction will give senators the option to ban Trump from running for office again.
“Trump did himself no favors by telling them to march. “But he did not tell them to vandalize the Capitol,” Carrigan said. “I do not think it is impeccable. To accuse him is petty. They’re a bunch of kids trying to prove who’s right, if that does not matter at all. ”
“All these performances are that it’s only going to get worse,” he said.
Biden, a Democrat, has vowed to use the power of the presidency to advance democratic ideals.
In one of the first tests of the commitment, he was quick to condemn military leaders who carried out a coup in Myanmar last week., looming sanctions and explosion of a ‘direct attack on the transition of the country to democracy and the rule of law’.
Foreign Minister Antony Blinken, meanwhile, said the government in Biden was “deeply concerned” about the Russian prison sentence of opposition leader Alexei Navalny..
An overwhelming majority of Americans, 70%, say they believe Biden respects democratic institutions at least to a reasonable degree. However, there is a serious political split with about 96% of Democrats saying Biden respects such institutions, compared to about 42% of Republicans.
These are still much higher marks than Trump achieved: 62% say the former president has little or no respect for democratic traditions or institutions. 93% of Democrats and especially 27% of Republicans hold the opinion.
Linda Reynolds, a 64-year-old retired paper sales representative in Torrance, California, was a lifelong Republican until Trump captured the party’s 2016 presidential nomination. With Biden in the White House, she feels better about whether the US will accept democracy again. .
“Of course we have a lot of problems,” she said. “But on the whole, reason seems to prevail, hopefully in the eyes of the world.”
Although Americans are contemptuous of the current state of democracy, they are united that such a form of government is still the desired approach. Eighty percent say a democratically elected government is very or extremely important to the country’s identity.
Support continued or was even higher for other key principles of the country’s democratic government. Eight-eight percent say that a just legal system and the rule of law are very or extremely important, and 85% had similar feelings about individual freedoms and freedoms as defined in the Constitution.
These principles of democracy are considered important by the vast majority of Republicans and Democrats.
Despite the sad view of how the US is run today, the poll finds heightened optimism about the future of the country. Nearly half, 49%, say things are heading in the right direction, compared to 37% in December and 25% in October. Optimism reached a low of 20% last summer. The biggest increase in optimism comes among Democrats, who are confident in Biden and his ability to manage and manage crises facing the country.
“We remain a wonderful country and do a lot of good things,” Reynolds said.
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Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa. Associated Press writers Hannah Fingerhut and Emily Swanson in Washington contributed to this report.
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The AP-NORC poll among 1,055 adults was on 28 January to Feb. 1 using a sample of NORC’s AmeriSpeak panel, which is likely to be representative of the U.S. population. The sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.
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Online:
AP-NORC Center: http://www.apnorc.org/.