Trump takes aim at government as public faith in US institutions continues to erode

WEST PALM BEACH — A year ago, as they waited to hear then-candidate Donald Trump speak at a rally here, rank-and-file Make America Great Again supporters spoke of a government bureaucracy, if not outright conspiracy, intent on exploiting the very people it was designed to help.

U.S. Army veteran Maria Alexander lamented the loss of life in “endless wars” that did not put America’s interests first. Michael Baust, an architectural designer, seethed about the “swamp” in Washington that had put the nation’s security at risk by allowing a porous southern border. And local resident Gregg Smyth railed about a “deep state” fraternity – Democrats and Republicans alike – he said was “as padding their pockets” at the citizenry’s expense.

Although chalked up as fringe by much of the country, Trump’s Nov. 5 election showed a much broader swath of the American electorate shared those concerns – or at least were more receptive to them.

Now, as the president-elect rolls out his Cabinet picks and key White House staff, a central theme has emerged: A second Trump administration is taking aim at dismantling the government they have been elected to manage – the very objective many of his most ardent supporters so desperately sought.

“You have much less belief that the government is honest, much less belief that it is competent, and much less belief that you can trust it,” said Newt Gingrich, who served as House Speaker in the 1990s and has been Trump surrogate and ally. “I think it’s clear Trump is dealing with a country which is much more opposed to big government and much more skeptical of big government than it has been at any time in the modern era.”

Polls show serious erosion in government trust in past half-century

Gingrich sites surveys of public opinion by the polling firm Gallup that show Americans’ faith in all three branches of the federal government has declined precipitously in the past 50 years.

The most recent polls from Gallup in September revealed just 40% of those asked had “trust and confidence” in the executive branch versus 73% in May 1972. Just 34% said they had “trust and confidence” in Congress, as opposed to the 71% from 52 years ago. And just under half — 48% — said the same about the judicial branch.

Pew Research Center analysts have found a similar decline since they started their surveys in 1958, two years before the seminal downing of an American spy plane and the capture of its pilot, Gary Powers, by the Soviet Union. In the late 1950s, Pew found that the U.S. public believed Washington did the “right thing almost always or most of the time.” That percentage plummeted during the Vietnam War and the Watergate era, and has bounced along under 50% since then with the highest peaks in the 40% range after the end of the Cold War.

Pew’s surveys show that, since 2007, trust in government has rarely topped 30%. Wesley Borucki, associate professor of history at Palm Beach Atlantic University, said that date is particularly noteworthy.

Borucki, who is among the historians chosen by C-SPAN for its next presidential rating survey, said Americans have suffered four major traumas in the first decadeof the 21st century. They include the Sept. 11 attacks, the Enron and Wall Street corporate scandals, the Iraq war and the financial housing crisis, plus the pandemic almost five years ago.

A common denominator of those catastrophes is a failure of government to either protect the citizenry or to manage the crisis in order to shelter the public, he said. Another, he said, is that each spurred an anti-government movement of some sort, including Occupy Wall Street protests and the tea party movement.

“A failure of institutions kind of links it together,” Borucki said. “When you think about it, over that wide swath of time, you have that populist impulse also grow due to those catalysts.”

Borucki posits that the growing populism is a significant factor in the political realignment, the shift of working class and more minority voters to Trump’s corner, that is taking place in the country. A message sent by the electorate in the 2024 election, he said, is an embrace of a “nationalist versus globalist mindset” that he said “is going to really fuel realignment.”

“It goes along with America first,” he said. “The idea of not wanting to spend money on foreign wars, the idea of more protectionism in trade, a more restrictive immigration policy. Those are the cornerstones of a nationalistic policy.”

Democrat insists GOP wants to ‘tear down everything’ to benefit wealthiest Americans

Trump cast his Nov. 5 vote at polling precinct 5604 in Palm Beach, within the Florida’s 22nd Congressional District represented by U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, D-Florida. Frankel is skeptical this month’s presidential election provided Trump a mandate to “blowtorch” any aspect of government.

She said “people voted for change” primarily due to frustration over grocery prices and other consumer costs.

“People are consumed with their lives. They are just not consumed politicians or details of every policy,” she said. “They just know how they feel. They voted for change but I don’t believe they voted for blowtorching. I don’t think that’s what people voted for.”

Trump and his incoming administration, she said, simply want “to pretty much tear down everything” with no regard for the way they will disadvantage working poor and children.

She expects they will enact drastic cuts in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which provides federal benefits to low-income families to supplement their grocery budget. Delaying the age for Medicare eligibility will hurt laborers in physically demanding jobs, too.

“Forget SNAP, and food for poor hungry kids, and Medicaid and health care for working families that don’t make a lot of money,” she said. “There’s a lot that made America great that you need government for that they’re just going to try to tear down and it will have serious repercussions.”

Frankel: MAGA ‘survival of the fittest’ mindset aims to benefit wealthiest Americans

Frankel adds Trump’s view of government, and his naming of billionaire Elon Musk to head an entity to radically reduce the federal deficit is aimed at directing more benefits to the wealthiest Americans.

“It’s survival of the fittest. If you can’t make it on your own that’s tough,” she said. “It’s tear down the government so more of the money goes back to the richest people and to corporations. That’s what it’s all about. Less government, less taxes, who do you think is going to get the money? The money’s going to go to the richest people and the corporations. That’s what it’s about.”

Frankel has been in the U.S. House for 12 years, and predicts the backlash against heavy-handed budget cutting will be swift. She predicts a slim GOP House majority will again result in dysfunction in the chamber. The U.S. Senate will require 60 votes for many pieces of legislation the Republican majority will not be able to muster.

The administration will have to govern with executive orders and twice-a-year budget reconciliation, and many of the edits coming out of Washington will be challenged in the federal courts.

“So it’s going to be a mess, a wild show for the next couple of years and then the Democrats will win back the House in two years and here we go,” she said. “I think we’re in for a wild time in the next couple years. We really are. We’ll see what he can accomplish.”

Gingrich disagrees. He said the country is “so far away from” a counter-reaction that “I would not worry about that.”

The former Georgia congressman led House Republicans in the 1994 midterm election in which the GOP gained control of the chamber for the first time in four decades. The fulcrum of the campaign was the Contract with America, a policy blueprint that stressed reducing the size of government, slashing taxes and welfare reform.

An ensuing stand-off with the Clinton White House over fiscal policy led to a total government shutdown that lasted from Nov. 14, 1995 to Jan. 6, 1996. In fact, he said, the danger for the new administration is to not deliver on what it has promised, rather than going too far.

Gingrich and the GOP argued the shutdown, though unpopular, helped usher in a balanced budget deal a year later in 1997. But the shutdown proved politically costly for Republicans. Still, Gingrich insists the danger for Trump now is should he fail to go far enough.

“One of the major challenges for Trump is to bring about such dramatic and deep reforms that people decide they can trust their government again,” he said. “That’ll be a major test of whether or not he has a truly historic administration.”

Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump vow to blowtorch, disrupt government finds appeal with Americans