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Note the numbers between 2010 and 2025 were in the 72% to 79% range if you read the article. So numbers have not actually increased that much.
Related: New High of 45% in U.S. Identify as Political Independents (January 12, 2026) https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-politi...
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. 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
But, not the politicians I voted for. It's always the other guys.
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?
Who are these 11%?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/03/14/political-in...
"indepdendent" does not mean "i see all parties as absolutely the same". 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.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"indepdendent" does not mean "i see all parties as absolutely the same". It means "I am not firmly affiliated". You still have the ability to make choices on who is a better likely outcome
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.
So definitely not meaningless. It demonstrates increasing amounts of people are tired of pretending our democracy isn't mostly illusory.
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: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index * https://www.transparency.org/…
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.