Looking at their charts, Democrats and Independents clearly think corruption is up a lot since 2024. But Republicans think corruption is down from 2024. The polarization of the electorate in the U.S. is pretty incredible.

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nonethewiser a few seconds ago | parent | next [-]

From 2024 -> 2026

Republican: 88->83

Democrat: 57->91

Republicans barely changed. It's insane than Democrats were so low 2 years ago.

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icegreentea2 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's not just a question of belief, it's also a question of their information environment. The polarization in the electorate isn't just a question of what people believe, but what information their fed. Unfortunately, information environment -> belief -> environment is forms a strong sustaining feedback loop.

It is also worth pointing out that that 83% of republicans (vs 90% of independents) still believe that the government is widely corrupt. Like given the ~20% "crazy threshold" in basically any type of political polling, 80% of republicans is effectively "every single republican you could ever convince".

I would not lose sleep over polarization in this context.

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socalgal2 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

U.S. Trust in Government Depends Upon Party Control

https://news.gallup.com/poll/697421/trust-government-depends...

	▲	vjvjvjvjghv 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Same for supporting issues. If the "other" party proposes something, people are automatically against. As soon as "their" party supports it, they are all in. The MAHA movement is a good example. If democrats had said something about the problems with high sugar food or additives, republicans would have shouted "nanny state". Now that Kennedy is talking about it, they support it.

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BLKNSLVR 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Their corruption is bad. (Ie. the other party)

I wonder if the split would still be roughly the same if a Democrat was in power at the time of the survey.

Edited to add: Answer seems to be in the article, as pointed out here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49571258

First diagram in the article shows uptick, but since 2010 it's been in the 70-80% range. So it seems pretty party-agnostic.

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paisawalla 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Per the second chart:

Since 2024, Democrats went from being the most trusting (57%) to the most skeptical (91%), bringing all groups to within 10 points of each other on the question.

This is not a "both sides" situation: Republicans dropped from 87% to 83% after their guy was elected, whereas Democrats nearly 1.5x'd their number of skeptics. There is no universal implication here IMO, this is just Democrats joining the 80-percenters, i.e. everyone

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vannevar 4 hours ago | parent [-]

>...Republicans dropped from 87% to 83% after their guy was elected, whereas Democrats nearly 1.5x'd their number of skeptics.

This is not surprising; a big reason that Republican voters were able to justify voting for Trump and open corruption was that they were bombarded with claims that there was a "Biden crime family" in office for four years. No real evidence of that was ever uncovered, but it didn't stop Fox News and every Republican leader from constantly referring to the accusations as if they were true. One the other hand, Trump is openly accepting huge payments from foreign governments, and never even bothered to separate himself from his companies. Republicans were at 87% due to general distrust of government and the rumor of phantom corruption, while Democrats (who tend to be more trusting of government) rose to the same level only on clear evidence of real corruption. The authors don't break it out by parties, but the overall level during Trump's first term is about the same as Biden's. Since the article notes that Republican skepticism is higher in general and more consistent, this implies that Democrats' perception of corruption is much higher in Trump's second term than his first. Which makes sense, the Republican leadership was much more responsible in applying guardrails in the first term than the second. Trump is getting away with a LOT more in his second term.

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paisawalla 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Woah! You're never going to believe this, but my opponents' beliefs are also unfounded, arising from their inability to perceive self-serving biases, and in general, their ignorance.

I wonder what else we have in common?

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datsci_est_2015 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

What’s the implication here? Trump actually isn’t corrupt? Or Biden was actually secretly as corrupt as Trump is?

Or more generally, the current state of affairs is somehow justifiable?

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ozozozd 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

As long as Biden <or insert new candidate> isn’t squeaky clean, no one on the other side can be blamed with any degree of corruption.

In other words: “I don’t have to do the right thing until everyone else does the right thing.”

do - it’s ok for me to be corrupt - because there is at least one person that’s also corrupt while(len(corrupt) != 0)

In short, they are ok with corruption.

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paisawalla an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

The implication is that even if I might agree with you, we ought not be subjecting each other to incoherent rants in lieu of substantive arguments. Just don't say anything, if the only thing you have to say is They Watch Fox News.

Even if you're inclined to believe the conclusions, this should recognizably be a silly rant and I don't want to live in a world where we justify sloppy arguments if we agree with the conclusions. If it triggers your defenses to the point where you can't see that this is a poor rant, it could be instructive to copy/paste it into an LLM and ask for an analysis or some counterarguments.

> Trump actually isn’t corrupt? Or Biden was actually secretly as corrupt as Trump is?

Incredible to me that you could think this is anywhere implied. Maybe you understand something better than I do, but I submit that it's brainrot to think my comment was somehow "Trump is not corrupt and/or Biden is equally corrupt".

However, the question of whose corruption rises to the level where a person is morally suspect if they don't speak out, is one that certainly cuts conveniently, isn't it?

	▲	bluefirebrand 11 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> Maybe you understand something better than I do, but I submit that it's brainrot to think my comment was somehow "Trump is not corrupt and/or Biden is equally corrupt". I don't really think you realize how that initial post comes across, because I'm re-reading your previous and struggling to come up with any other interpretation besides "both sides are bad". If you are intending to say something different than that, maybe try stating it directly rather than sarcastically

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vannevar 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>I wonder what else we have in common?

Well, obviously not an appreciation for the distinction between evidence and opinion. The fact is that there is clear, uncontroverted evidence that Donald Trump has profited directly from his presidency, and no clear evidence that Joe Biden did. Not everything is symmetrical in politics, and it's not always "both sides."

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lesuorac 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Aren't the beliefs founded though?

There are immigrants who commit crimes. Sure, it's not _every_ Mexican is a rapist and we're probably talking about basis points of basis points here. But it's a foundation.

Hunter Biden did get money from people who wanted access to Joe Biden. Sure, Joe didn't actually help them out. But it's a foundation.

The problem isn't the unfoundedness it's that it's extrapolated beyond what the foundation supports.

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xirdstl 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Biden was in power for the survey in 2024.

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5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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dfxm12 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

At least they think it's up since 2025. I wonder how this will inform their votes in November...