(Headline USA) Democrats’ reckless gamble to use the U.S. justice system as a bludgeon to take down their political rival may not have achieved its desired ends.
Nonetheless, it has likely come with considerable collateral damage, with both the Right and Left believing themselves aggrieved after the lawfare abuse sputtered out with no satisfaction for the abused or the abusers.
At a time of heightened political division, Americans’ confidence in their country’s judicial system and courts dropped to a record low of 35% this year, according to a new Gallup poll.
The United States saw a sharp drop of 24 percentage points over the last four years, setting the country apart from other wealthy nations where most people on average still express trust in their systems.
The results come after a tumultuous period that included the indictment of former President Donald Trump and the subsequent withdrawal of federal charges, as well as regular attacks from the radical Left on the integrity of the Supreme Court as it attempted to find a justification for packing the court with additional Biden-appointed judges.
Confidence dropped among people who disapproved of the country’s leadership during Joe Biden’s presidency and among those who approved, according to Gallup. The respondents weren’t asked about their party affiliations.
It’s become normal for people who disapprove of the country’s leadership to also lose at least some confidence in the court system. Still, the 17-point drop recorded among that group under Biden was precipitous, and the cases filed against Trump were likely factors, Gallup said.
Among those who did approve of the country’s leadership, there was an 18-point decline between 2023 and 2024, possibly reflecting dissatisfaction with court rulings favoring Trump, Gallup found. Confidence in the judicial system had been above 60% among that group during the first three years of Biden’s presidency but nosedived this year.
Trump had faced four criminal indictments this year, but only a porn-star case in New York ended with a trial and conviction before he won the presidential race.
Since then, special counsel Jack Smith has ended his two federal cases, which pertained to Trump’s efforts to challenge the disputed 2020 election results, as well as and allegations that he hoarded classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
The latter charges were dismissed after a parallel investigation of Biden deemed the sitting president unfit to stand trial, with Florida Judge Aileen Cannon also questioning the validity of Smith’s appointment to the post.
In both cases, Smith was accused of playing fast and loose with the normal legal protocals as he rushed to process the cases in order to maximize their political impace—to no avail.
A separate state election interference case in Fulton County, Georgia, is largely on hold due to prosecutorial misconduct—a common theme among all of the cases, many of which were undertaken by George Soros-backed prosecutors who specifically campaigned on a “Get Trump” platform before any evidence existed.
Politically, the abuse of power had the opposite effect, with voters voicing their disapproval at the ballot box, delivering a strong mandate to Trump to hold accountable those who had made a mockery of the justice system.
Other Gallup findings have shown that Democrats’ confidence in the Supreme Court dropped by 25 points between 2021 and 2022, the year the justices overturned the federal abortion mandate, sending the issue back to the state level for the first time in 50 years.
Their trust climbed a bit, to 34%, in 2023, but dropped again to 24% in 2024, after a Supreme Court opinion that Trump and other former presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution.
While previous presidents have enjoyed a similar inferred immunity, Smith’s overreaching cases, in collusion with socialist D.C. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, were the first to ever challenge the notion by suggesting that presidents might be criminally culpable for their executive decisions.
The Supreme Court decision specifically rebuked the partisan Chutkan for her haste in refusing to take legal precedent under consideration. But for low-information leftists, it was the right-leaning court that was to blame.
Trust in the court among Republicans, by contrast, reached 71% in 2024.
Confidence in the federal government also declined to 26% during the Biden administration. However, that 20-point drop was not as steep as the decline in confidence in the courts, with many on the Left continuing to have blind faith in the 82-year-old president’s ability to get things done.
The trust drop is also steep compared with other countries around the world. Only a handful of other countries have seen larger drops during a four-year period. They include a 46-point drop in Myanmar during the period that overlapped the return of military rule in 2021, a 35-point drop in Venezuela amid deep economic and political turmoil from 2012 to 2016 and a 28-point drop in Syria in the runup and early years of its civil war.
The survey was based on telephone interviews with a random sample of 1,000 U.S. adults between June 28 and Aug. 1.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
