According to the IOP’s poll of 2,040 Americans aged 18 to 29 from March 3 to 7, 57 percent of the respondents said the U.S. is going in the wrong direction. Only 13 percent said the U.S. is going in the right direction. In particular, 64 percent of the respondents said the U.S. democracy is in crisis or has failed.
Distrust in the system has led to distrust in politics. According to the survey, President Donald Trump’s approval rating came to 29 percent, down 2 percentage points from the previous survey. The approval ratings for the Republican Party and the Democratic Party also stood at 26 percent and 27 percent, respectively. The respondents picked “corrupt” as the word representing the Republican Party and “weak” as the word representing the Democratic Party.
Economic anxiety is cited as the background of young Americans’ distrust of institutions and politics. Thirty-seven percent of the respondents chose inflation as the most urgent economic issue, overwhelmingly higher than other economic issues such as healthcare (15%) and housing (12%). American politics is not adequately responding to economic problems.
Young people also expressed negative perceptions of the long-term economic outlook. Only 30% said they would be better off than their parents’ generation. Even a quarter of the respondents said they would be worse off than their parents’ generation.
“Young Americans are sending a clear message. They feel that the systems and systems that support them are no longer stable, fair and responsive to this generation,” said John Della Volpe, director of polling at the IOP. “They are losing their democracy, their economy and even their trust in each other not because they are indifferent, but because they feel unprotected and their voices are not reflected in the midst of extreme uncertainty.”
SAM KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
