American confidence in institutions is near an all time low, according to a new poll from Gallup. The polling firm reports that only27% of Americans have confidence in core institutions. On a recent broadcast of The Drew Mariani Show, Drew welcomed Dr. Mark Regnerus, a sociologist and professor at the University of Texas at Austin to discuss the findings. 

Congress

Regnerus told Drew that certain data points from the poll are intuitive. “Congress is one of the easier problems to solve here in terms of understanding it,” Regnerus said. “A lot of us don’t have to go back very far in our memories to remember when Congress actually did things.” Congressional approval currently sits around 16%. The last time Congress had an approval rating above 50% was after 9/11. 

Media

Americans’ trust in mass media is also low. Today, television news polls at 14% and newspapers poll at 17% approval. Regnerus thinks the problems with media have been exasperated by the proliferation of opinions. The myriad of opinions “haven’t actually made us more confident in the institution itself. We just become [more] dramatically aware of how completely partisan” the media is.

Organized Religion 

Regnerus told Drew that it’s more challenging to understand the declining trust in organized religion, which sits at 33% approval. “Organized religion in general is a tough thing to talk about in the United States,” he said. The problem, Regnerus argues, is that respondents will all answer the questions differently. A Protestant might have a local church in mind, while a Catholic might be thinking of a parish, the Church in the U.S., or even Pope Leo XIV. 

When separated by partisan affiliation, however, the numbers paint a different picture. Among self-described Republicans, 57% have confidence in organized religion, while 29% of Independents and 17% of Democrats do. 

Social Media 

Drew and Regnerus both trace the general decline in trust to the globalizing effects of social media. “Social trust is much easier to accomplish when you are thinking of very localized things,” Regnerus said, “Social media…takes you to worlds far away, which can be educational [and] illuminating, but [it] can also bifurcate us into different corners.”