Gallup Explains Trump: "A Staggering 75% Of Americans Believe In Widespread Government Corruption"
Back in July, when the HuffPo was covering Donald Trump's campaign in its "Entertainment Section" (they are not laughing now), and when not a single political pundit thought Trump had any chance of winning the GOP primary (now most of them do), we said that "Donald Trump's Soaring Popularity "Is The Country's Collective Middle Finger To Washington."
Here is what we said:
Donald Trump’s ascendance as the early GOP front-runner is symbolic of a greater global trend: growing pushback against institutional political and economic power.
To many centrist politicians and mainstream political observers, Donald Trump is a boastful, insensitive egomaniac spouting populist rhetoric. Whether such a characterization is true is not worthy of debate, which may explain why the rantings of enraged career political pundits have no impact on Mr. Trump’s popularity among Republican voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, and across America. It seems no amount of ink or air time spent tarring and feathering Trump’s reputation sticks; in fact it seems to help Teflon Don in the polls, where he leads a crowded field of career politicians.
Donald Trump is a threat not only to the nattering nabobs in the press corps and the Republican Party. His day in the sun may be symbolic of a broader dynamic: the declining power held by historically powerful institutions. Ask yourself if Trump’s campaign is making a mockery of the political process or exposing the mockery that the political process has become. A not-insignificant percentage of Americans away from the coasts, are looking past his utter lack of decorum and political savvy to hitch their wagons to his outrage.
Six months later, virtually everyone recognizes and admits that this is the case: a vote for Trump is not "a vote for Trump", it is a vote against the broken, corrupt, crony-capitalist model.
Which explains why increasingly more are terrified he just may win.
But what explains America's revulsion with the existing system? The answer comes from the latest Gallup article: "Explaining Trump: Widespread Government Corruption" in which it finds that once the silent majority of the population can identify the object of their distrust and anger - in this case Congress and the political status quo - and once they can subsequently identify an object that represents its opposite, the latter object's distance to the Oval Office becomes considerably shorter.
From Gallup:
Explaining Trump: Widespread Government Corruption
It's been fashionable to make jokes about Congress' historically low approval ratings, unbelievable incompetence in the government and now, unfortunately, the perception of widespread government corruption. Pundits and talk-radio hosts have a field day with this. So do late-night comics.
It's not funny anymore.
A staggering 75% of the American public believe corruption is "widespread" in the U.S. government. Not incompetence, but corruption. This alarming figure has held steady since 2010, up from 66% in 2009.
This sense of corruption probably contributes to much of the extreme anxiety and unrest we see today - including protests, lower voter turnout and increased interest in guns.

Guns -- a symbol of freedom from government tyranny to many people -- are now a key voting issue. A quarter of U.S. voters say the presidential candidate they vote for must share their view on guns.
Protests are growing in cities and campuses all around the country. Students and citizens generally have lost faith in their national institutions -- the biggest and most powerful of which is, of course, the federal government.
The last presidential election had an estimated 5 million fewer voters than turned out in 2008, and the 2014 midterm elections saw the lowest turnout in 72 years (36.3%). At alarming levels, citizens -- when invited to participate directly in their own democracy -- are taking a pass and staying home. Or taking their frustrations to the streets.
The perception that there's widespread corruption in the national government could be a symptom of citizen disengagement and anger. Or it could be a cause -- we don't know. But it's very possible this is a big, dark cloud that hangs over this country's progress. And it might be fueling the rise of an unlikely, non-traditional leading Republican candidate for the presidency, Donald Trump.
To make matters worse, that dark cloud appears to be hanging over the growth of small business, which is where virtually all new GDP growth and good jobs originate. Simply put, startups and shootups (small businesses that grow larger) have been in a death spiral. The U.S. Census Bureau reported that the total number of business startups and business closures per year crossed for the first time in 2008.
And the economy isn't growing nearly fast enough -- it's been running at an average rate of 2% since the 2008 financial collapse and the Great Recession. Just to compare, following the recession of 1981-1982, GDP grew for six years at 4.5% -- one of our greatest economic eras in history.
Jobs haven't come back. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of the total adult population that has a full-time job has been hovering around 48% since 2010 -- the lowest full-time employment level since 1983. This is why the middle class has been dangerously shrinking.
You don't have to connect too many dots to conclude that if a government has an alarmingly high appearance of widespread corruption -- and that same government creates regulations that businesses cite as a leading barrier to growth -- then entrepreneurs might be reluctant to stick their necks out to start a business. Or to boom the businesses they already have.
Why would they start or boom a business if they think a corrupt government is creating rules and regulations that don't serve their interests -- but rather rules that serve the interests of corrupt officials, corrupt politicians, corrupt insiders and corrupt special interest groups?
Any wonder why so many Americans want a candidate who's outside of that system?
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Under Positron Emission Tomography D. Jerkoff Trump's BRAIN fires on all cylinders of dopaminergic activity when you show him money as opposed to Cocaine.
Trump doesn't drink.
Even if he did, I'd still vote for him! Village Idiots like YOU are well worn!
Cocaine in drink form? What are you, a time-traveler?
Like Coca Cola >classic?
Trump doesn't do drugs, or drink.
Coca-Cola was made with real Cocaine when it was first marketed in the USA.
masterbater of the universe? How did that hydrogen peroxide [nuke] test work out fatty?
Nork Cyborg? We know the history of " Soft Drinks".
wtf ?
you talkin' to me?
YES
Let's dance. ;-
Put down the X-Box controller junior
I ain't in North Korea dude. I did NOT vote for Kim Jung Un, and I drink Euro-Beer. wtf?
Every once in a while I grimace .... But then again, where would those above average be if there were none below?
(a tricky Zen rhetorical question)
Knuks, the last place Donald Trump would be found, is under the 1/2 White House smoking spliffs.
I generally don't trust a man who doesn't drink, with the exception of 'friends of Charlies.'
I trust even less career politians.
Both parties suck.
All candidates suck.
I will vote for a box of rocks for US president.
a box of rocks is not on the ballot, or a candidate.
try again
Didn't you ever hear of a "write in" under other when someone or Mickey the Mouse is not listed?
Voting is the same all over the Western World. And NO I have never heard of a 'write in' clause on a ballot.
Lay off the " Crack Pipe" .
I'm formally educated in Pharmacology, Drugs & Behaviour, Behavioural Medicine, and Neuroscience. I'm anti-Cocaine, but I do smoke marijuana. And I'm out of buds right now, sorry.
You're formally 20 something, and full of shit!
Say hello to your master. RETARD
I'm almost 56 years old, but extremely immature for my age, eh.
..And I'm out of buds right now...
Well, now you have my sympathy. But you're still wrong on your Trump position. There's a lot of joking around here but the truth is the US is really on the edge and he is the only real choice at this time.
Benb, the guy is a full blown fascist deluxe. Half a million people in the United Kingdom have signed a petition to ban Donald J. Trump from entry into the United Kingdom. He is a misogynist, tyrant, boor, totalitarian, fascist, dictator, whackjob, nutbar, authoritarian, megalomaniac, with delusions of grandeur, a hairpiece, bad attitude, no class, money whore SOB sociopath AssClown Asshat dork-for-brains, psycho.
The World does not give a shit whether the USA population is on edge because the rest of the World is completely fed up with American aggression, and Trump puts all of this shit on the frontburner for everyone by exacerbating every fascist issue he can wrap his peabrained mind around before he opens his stupid trap pie hole to annoy us all even moar.
The World will NOT tolerate Donald Trump whatsoever. Maybe Americans like him, but the World of people outside of the USA do not. If you vote for Trump you are voting for fascism.
Being out of bud, you also have my sympathy, but you are wrong about Donald Trump.
Blowback works for liberal fucktards the same way it works for global politics and as we all know, blowback is a bitch.
"Donald Trump is a boastful, insensitive egomaniac spouting populist rhetoric"
a boastful, insensitive egomanic who (to my knowledge) is not owned by any lobbyists/special interests which is more than can be said of any other candidate of either party except bernie sanders...
The reason Bernie is not for sale is because there are no buyers that silly. Nobody is that hard up for half-baked 60's nostalgia.
Except Vermont. It's odd like that.
We want GALT!!!
Fuck, I'd settle for Ellsworth Toohey.
knock, knock, knock, is Dave there?
Master of the Pimp Stand at The Mall.
Tell me WHY, Cov Lite Loans are oversold? the Dodd Frank act suggested ]LTV[ratios were desirable?
You're just an front man, for someone else.
Can you explain "dark pools" outside of private drug dealing?
I'm not big on racial slurs, but you're NIGGER wanabe rich.
You know NOTHING about weath preservation, and are just trying to scam Zero Hedge for ideas.
wannabe has two n's so right off the bat you need me to teach you how to spell. And dark pools are non-transparent pools of money, derivatives, CDOs, Synthetic CDOs, and long term bets on all facets of markets. I will admit that I don't know what 'Cov Lite Loans' are, but I did say that when I joined Z/H it was to learn the jargon. And I have always stated that I come from Experimental Psychology and NOT Economics, but I was raised by a Chartered Accountant Senior Rulings National Revenue CANADA Oil, Mines, and Resource Taxation. In brief, I grew up on high finance unlike you, and most on Z/H, but I like Z/H people, and I like Z/H content, plus the Tyler(s) offer decent variability in terms of content. And I like the fact that I have not been booted off for being me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cov-lite
Only 75%, I would like to meet the 25% that think .gov is on the up-n-up. Just show their face, that would explain it . . . oblivious
they make their mortgage [payment with your tax dollars.
there aren't 25% who actually believe that - there's 25% who break the infinite loop of "if I acknowledge the obvious while bho's still in office I'm a racist but if I deny it I'm an idiot but..." with denial...
I recently have started to receive un-asked for emails from Whitehouse.gov. I started to click on unsubscribe. But I decided to read them.
Know the Enemy
attributed to some wise General somewhere
Government is corrupt? Hell, everything is corrupt. From the local plumber to the schoolteacher to the guy that reads your meter to the soccer moms all the way up to heads of state and corporate directos. Doing the "right thing" has become the exception not the rule. Everyone is expected to lie, cheat and steal. It is what capitalism has become. It's what our society has become. It is not only tolerated but expected behavior.
You said it.
But who gets to go to jail? Some differences there between the cash paid plumber and the inside trader congressman or CEO.
"But who gets to go to jail?"
Street criminals.
Corporate criminals get yellow parachutes and police protection.
Capitalism.
Can you dig it?
Master plumber and school teacher -vocational high school education- NOT CURRUPT! Take another swing at it p2, you took a strike on that one...without swinging. Oh by the way, do you even know what 'work' means aside from an equation with numbers as a solution??
Corruption that widespread takes on a life of it's own. I seriously doubt reform is even possible without a complete dark ages type collapse. Many are hoping Trump can turn things around, but what can he really do? Impose term limits? Not likely. Shut down the revolving door? I doubt it. Put a stop to corporate bribes? Really? He might make a small dent in some of it, but any meaningful reforms will be met with vicious civil unrest from all sorts. They will fill the streets. Trump talks tough, but does he have what it takes to really carry through? What about when millions of hispanics call a general strike and shut down the economy? What if Saudi imposes an oil embargo? These are difficult complex problems that will not be solved easily, particularly when the media propaganda machine is not on his side. It's going to take a leader who is not afraid to be wildly unpopular, and get his hands very dirty. Outside of full out world war, a leader of that sort would probably get impeached. Maybe he'll surprise me, but I suspect Trump will take the path of least resistence. Just watch.
Probably true. That's what we have seen for years (Paul Ryan?). But a more dangerous possibility is that the next president builds on the Executive Order law-making precedent of Obama and tightens the screws on us in new and novel ways.
you may not realize how fucked up the economic situation really is right now and the international side is a powder keg
the game ran its course for 70 years since WWII ended - Kondratieff wave is 72 years - the system is ready to blow - which is why so many parties are bailing out - buy backs / load up debt - etc.
the game ran its course -
a seminal figure like trump will get a lot of cooperation in the reengineering of the USA - amendments to the constitution and the Federal Reserve turned into a public institution are necessary and the elimination of the CIA " break it into a thousand pieces" like JFK started to do before he was assassinated by Dulles Cabal
Believe? I do not believe the US government is not only thoroughly and incorrigibly corrupt but openly malevolent, the tool of a tiny elite who will not rest till everyone who could possibly pose a threat to their rule is expropriated, enslaved and finally exterminated.
It is a simple statement of fact.
The only people who still deny it are the ones who profit from it, assuming, no doubt, that they'll be goners by the time our robotic replacements are hauling their grandchildren off to the local gas chamber.
The class war is real, and the bad guys are winning.
Your mailman is in on it too.
Thought you ought to know.
Like looking in your rear view mirror and seeing a police car............you feel uncomfortable because this is the government up close and personal. You fear any government agents because of the thought that your life means nothing to them. This is the essence of corruption.
The government is simply too big, too harsh, too expensive and it's agents can never be held accountable due to this corruption.
We feel helpless against decisions that are clearly not in anybodies interest except a few rich elite.
Most notably, Trump has tapped into this fear of the government with his stand on illeagle immigration. The government is flooding the country with useless people just when we do not need them. The robotics revolution with eliminate the jobs that unskilled workers perform just like the industrial age did to agriculture in general.
The elite are shocked that we dont care what they say anymore. They have really overplayed their hand and are exposed and weak, and for this reason, Trump will win.
Most people have no clue about job destruction via automation. And, there is no answer/solution for what is now transpiring:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n05/john-lanchester/the-robots-are-coming
The last thing any nation desires is more "useless eaters".
Article Summary:
Imagine an economy in which the 0.1 per cent own the machines, the rest of the 1 per cent manage their operation, and the 99 per cent either do the remaining scraps of unautomatable work, or are unemployed. That is the world implied by developments in productivity and automation.
hyper-capitalist dystopia. There’s capital, doing better than ever; the robots, doing all the work; and the great mass of humanity, doing not much
the disappearance of 47 per cent of jobs in two decades:
In the next two decades, 47 per cent of employment is ‘in the high-risk category’, meaning it is ‘potentially automatable’.
The theme is clear: human-to-human interaction and judgment is in demand, routine tasks are not.
it is mainly less well-paid workers who are most at risk.
By contrast, high-skill and high-wage occupations are the least susceptible to computer capital.’ So the poor will be hurt, the middle will do slightly better than it has been doing, and the rich – surprise! – will be fine.
middle management will be gutted - there will be no one to manage - can offshore and H1b most of the software development, accounting, admin, etc etc
dont need much factory management either since will require engineering degrees for line management which are cheaper and better in china - if you can put 100 engineers on a line in a factory for $25k each or less- you dont need USA manufacturing nor most support services
the idea there will be white collar jobs is a myth
Sounds exactly like what Kurt Vonnegut wrote in 1952! His book, "Player Piano" is exactly that theme. Highly recommended read.
>citizens -- when invited to participate directly in their own democracy -- are taking a pass and staying home.
The deliberations of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were held in strict secrecy. Consequently, anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall when the proceedings ended in order to learn what had been produced behind closed doors. The answer was provided immediately. A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Standard Disclaimer: Fuck Democracy and those that use the term to describe our political system.
+1 for using democracy in the correct context.