Confidence in American Institutions: Flatline

Tuesday, July 11, 2023

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Welcome to Front Page, where we break down Gallup's latest insights on our constantly evolving world. Here are the five insights you shouldn't miss this week:

1. Confidence in American Institutions: Flatline

Line Chart: An average of 26% of U.S. adults have confidence in major U.S. institutions in 2023.

Every year, Gallup measures public confidence in several public and societal institutions — like the military and Supreme Court, TV news, and small business. The downward trend in the average confidence rating for these tells the story for most of the eclectic list of institutions that we track.
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2. When the Mighty Fall

Line Chart: 60% of U.S. adults have confidence in the U.S. military in 2023.

In an era of low public trust, the military has been a rare outlier in earning high confidence from a supermajority of Americans. But that position is no more, as confidence in the military has slipped below two-thirds in the past two years since the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
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3. POTUS vs. SCOTUS

Line Chart: 27% of U.S. adults have confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023.

President Joe Biden raised eyebrows when he declared this Supreme Court as "not a normal court." It's rare to see the second branch of government so explicitly call out the third. Here's what public confidence in the Supreme Court has looked like over the past decades. So far, the drop seen following the Dobbs opinion leak last year is enduring.
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4. A Tale of Two Supremes

Bar Chart: Confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court, by political party.

Not everyone is feeling down on the highest court in the land. Check out the immense divergence in how Democrats and Republicans view the Supreme Court.
Explore Supreme Court Trends

5. Is France OK?

Bar Chart: Comparing France to its peers as a

Despite all the bad news on U.S. institutions, things are worse in France. Acts of mass vandalism and violence unfolded in reaction to the death of a teenager of Algerian descent at the hands of police. When we ask the French themselves if their community is a good place for immigrants to live, here's how the land of fraternity matches up with a group of peer nations.
Explore Migration Research Center

And that's Front Page!

Mohamed Younis
Editor-in-Chief
Gallup

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