As we close out 2024, something important is unfolding in America that hasn’t happened in many years: We’re more united in our outlook about our country’s institutions. There is rising and perhaps unexpected alignment between Americans of different walks of life, from left to right. Granted, this alignment may at first glance seem like a problem, for what unites us, increasingly, is what we distrust. But consider this: We have thought of ourselves as so divided for so long, might there be some upside to starting the new year knowing we aren’t quite as polarized as we thought and that people with whom we assumed we had nothing in common also believe our institutions must do better?
Since the early 1990s, majorities of Americans have said that our nation is “greatly divided when it comes to our most important values,” except for the year after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. This year, in the weeks before the 2024 election, Americans reported a record high level of division. Fewer than one in five said we were mostly “united and in agreement about our most important values,” and that figure held true for Republicans, Democrats and independents alike.
But as a pollster, I was intrigued to see that the November election pumped the brakes a bit on our previously widening political divisions. We didn’t move further apart; if anything, this was an election that produced a slight depolarization of our country along a number of fault lines, as 89 percent of counties in America shifted rightward. The gap between how men and women voted shrank by three percentage points, a notable result in a campaign where some political experts expected a historic gender gap. Voters under 30 and voters over age 65 — two groups that were worlds apart in the 2020 presidential election, voting nearly 30 points in opposite directions — came closer together in 2024 and around a dozen points apart in their preference for president. Of particular note was the lessening of racial polarization; while white voters remained about as supportive of Donald Trump this time around, nonwhite voters shifted over a dozen points in Mr. Trump’s direction.
What we are experiencing in our society now is a reorientation of many of our existing political divides. Organizations, professions and institutions that were recently trusted by at least one side of the political aisle have come in for greater scrutiny, with new bipartisan alignment on skepticism.
Take business. Not long ago many Republican Party leaders and plenty of G.O.P. voters believed in the value of business, the need to protect business from government interference and the virtues of “job creators.” In 2012, for instance, only 23 percent of Republicans said they had “very little” or no trust in “big business,” while 38 percent had “quite a lot” or “a great deal” of trust. By 2023, those numbers had flipped, with high trust in big business falling by 20 points. The partisan gap on this, at times quite large, has closed entirely by Republicans almost catching up to Democrats in their disdain for large corporations. And in November’s election, Mr. Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, ran on a populist message that included skepticism of big business and the financial and hiring practices of many companies, including their use of immigrants in the labor force.
Another major institution that was more trusted in the 2000s and 2010s is the military. Post-9/11, Republicans reported sky-high confidence in the military, even as Democratic confidence hovered 20 to 30 points lower. But in a very short period, starting in 2020, Republican confidence in the military dropped a whopping 23 points. Today, Republicans and Democrats have nearly the same level of trust in the armed forces. While it rates higher than most institutions, the closing of the gap between right and left in views of the military has not bolstered its ratings. Although it is harder to imagine Republicans of decades gone by publicly criticizing top brass or holding up promotions, today the Pentagon is not exempt from the ire of conservatives.
This is not a phenomenon that affects only conservative-coded institutions. The news media finds itself increasingly fragmented, experiencing convulsions driven in part by social media, cord-cutting and generative A.I. As traditional media sources compete with new and emerging creators, they also face declining trust from the American people. Republicans have long harbored significant skepticism toward “mass media,” which Gallup defines as “newspapers, TV and radio,” when it comes to fairly reporting on the news. In the last few years, trust among Republicans has seemingly bottomed out, and Democrats are now starting to catch up, with an 18-point drop in trust since Mr. Trump’s first year in office. In our Times Opinion focus groups during the 2024 campaign, people across the political spectrum consistently expressed skepticism about the news media and argued that too much coverage emphasized divisions and differences among America, as if all people did was fight.
Other once-admired institutions are finding themselves in a similar situation. Take higher education. Less than a decade ago, colleges and universities were trusted by 57 percent of Americans and in fairly bipartisan fashion. Today, Republican trust in higher education has cratered to only 20 percent, while Democrats’ has also trended downward, though at a slower pace.
This cross-partisan rise in distrust has caught countless leaders and executives off guard. This year, PricewaterhouseCoopers surveyed business executives and found 90 percent of them thought customers trusted them a lot, while only 30 percent of customers surveyed agreed. In my work discussing public opinion surveys with executives, I am always struck by the number of successful leaders who are surprised that more Americans do not give them or their industry the benefit of the doubt or see the good in what they are doing. Regardless of intentions, the reality is that we are in a low-trust moment, and it binds right and left together.
Part of what’s driving this are the ways in which the faults of our institutions are laid bare and amplified, at times unfairly, in our current information ecosystem. While the average American has greater visibility than ever into many of our key institutions’ actions, that transparency has not led to more trust. Actions that cause anger and shock and outrage generate attention in a way a job well done does not. When the misdeeds or failings of our institutions are illuminated — sometimes done with the good intention to hold a university or health agency or company to account for mistakes or behavior, sometimes done to exaggerate a threat and destabilize an institution — distrust can go viral. There is a cumulative effect, and today it appears that agitation with many established institutions and the status quo knows no party. Even satisfaction with our own democracy is dreadfully low, and in bipartisan fashion. Only 17 percent of Republicans and 38 percent of Democrats felt “satisfied” with the way democracy was working in our country over the past year, figures that are miles away from the generally satisfied view of Americans as recently as the late 1990s.
One might assume that repeated negative experiences over time lead people to distrust others, but today it is the youngest among us who look the most skeptically at their fellow Americans or institutions. I believe distrust in institutions is related to general decreases in the extent to which we trust one another at an interpersonal level. Analyses show that the belief that “most people can be trusted” is lowest among those like the young, those who are not white, and those with less formal education. I do not think it is a coincidence that this list overlaps with the demographic groups where Mr. Trump draws strong support or saw significant gains in the November election. As one of the respondents in a recent Times focus group of Trump voters put it, “Someone just mentioned that we were divided, but I feel like this last election showed that we’re a little more unified than we thought we were, than maybe mainstream media thought we were.”
Speaking to that distrust — acknowledging Americans’ well-founded frustration with the status quo, and doing so in a way that is actually unifying — is what I believe Americans are looking for, at least as a first step.
Giving voice to this agitation was a key factor fueling Mr. Trump’s re-election. But the challenge to our leaders is to do more than just say that things are broken. Voters are looking for things to be fixed, not obliterated. If Mr. Trump wishes to retain the support he cultivated in the election, he cannot just smash the old things or resort to blaming and demagoguing institutions — he must build things that are in touch and responsive to the entire country he will again lead. Crucially, to keep his coalition together, the institutions he leads must deliver on their promise of prosperity and peace rather than simply be demolished and cast aside. There is an opportunity here: The bipartisan anger is real and could be harnessed for bold action to address problems that have left people frustrated and skeptical. The next and much harder step for our nation’s leaders will be making institutions worthy of our trust again.
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