Americans have lost faith in America

Three in ten Americans now believe the nation’s political system is fundamentally unsound, according to the Monmouth University Poll, an increase from prior polls, while one-third of the public continues to believe the lie that voter fraud caused President Joe Biden to win the 2020 election.

Doubt about Biden’s victory has been consistent over the past year, owing to persistent lies about the election from the loser, former President Donald Trump, who incited a mob of his supporters to attempt a coup d’etat at the Capitol on January 6.

A GOP-sponsored audit of Arizona election results—which showed Biden won the state’s largest county while Trump received fewer votes than originally believed—did more to reinforce the false belief than dispel it. The audit has been the subject of misinformation online, despite the fact that previous recounts in Arizona found no wrongdoing.

The poll also finds that half of Americans support greater regulation of Facebook, with majority support among most groups – except for Republicans and independents who use the platform and have been heavily targeted with lies and misinformation.

Fewer than half of all Americans believe that the American system of government is basically sound and needs either no changes (8%) or some improvement (35%).

The combined 43% who feel the system is basically sound is nearly identical to 44% who said the same shortly after the U.S. Capitol riot in January.

Polls over the prior three years had this number higher – between 50% and 55% basically sound. An older Opinion Research Corporation poll, from which this question was taken, showed faith in the system being sound at a significantly higher level in 1980 (62%).

In the current poll, 26% say the system is not too sound and needs many improvements. This is down from 33% in January, but the shift in opinion has resulted in more rather than less negative views.

Specifically, 30% feel that the American system is not sound at all and needs significant changes. This number stood at 22% in January 2021 and ranged between 21% and 24% in polls taken between 2017 and 2020. Four decades ago, only 10% of the country said the American system was not at all sound.

“The increase of distrust in the American system appears to be linked to the persistence of ‘the big lie.’ The fact that this belief continues to get oxygen is having a serious, and potentially dangerous, impact on faith in our fundamental democratic processes,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.

About one-third (32%) of the American public continues to believe that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election only due to voter fraud – a number that has not budged across five polls in which Monmouth asked this question during the past year.

Nearly 3 in 4 Republicans (73%) cling to the unfounded notion that Biden won through fraud.

Among all voters who believe fraud determined the 2020 outcome, nearly half (45%) also say that the American system is not at all sound. Among the 6 in 10 Americans who believe Biden won the election fair and square, far fewer (23%) feel that way.

The GOP-backed “audit” of the 2020 Arizona election results released in late September concluding that Biden won that state fairly has been rejected by most Republicans.

Overall, a majority of Americans say the review did in fact show that Biden won Arizona fairly (36%) or say they are not sure about the report but guess it probably arrived at that conclusion (21%).

On the other hand, 13% of the public claims the review turned up significant evidence of voter fraud while 16% say they are not sure but it probably found fraud. Among Republicans, 32% say the so-called audit found evidence of fraud and 30% say it probably did.

Looking back at the attempted coup d’etat at the U.S Capitol on January 6, about 1 in 4 Americans (27%) say that the anger that led to this incident was at least partially justified, including a majority of Republicans (54%).

That was the first time in history that there was not a peaceful transfer of power in the United States, even though —despite his early fears of defeat, President Abraham Lincoln won strong majorities in the popular and electoral vote, while the Civil War was still raging although no electoral votes were counted from any of the eleven members of the Confederate States of America.

Just over half of the public has either a lot (26%) or a little (31%) trust that the House Select Committee set up to examine this incident will conduct a fair investigation. Most Republicans (75%) have no trust at all in the committee.

Most Americans approve of having the select committee look into whether members of Congress (73%) or former President Donald Trump (67%) played a role in the incident along with looking into possible fraud in the 2020 election (60%).

Majorities of Republicans support having the committee investigate possible election fraud (70%) and the role members of Congress may have played (58%), but only 40% approve of the committee looking into anything that could implicate Trump. About 9 in 10 Democrats approve of an inquiry into the role played by Trump (91%) and members of Congress (89%), while nearly half say the same about looking into possible election fraud (47%).

“Democrats do not believe that Biden won through fraud, as the poll results clearly show. The fact that nearly half want to see an investigation into possible fraud likely stems from their hopes that it would put the false claims to rest. But as the experience from the so-called Arizona audit shows, that outcome is highly unlikely and America will remain divided on this,” said Murray

About half (49%) of all Americans feel the country has become more divided since Biden took office. Just 12% say we have become more united and 38% say nothing has really changed. While these results are largely negative, they are somewhat better than feelings about our political rift under Biden’s predecessor.

At a similar point in Trump’s term, 63% said the country had become more divided. That sentiment topped out at 70% right after the 2020 election. Unsurprisingly, a larger number of Republicans say that the country has become more divided under Biden (78%) than did under Trump a year ago (49%).

Far fewer Democrats say that the country has become more divided under the current president from their own party (22%) while more felt that way about the president from the opposite party last year (90%). However, only 25% of Democrats see the country as becoming more united since Biden took office; half (52%), in fact, say nothing has changed.

The Monmouth University Poll also looked into usage of Facebook for political content. Even though Republicans are not significantly more likely than Democrats to use the social media platform, they are twice as likely to read items about politics there on a daily basis (24% for Republicans and 12% for Democrats).

About 3 in 4 Americans (77%) of all partisan stripes feel Facebook does a bad job monitoring its content. However, Republicans (53%) are more likely to say Facebook does a bad job because its monitoring goes too far, while most Democrats (66%) say it does a bad job because it does not go far enough. This partisan pattern is fairly consistent regardless of frequency of Facebook usage.

About half of the American public (51%) would support greater government regulation of how Facebook operates, while 36% would oppose. Two-thirds of Democrats support greater regulation regardless of whether they use Facebook (66%) or not (69%).

Republicans, on the other hand, are divided with 53% of those who do not use the platform supporting greater government regulation but just 34% of GOP Facebook users agree.  There is also a gap in this support, albeit smaller, among independents who do not use the platform (55%) versus those who do (42%).

The Monmouth University Poll was conducted by telephone from November 4 to 8, 2021 with 811 adults in the United States.  The question results in this release have a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percentage points. The poll was conducted by the Monmouth University Polling Institute in West Long Branch, NJ.