Corruption in the US isn't new, but it's never been done as openly as it has been recently. I don't think it's a good thing. It shows that the government isn't concerned about what the public thinks, which suggests that they believe they no longer have to be. That's not a healthy sign for what's supposed to be a democracy.
I think it's worse. It's not that the government doesn't care that the public hates it; it's more like the government is doing whatever it wants and half the public is going wild absolutely loving it.
Part of the problem with the open brazenness of the corruption is that the populace of the country will follow the lead. The rot will spread far and wide if it is seen that there is no consequence.
> It shows that the government isn't concerned about what the public thinks
Similar to The Death of a Euphemism [0], where some politicians decide they don't have to cloak their proposal in the trappings of reasonability any more.
Well it’s almost certainly not also just more open. But also more common and more intense. There is 100% absolutely no possible comparison to Trump’s personal acts of corruption in any prior White House ever.
Trump is bad, but please let's not excuse corporate neoliberal dems that are totally fine with insider trading, legalized bribes, and are quite proud that their consultant campaign workers get lucrative gigs at corporations/boards due to insider access. I mean we have people like Gillibrand that are openly in bed with the crypto industry while somehow decrying what Trump is doing. Feels like they're upset that Trump exposed how rotten this game has gotten.
At some point you realize there is a game that you were never playing and it becomes a bipartisan issue.
Implying that it's always been this way is part of the reason we are now here. For my entire life, bad faith commentators insinuated that the federal government was rife with corruption. When under Democratic control, of course. The time that Al Gore made one long-distance telephone call from his official desk, using his own personal calling card, birthed over 200 New York Times articles, 30 of them on the front page. We just had to get to the bottom of all that corruption!
"Both sides are just as bad" is copium for when the guy from "your side" is revealed to be a corrupt piece of shit. You don't like it, so you justify to yourself that the other party is also full of creeps and assholes and thieves, so you can continue to support your guy guilt free...
Of course the supporters of one particular political party is much more better at gymnastics of the mental kind than the other side. Having no spine makes it quite easier...
Looking at their charts, Democrats and Independents clearly think corruption is up a lot since 2024. But Republicans think corruption is down from 2024. The polarization of the electorate in the U.S. is pretty incredible.
I’m not an American. Those not American are frankly gobsmacked that U.S. citizens voted the current President in a second time. You all literally saw what he did in his first term!
Even before this new record high, in the previous ~15 years the average seemed to be around 75% (±), which seems… high? I would perhaps understand the US public thinking that (some levels of) government being "incompetent", but not corrupt.
By some measure the US does seem to have 'decent' scores for perception of corruption:
Meta: in some ways it seems that the public's perception of government is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the US there is a large vein of "government is bad/incompetent/corrupt" and that's apparently what the US often gets. While in (e.g.) Scandinavian countries there appears to be a higher level of trust in government, and the people there tend to elect more competent politicians (?).
I'd guess it comes down to what counts as "the government."
Millions of people work for the federal government, and millions more for state and local governments. Is there widespread corruption among them? I don't think so. And I don't think my countrymen think so either.
But "the government" is often meant as just the very top. The President is corrupt. Big swathes of Congress are corrupt. We have a Supreme Court justice more or less openly accepting bribes. Among that small group, I would be comfortable saying that corruption is widespread.
I (and I'm sure others) would obviously agree. just a smattering of the obvious cases
* for years people have noticed that many members of congress use privileged information to pick stocks.
* lobbying post-Citizen's United has a very decidedly "buying politicians" aspect to it
* a congressman (Menendez) was literally arrested while holding gold bars from a foreign government. he went to prison, but is the only person on this list who has iirc.
* the former mayor of new york (a long-time police offer) was embroiled in a Very Funny, very obviously true corruption scandal for turkish airline tickets. the prosecution against him was dropped for no good reason.
Unfortunately if one asks "who is the cause of the corruption" you'd see two very strong modes in the data, and therein lies the issue regarding fixing things.
Identifying as independents means nothing. 67% of independents in 2018 viewed one party more favorable and were unfavorable to other. In other words, the independents have a partisan lean towards one party and are more likely to vote that way.
This is correct. That is why I changed from independent to an actual political party. There is no point, it is highly improbable that I would ever vote for the party that is against my values. The two main US political parties are diametrically opposed.
That only matters of you actually do make different choices. But of course in turn even trying to control for that depends on their being meaningful changes in party platforms between elections.
So I'm pretty content calling it a meaningless measure.
An "independent" in America is a person who greatly desires everything Trump is doing but realizes that makes them a bad person and therefore refuses to admit it.
> Is corruption widespread throughout the government in this country, or not?
How is corruption defined for the purposes of this survey?
If there is none (I assume there is not), then it is only natural this number go up as the media highlights and propagandizes and highlights all actions taken by all government officials.
I'm curious how these polls are conducted. These polls are at least already biased since people self-select. If they're online only, even moreso. If they're only advertised to echo chambers, even moreso.
Anyway, the result may be that the polls are only measuring younger people with nothing better to do. That's interesting but only a record high amongst that subpopulation. I'm fairly certain this is business as usual.
I thought electing an outsider with theretofore no experience nor interest in governing was supposed to break the system in a good way so as to erase the incumbent problems and rebuild with common sense and integrity.
Is corruption widespread throughout the government in this country, or not?
Then that's very open to interpretation. Even if I thought the federal government was not corrupt, but I did think the local or state government was corrupt (or many local governments were, not just my own), I'd answer yes to this question.
Nah. At the end of the day it’s candidate A vs. B. Once they’re all corrupt you still have to decide between them and pick the lesser evil as you see it. They’re creatures of ambition and incentives, and the corruption is a feature of the system. It sucks but what can you do but vote for the corrupt dems or the corrupt republicans?
Well, maybe a bit less than half these days.
I simply do not understand American politics.
Similar to The Death of a Euphemism [0], where some politicians decide they don't have to cloak their proposal in the trappings of reasonability any more.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dBJIkp7qIg
At some point you realize there is a game that you were never playing and it becomes a bipartisan issue.
For evidence, refer to TFA.
Of course the supporters of one particular political party is much more better at gymnastics of the mental kind than the other side. Having no spine makes it quite easier...
They believe that all government is corrupt and thus they're not doing anything wrong by being openly corrupt.
By some measure the US does seem to have 'decent' scores for perception of corruption:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index
* https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2025
Meta: in some ways it seems that the public's perception of government is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the US there is a large vein of "government is bad/incompetent/corrupt" and that's apparently what the US often gets. While in (e.g.) Scandinavian countries there appears to be a higher level of trust in government, and the people there tend to elect more competent politicians (?).
Millions of people work for the federal government, and millions more for state and local governments. Is there widespread corruption among them? I don't think so. And I don't think my countrymen think so either.
But "the government" is often meant as just the very top. The President is corrupt. Big swathes of Congress are corrupt. We have a Supreme Court justice more or less openly accepting bribes. Among that small group, I would be comfortable saying that corruption is widespread.
* for years people have noticed that many members of congress use privileged information to pick stocks.
* lobbying post-Citizen's United has a very decidedly "buying politicians" aspect to it
* a congressman (Menendez) was literally arrested while holding gold bars from a foreign government. he went to prison, but is the only person on this list who has iirc.
* the former mayor of new york (a long-time police offer) was embroiled in a Very Funny, very obviously true corruption scandal for turkish airline tickets. the prosecution against him was dropped for no good reason.
New High of 45% in U.S. Identify as Political Independents (January 12, 2026)
https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-politi...
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/03/14/political-in...
It means "I am not firmly affiliated". You still have the ability to make choices on who is a better likely outcome
So I'm pretty content calling it a meaningless measure.
So definitely not meaningless. It demonstrates increasing amounts of people are tired of pretending our democracy isn't mostly illusory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniparty
How is corruption defined for the purposes of this survey?
If there is none (I assume there is not), then it is only natural this number go up as the media highlights and propagandizes and highlights all actions taken by all government officials.
Anyway, the result may be that the polls are only measuring younger people with nothing better to do. That's interesting but only a record high amongst that subpopulation. I'm fairly certain this is business as usual.
Is corruption widespread throughout the government in this country, or not?
Then that's very open to interpretation. Even if I thought the federal government was not corrupt, but I did think the local or state government was corrupt (or many local governments were, not just my own), I'd answer yes to this question.
They should have broken it down a bit more.
https://abcnews.com/Politics/profoundly-corrupt-trump-sued-f...