Back in June, a Gallup poll found that “The people of the United States have pretty much had it with the country’s major institutions, as faith in everything from the banks and newspapers to organized religion and TV news has taken a big hit in recent years, according to a recent Gallup poll.”
As Gallup’s Jim Norman explained: “Americans clearly lack confidence in the institutions that affect their daily lives: the schools responsible for educating the nation’s children; the houses of worship that are expected to provide spiritual guidance; the banks that are supposed to protect Americans’ earnings; the U.S. Congress elected to represent the nation’s interests; and the news media that claims it exists to keep them informed.”
Christopher Ingram of the Washington Post reports, The Republican confidence crisis that created Donald Trump:
Donald Trump’s campaign has taken a “me-against-the-world” turn this week as the candidate, facing a torrent of new sexual assault allegations, lashes out against what he describes as as a global “power structure” determined to keep him out of the White House.
The players in that power structure, according to Trump’s vitriolic speech delivered Thursday, include the “corrupt media,” “the Washington establishment,” corporations, international banks and global special interests.
President Obama, in a speech yesterday, attempted to cast this anti-establishment furor of the Trump campaign as the natural culmination of years of Republican efforts to sow doubt and distrust in the institutions that have long anchored American society: government, the press, business leaders and “experts” of all stripes.
“The problem is that [Republican leaders] have been riding this tiger for a long time. They’ve been feeding their base all kinds of crazy for years, primarily for political expedience,” Obama said.
