As Joe Biden moves into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and gets his administration up and running, restoring trust in America's government is going to prove one of his foremost challenges. While the foundations of American democracy held firm and withstood the events of January 06, the cracks are still in place, as evidenced by the finger-pointing and suspicion on Capitol Hill ever since. While distrust inside the government itself is one thing, distrust among the public is quite another. A recently released survey from Edelman Research found that a mere four-in-ten Americans trusted the government in mid-November 2020, a figure that is far lower than in other developed countries.
Despite the turbulence of 2020, a year that has seen hundreds of thousands of Americans die of Covid-19, Edelman found that trust in U.S. government actually climbed 3% compared to 2019. Still, America's 42% is considerably lower than trust levels in Australia and Canada which stood at 61% and 59%, respectively. It is also marginally lower than in the United Kingdom where the country's protracted divorce with the European Union has led to widespread distrust, frustration and resentment. In late 2020, the share of Britons who trusted Boris Johnson's government stood at 45%.
Some of the highest trust levels were recorded in Asia with 82% of Chinese respondents reporting faith in their government's honesty, though that represents a noticeable 8% fall on 2019. India also saw some of the highest trust levels in government out of any country with 79% while Japan was amongst the lowest at 37%. There are places where that figure is even lower still and it was just 34% in both Spain and Russia. There is lot at stake for 2021 and the positive development of Edelman's findings will depend heavily on how the pandemic plays out, particularly when it comes to the efficiency of rolling out vaccination programs as well as how soon it takes to get economies back running at full power.
Source: Statista
