Over the years there is been a growing hatred for our fellow Americans….why is that?
Americans are becoming increasingly distrustful of one another, with younger generations showing the lowest levels of trust, according to new polling highlighted in a recent opinion piece published by The Hill.
“There is a dramatic decline in the level of trust of people by age groupings, with people born before 1960 the most trusting and each subsequent grouping by age less trustful than the one before,” states the survey by Marquette Law School Poll.
Trust also varies depending on the relationship. Ninety-two percent of Americans said they have at least a fair amount of trust in their immediate family, while trust drops sharply when it comes to strangers and federal elected officials.
A separate Pew Research Center study found another troubling sign of social division.
In its survey of 25 countries, 53% of American adults said the average person in the United States has bad morals and ethics. Pew said Americans were particularly likely among the countries surveyed to hold negative views about the morality of their fellow citizens.
“Younger Americans (ages 18 to 39) are slightly more likely than older adults to say other Americans are morally bad (57% vs. 50%),” read the study.
The Hill contributor Ghlionn claimed that this combination of distrust and negative perceptions could make political disagreements more hostile. Instead of seeing opponents as people with different opinions, Americans may increasingly view them as fundamentally bad or dangerous.
The Marquette researchers cautioned against blaming social media alone for the decline in trust.
Their survey found that people using five or more social media platforms were generally less trusting. However, researchers found little consistent relationship between social media use and trust when comparing people within the same age group.
The findings suggest that America’s trust problem may have deeper causes, particularly across generations. While the surveys do not establish why trust has declined, they show a clear divide in how Americans view strangers, institutions and even their fellow citizens.
(knewz.com)
It is more distrust than hate….
The polls looked at several angles for this conclusion.
I blame social media ….and then there is the morally bad thing….what does that mean?
I understand the lack of trust for if you look at what the politicians have done( that should be not done) then I understand what the poll is saying.
I am not sure I can say I know of one politician that I trust…..and I have been watching since 1980 and in that time I have watched the attitudes and decline of our elected representatives and it is getting worse instead of better.
Have you any thing to change my mind?
Educate, Agitate
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
cogito ergo agito
Daily Agitator 
i’dgyessthe level of trust dropped sharply with the adsassinationoffJFK Who had brought such hope to the younger generation of real change.. that hope extended beyond Americas shores. Belief that the death was
engineered by the rich who didn’t like the idea of change, with compljcity from the government of the day or at least the Republican side.
We can say that about his brother as well….chuq
And MLK.
Him as well chuq
Ever since my early teens, I have always been aware of Americans disliking each other. City-dwellers disliking ‘rednecks’, many people in the southern states hating black people and jews. People in the east disliking Californians, and so on… Every country has such regional prejudices in one form or another, but America is so big, with such a large population, the issues are magnified. One example here would be people in the north of England disliking Londoners, and calling everyone in southern counties ‘soft southerners’. That was something I experienced personally in the early 1970s, when I started to travel around the country with my job at the time. One change I have noticed more recently is a vitriolic dislike of the ‘boomer generation’ by people under 40. They are becoming very vocal and nasty about that.
Best wishes, Pete.
That is because many blame us ‘Boomers’ for the condition of our system….and in some cases I can see their point….chuq
Yes, social media is undoubtedly one of the major facilitators of this growing distrust among Americans; but, I don’t see it as the cause. David made an astute point about the pivotal effect the JFK assassination had on the American psyche. It affected me most deeply at the time and it still does today. We lost our innocence and our optimism.
“The findings suggest that America’s trust problem may have deeper causes, particularly across generations.”
I will dare to venture into what was left unsaid in that article. This didn’t happen by accident. It was a deliberate and systematically implemented plan by the Reagan/Thatcher neoliberal revolution which specifically targeted social institutions that promoted America’s values, cohesion, and self-determination. They attacked secular public education, organized labor, and democratic governance. And, chuq… they won.
I say lots about the Reagan era….it was when the ;silent majprity’ became the ancestors of MAGA……chuq
every generation blames the one before.. I also blame my own. The sixties were my teenage years and I had such high hopes for the world. So did many others who then went into politics and sold out. Money in politics is too big a temptation for many.
I agree with davidprosser on this one.