{"id":19857,"date":"2007-11-05T00:00:01","date_gmt":"2007-11-05T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/declining-confidence-in-political-wisdom-of-americans\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:45:24","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:45:24","slug":"declining-confidence-in-political-wisdom-of-americans","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2007\/11\/05\/declining-confidence-in-political-wisdom-of-americans\/","title":{"rendered":"Declining Confidence in Political Wisdom of Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"

While confidence in government has increased modestly in recent years, the public is increasingly suspicious of itself; in the most recent Pew Values Survey, fewer than six-in-ten (57%) say they have a good deal of confidence in the wisdom of the American people when it comes to making political decisions, a seven-point decline over the past decade and a much steeper 20-point decline since 1964. In 1997, Democrats had expressed more confidence than either Republicans or independents in the political wisdom of the American people. Today they have less confidence: 56% of Democrats say they have \u201ca very great deal\u201d or a \u201cgood deal\u201d of confidence in the judgment of the people, down 13 percentage points from 1997. At the same time, 60% of Republicans and 59% of independents express high levels of confidence in the American people\u2019s political judgments, which are comparable to levels of a decade ago. Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That’s the proportion of Americans who say they have a good deal of confidence in the wisdom of the American people when it comes to making political decisions, a seven-point decline from the number who expressed that view a decade ago, and a steep 20-point decline from the 1960s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":"","sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"apple_news_api_pending":"1713064231","relatedPosts":[],"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0},"categories":[],"bylines":[791],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-19857","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","bylines-pew-research-center-staff","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states"],"label":"Short 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