Is the US Government Corrupt?

Editors’ Notes

In my neighborhood, Trump flags fly across from pride flags, and “in this house we believe” yard signs are opposite thin blue line bumper stickers. One thing I’ll often hear people from both houses agree upon is something like, “politicians don’t care about us anyways. They’re in it to enrich themselves.”

Last week, Gallup data confirmed that both sides do agree on that, though the fact that we’re bridging the political divide over how dishonest our leaders are doesn’t reflect particularly well on our democracy. Here’s to hoping that such agreement is followed by tangible change. Come discuss one proposal for accountability at our Roundtable on the proposed Independent Fulcrum Caucus happening next week.

News About the Corruption

A recent Gallup (Center) poll found that a record 89% of Americans believe that government corruption in the US is widespread. Democrats’ perception of corruption rose sharply. It was 57% at the end of Biden’s term and rose to 76% in 2025. It’s now up to 91%. Republicans’ views have stayed more stable with 87% saying the government is corrupt, similar to the last two years it was measured. Independents’ perception of corruption went up 12 points since 2024 and now sits at 91%.

Corruption is a top 5 issue for voters in the upcoming midterm elections. While Democrats tend to think that Trump has increased corruption in Washington, Republicans are more likely to see him as cleaning up corruption in Washington programs.

Read more:

• Profits From Ignorance: The Campaign Finance Case That Went Unnoticed
• The Insight: Is Fraud Getting a Pass?

Analysis and Opinions about Corruption

The left was more likely to feature opinions on the polling than the right, likely because it’s Democrats whose perceptions of corruption rose this year under Trump’s administration much more than Republicans. While commentators on the left listed examples they saw as corruption in the Trump administration, voices on the right argued that trust was broken under Democratic administrations and it would take time for Trump to restore it.

A HuffPost (Left) piece read, “On one level, the finding is not especially surprising: Trump and his allies have engaged in an unprecedented amount of self-dealing during his second term, from his family’s cryptocurrency company to his acceptance of a jet from the Qatari royal family to Truth Social selling early access to his posts…Many top Democratic candidates this cycle have made corruption a major theme of their campaigns, including Sen. Jon Ossoff (Ga.) and state Rep. James Talarico, the party’s candidate for Senate in Texas. But some progressives continue to worry the party is pulling its punches on the issue, in part out of fear of alienating corporate interests that might be implicated in Trump’s schemes. Republicans, however, have attempted to fight back on the issue, airing ads noting many of the party’s House members backed a bill to ban congressional stock-trading.”

A columnist wrote in The Washington Times (Lean Right), “The 17% figure is a deep drop from the combined trust rate of 73% in 1958, back when Ike was president and things were relatively normal. That was before the government began wasting money by the trillions, telling sweet lies about the benefits of welfare, enforcing false pronouns, welcoming millions of illegal aliens and coordinating with a corrupt media to censor unwanted views. The Trump administration is working hard to restore trust via transparency, particularly at the FBI, the Justice Department and the federal health agencies, but it is going to take a lot more.”

A Fulcrum (Center) writer wrote, “A political system cannot simply assume public confidence when overwhelming numbers of its citizens, both party members and independents, believe the system itself is compromised…There is a bigger issue here than whether voters approve of Donald Trump, congressional Republicans, Democrats, or any individual politician. Presidents change. Congressional majorities change. The party voters blame changes. The distrust doesn't. When 90% of independent voters believe corruption is widespread, the question for America's political establishment isn't simply how to win their votes in November. It's why they should trust the system asking for their votes in the first place.”

A Portland Press Herald (Center) opinion said, “We may not yet be able to see the full repercussions of the Trump era in the economic data, but we see the psychological consequences all around us: a growing sense that economic walls are closing in, a skepticism in the electorate toward government competence and intentions, the mistrust of Americans by foreigners and the mistrust by Americans of each other… The great risk of this assault on civic virtue and engagement is that the public becomes inured to general corruption and is no longer shocked by specific instances of it.”