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Majority of Americans believe their system of government is not sound: Poll

Razor wire fencing surrounds the US Capitol on January 15, 2021 in Washington, DC. (AFP photo)

A majority of Americans believe the US system of government is not sound, according to a new poll.

Fifty-five percent of those surveyed by Monmouth University pollsters said the US system of government was either “not too sound” or “not sound at all” and it should be changed.

“Since Monmouth started asking this question in 2017, between 50% and 55% said the American system of government was basically sound and between 45% and 49% said it was unsound,” Monmouth University said in a statement.

“This question was first asked in a national Opinion Research Corporation survey back in late 1980, when a clear majority of 62% of the public felt our system of government was sound while 37% said it was not,” it added.

Last year in February, only 24 percent people said the US system was not too sound.

The percentage of people who believed the American system of government was "not too sound" jumped following the disputed 2020 presidential election which former President Donald Trump believed was rigged in favor of Joe Biden, the Democrat who was later declared the winner.

A series of court decisions and rulings by state officials ruled against Trump, but his claims of voter fraud led millions to believe the election was stolen.

All this culminated on January 6 when his supporters launched a violent protest march on the Capitol, where they stopped the certification of the Electoral College results.  Several people were killed in the violence.

In the Monmouth poll, 37 percent said the system needed "some changes," a 9-percent-drop among those who said it needed "some changes" from February of last year.

The majority of both Democrats and Republicans said the system of government was not sound. Last year only 28 percent of Republicans and 65 percent of Democrats felt this way.

“The increased lack of confidence in the American system is built on a foundation of partisan hostility. Those differences are no longer limited to views on policy. They now extend to an underlying distrust of our democratic institutions themselves. Partisan tribalism is coming home to roost in a way that threatens the very stability of our system,” said the director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, Patrick Murray in a statement.

According to another poll, about two-thirds of Republicans believe that Biden was not legitimately elected as the US president.

The recent survey, which was launched almost a fortnight after Biden's inauguration on Jan. 20 as president, showed that only 33% of Republicans considered Biden a legitimately-elected president of the US.

The results of the poll, which was conducted between Jan. 28 and Feb. 1 by the Associated Press–NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and released on Friday, showed that 33% of Republicans say Biden was legitimately elected as the 46th president of the United States while 65% say he was not.

The poll also showed that overall, roughly two-thirds of Americans say Biden was legitimately elected, with nearly all Democrats saying so.


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