Only 16 percent of Americans believe that the country’s democracy is thriving, according to a survey conducted after the deadly Capitol riots on January 6.
But the vast majority accept that a popular government is an extremely important principle in the United States, the survey said.
Less than 1 in 6 Americans interviewed by the Associated Press-NORC Public Affairs Research Center said that democracy is working well or extremely well. Forty-five percent said they think democracy is not working properly and 38% said it is working just a little bit well.
About half of those surveyed think that then President Trump should be convicted in the Senate’s impeachment trial this week for “inciting insurrection”.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans think the Republican Party is at least partially responsible for the turmoil, promoting unsubstantiated allegations of electoral fraud.
The AP-NORC poll also found that Republicans, in particular, have lost faith in the U.S. government system since Trump’s attack on election results.
In October, 68% of Republican Party supporters said that democracy was working at least somewhat well. That number plummeted to just 36% in January.
Confidence in representative government soared among Democrats during that period, rising from 37% to 70%.
When it came to the 2020 election, about two-thirds of Americans say President Biden was reasonably elected, but only a third of Republicans agree.
Seventy percent of Americans surveyed believe that Biden, a Democrat, respects democratic institutions at least a little. However, only 42% of Republicans have this opinion.
Only 38% of respondents believe Trump has at least a fair respect for government institutions. Notably, 27 percent of Republicans said the former president had little or no respect for the government.
Survey respondents can overwhelmingly agree on one thing – 80% of Americans believe that democracy is very or extremely important to the country’s identity.
Almost half of Americans also think the country is going in the right direction, compared to just 20% last summer.
AP-NORC interviewed 1,055 adults between 28 January and 28 February. 1 using a sample taken from the NORC probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which was designed to be representative of the US population. There is a margin of error of 3.8 percentage points.