Germany

Before 1930

• “Seen in the European context of the time, neither the political violence of the 1920s and early 1930s, nor the collapse of parliamentary democracy, nor the destruction of civil liberties, would have appeared particularly unusual to a dispassionate observer.”1
• “The ability of the Reich government to act firmly and decisively, however, was always compromised by another provision of the constitution, namely its decision to continue the federal structure which Bismarck had imposed on the Reich in 1871 in an effort to sugar the pill of unification for German princes such as the King of Bavaria and the Grand Duke of Baden. The princes had been unceremoniously thrown out in the Revolution of 1918, but their states remained.”2
• “They were equipped now with democratic, parliamentary institutions, but still retained a good deal of autonomy in key areas of domestic policy. The fact that some of the states, like Bavaria, had a history and an identity going back many centuries, encouraged them to obstruct the policies of the Reich government if they did not like them.”3
• “On the other hand, direct taxation was now in the hands of the Reich government, and many of the smaller states were dependent on handouts from Berlin when they got into financial difficulties.”4
• “Thinking about the end of Weimar democracy in this way—as the result of a large protest movement colliding with complex patterns of elite self-interest, in a culture increasingly prone to aggressive mythmaking and irrationality—strips away the exotic and foreign look of swastika banners and goose-stepping Stormtroopers. Suddenly, the whole thing looks close and familiar.”5
• “The propaganda and policies of the Nationalists did much to spread radical right-wing ideas across the electorate in the 1920s and prepare the way for Nazism.”6
• “Under Hugenberg, the Nationalists also moved away from internal party democracy and closer to the ‘leadership principle’. The party’s new leader made strenuous efforts to make party policy on his own and direct the party’s Reichstag delegation in its votes. A number of Reichstag deputies opposed this, and a dozen of them split off from the party in December 1929 and more in June 1930, joining fringe groups of the right in protest.”7

1930

• “Following the onset of the Depression in October 1929, the coalition’s constituent parties failed to agree on how to tackle the rapidly worsening unemployment problem. Deprived of the moderating influence of its former leader Gustav Stresemann, who died in October 1929, the People’s Party broke with the coalition over the Social Democrats’ refusal to cut unemployment benefits, and the government was forced to tender its resignation on 27 March 1930.35”8
• “From this point on [March 27, 1930], no government ruled with the support of a parliamentary majority in the Reichstag. Indeed, those who had President Hindenburg’s ear saw the fall of the Grand Coalition as a chance to establish an authoritarian regime through the use of the Presidential power of rule by decree.”9
• “But with the financial crash of 1929, the radical right and the radical left surged at the polls.”
• “Without the Social Democrats it had no parliamentary majority. But this did not seem to matter any more.”11
• “Legitimized by association with Hugenberg’s German National People’s Party, and fueled by the stock market crash of 1929, the National Socialists surged in the September 1930 Reichstag elections, with nearly a ninefold increase to 107, while Hugenberg candidates took a shellacking.”
• September 1930: “In sixty years of German national elections, no party had ever risen so far so quickly. Nazi gains had come largely at the expense of the Protestant middle-class parties: Hugenberg’s German Nationals, whose vote share fell by half again even from their poor 1928 showing; the post-Stresemann German People’s Party; and the rightward-lurching former Democratic Party, now campaigning as the State Party.”13
• September 1930: “For many liberals, the election outcome cast the viability of democracy itself into question. For how could democracy work if it depended on such voters? It was “monstrous,” said the liberal newspaper the Berliner Tageblatt, that “six million four hundred thousand voters in this highly civilized country” had backed “the commonest, hollowest and crudest charlatanism.” A State Party press release lamented that “radicalism has defeated reason,” but the party hoped that German voters would “find the path out of confusion back to the constructive center.””14
• “Hostility to reality translated into contempt for politics, or, rather, desire for a politics that was somehow not political: a thing that can never be.”15
• “For a democracy to work, all parties have to acknowledge that they have at least some minimal common ground and that compromises are both possible and necessary. By the 1930s, however, there was very little of this spirit left as German society grew ever more bitterly divided.”16
• “...the nature of proceedings in the Reichstag. Rowdy and chaotic enough even before September 1930, it now became virtually unmanageable, as 107 brown-shirted and uniformed Nazi deputies joined 77 disciplined and well-organized Communists in raising incessant points of order, chanting, shouting, interrupting and demonstrating their total contempt for the legislature at every juncture.”17
• “...the idea of calling it together for a meeting came to seem ever more pointless.”18
• “Each day, there were bitter and violent street clashes between the Stormtroopers and the Communist Red Front League, which the police found difficult to control.27”
• 1932: “Why not turn Hitler’s problem into Papen’s problem, Strasser proposed. With 37 percent of the electorate and 230 seats in the Reichstag, Hitler had the capacity to paralyze the legislative process. If Papen and Schleicher could not deliver the chancellorship to Hitler, the National Socialists would simply go into obstructionist mode.”
• 1932: ““Without my party no one can rule Germany today,” he said. He could make or break any government.”
• “With the legislative branch blocked by factionalism and obstructionist politics, Hindenburg found himself resorting increasingly often to his constitutionally mandated emergency powers. During his first five years in office, Hindenburg had not issued a single Article 48 decree. Between December 1930 and April 1931, there were nineteen pieces of legislation compared with two Article 48 decrees. From April 1931 to December 1931, the Reichstag was unable to pass a single law, while Hindenburg issued forty emergency decrees. In 1932, there were fifty-nine presidential decrees, compared with only five pieces of legislation. Time magazine dryly observed that the government appeared to be trying to “out-Hitler Hitler” in its tilt toward authoritarian rule.”
• “Hindenburg found himself running the country with a combination of three constitutional articles, known as the “25-48-53” formula. Article 25 empowered the Reich president to dissolve the Reichstag at will and exercise his Article 48 powers to issue emergency decrees, while Article 53 permitted him to appoint and dismiss chancellors at will.”
• “By 1930 at the latest, it had become clear that the Presidential power was in the hands of a man who had no faith in democratic institutions and no intention of defending them from their enemies.”24
• “It was November 27, a week after his second Hindenburg debacle, and Hitler was meeting with the head of the Daily Express’s Berlin bureau, in Weimar. Hitler knew he could rely on Delmer for good press. Delmer’s boss, Lord Rothermere, had traveled to Munich in September 1930 to meet Hitler. “These young Germans have discovered, as I am glad to note, what the young men and women of England are discovering, that it is no good trusting the old politicians,” Rothermere said after the meeting.”

1931

• Summer of 1931: “Hitler and Hugenberg had another go during the summer of 1931. In an attempt to unify the right—using Sammlungspolitik, politics of aggregation—Hugenberg announced a two-day meeting scheduled for October in the town of Bad Harzburg. Known as the Harzburg Front, the right-wing leaders would gather in common cause and parade their respective paramilitaries—the storm troopers for the National Socialists, and the Steel Helmets for the right-wing nationalists. Hitler threatened to pull out when Hugenberg did not intervene after two National Socialists—one was Wilhelm Frick—lost their positions in state governments over local politics. In a stern letter to Hugenberg, Hitler spoke of “deception” and “betrayal.” He feared that Hugenberg might lure him into an insidious strangulation of the National Socialist movement. “I now solemnly declare that I refuse to continue to uphold any association from which I have received such poor proof of the concept of loyalty,” he wrote. How could Hitler ever trust Hugenberg in a coalition cabinet? He could not imagine what it would be like to share seats in a Reich cabinet with him. Hitler said he would not allow himself to be “knifed in the back.” “If German liberation is supposed to come from such treachery and from such insidiousness,” Hitler said, “then I no longer have any faith in it.””

1932

• July 1932: “Hindenburg had intended to retire in spring 1932, after completing his first seven-year presidential term, but Chancellor Brüning convinced him to extend his service for an additional two years to allow the German economy and political situation to stabilize. Had conservatives and centrists banded together, they could have delivered the two-thirds Reichstag majority required by the constitution to prolong Hindenburg’s presidential term. Hitler wanted none of it. The National Socialist movement thrived on political chaos and economic despair.”
• July 1932: “Hitler enumerates the failings of representational democracy and multiparty rule. He talks about inflation and unemployment. Farmers have been “plunged into misery.” The middle classes “ruined.” One of every three working men and women is without a job. “The hopes of millions have been shattered.” The government, at the federal, state, and municipal levels, is bankrupt. “The coffers are empty.” One hears, as Prinzhorn noted, Hitler’s uncanny ability “to hammer away” on a few key issues in a way “that the common man can comprehend and remember.””
• August 1932: “Both Papen and Schleicher warned Hindenburg that the National Socialists and the centrists both had a double agenda. The centrists wanted to avoid dissolution of the Reichstag and to “saddle” the National Socialists with running the government, in an effort to “wear them down.” Hitler, for his part, was interested in entering a coalition in order to deliver the Reichstag majority that Hindenburg was allegedly demanding, knowing full well that Hindenburg would reject a Hitler cabinet; this would, in turn, discredit Hindenburg in the eyes of the country.”
• “Hugenberg took a more measured view of Hitler and the National Socialist movement. He applauded Hitler’s belligerent nationalism and desire to destroy democracy, but he feared that Hitler’s intransigence in entering a coalition would prevent a conservative majority in the Reichstag.”
• Fall 1932: “Hugenberg chose a hot-button issue for his Katastrophenpolitik campaign: wartime reparations. The Hugenberg referendum, proposing the draft “law against the enslavement of the German people”—also known as the Freiheitsgesetz, or Liberty Law—called for the abrogation of the Treaty of Versailles and, with it, the withdrawal of foreign forces from the country, the return of the Alsace region, and the suspension of reparation payments. Section IV of the Liberty Law contained the most inflammatory demand: any German official who was a signatory to the Young Plan or involved in its reparation implementation was to be arrested and tried for high treason.”
• “Goebbels, the state inspector for Berlin, had not attended, but seven others who were in Berlin had been there, including Hinrich Lohse, who had been hit with a telephone during the Wednesday Reichstag brawl, as well as Robert Ley, one of the two Reichsinspektoren charged with monitoring their fellow state inspectors.”
• August 1932: ““It is not the guilt of any one person but rather the construction of our constitution, when practically every attempt at reform is crushed in the gears of party politics,” Gayl observed. Faced with legislative gridlock, Hindenburg was increasingly relying on his Article 48 powers, essentially functioning as a constitutionally empowered dictator.”
• Fall 1932, Wilhelm von Gayl, after Papen: “A power vacuum had been created in Germany which the Reichstag and the parties had no chance of filling.”34
• August 11, 1932, Wilhelm von Gayl: ““And now our nation is divided in two factions between which rages an embittered fight for political power.” Which is exactly what Hitler and company hoped would happen. Goebbels wrote in his diary, “Last Constitution Day ever. Hope you enjoy yourselves.””
• December 1932: “Schleicher’s plan revolved around the idea of a “cross front” (Querfront). The cross front was a political coalition that would unite seemingly deadly adversaries, from the Social Democrats and labor unions to the “Strasser wing” of the Nazis. It began as an idea for job creation promoted by a conservative politician named Günther Gereke. Gereke’s plan called for publicly financed public works and infrastructure projects, which might employ about half a million people—conventional now, but original thinking in 1931 and 1932.”36
• December 1932: “Schleicher was therefore confident that he would be able to find a parliamentary majority stretching ideologically from Strasser to the Social Democrats.”37
• December 1932: “But the cross front failed almost immediately. Schleicher could attract neither Hitler nor Strasser to his government. On December 5, both the Nazis and the Social Democrats announced that they would not “tolerate” his administration. The Social Democrats said they would bring a no-confidence motion as soon as the Reichstag met, although they probably hoped the motion would not succeed, as they feared being passed by the Communists in a subsequent election.”38
• “Schleicher’s failure to secure parliamentary support left him no option but to ask the President for wide-ranging, effectively extra-constitutional powers to overcome the crisis. When he went to Hindenburg with this request, the aged President and his entourage saw this as their chance to rid themselves of this irritating and untrustworthy intriguer, and refused.”39
• “By the second half of 1932, a military regime of some description was the only viable alternative to a Nazi dictatorship.”40
• “...only force was likely to succeed. Only two institutions possessed it in sufficient measure. Only two institutions could operate it without arousing even more violent reactions on the part of the mass of the population: the army and the Nazi movement.”41

1933

• February 1933: “Soon after his resignation, he wrote to a friend that he wanted “to promote the coming together of all constructive-minded people, no matter where they come from, on the basis of new ideas.” He added that “I am convinced that the time of agitation and of parties is fast disappearing and that the immediate future calls for men who are prepared to come into government with courage and a sense of responsibility.””42
• “The coalition government involving the National Socialists and the German Nationalists represented a resurrection of the Harzburg Front.”
• “The coalition government would be headed by Hitler as chancellor, “in cooperation with the Harzburg Front,” and with toleration of the Center Party. The main focus of the new government would be the reduction of unemployment and the revival of the economy.”
• “Democracies that are under threat of destruction face the impossible dilemma of either yielding to that threat by insisting on preserving the democratic niceties, or violating their own principles by curtailing democratic rights. The Nazis knew this, and exploited the dilemma to the full in the second phase of the coming of the Third Reich, from February to July 1933.”45

America

Background

• “Of the 17 institutions measured this year, Gallup has tracked 14 regularly since 1993, and the public's average confidence in them has fluctuated from 26%, as recorded in 2023, to as high as 43% in the early 2000s. The latest 28% average marks the third consecutive year that confidence has been below 30%. Before 2022, average confidence was between 31% and 43%.”
• “- Republicans and Democrats are more focused on fighting each other than on solving problems (86%);
  - The cost of political campaigns makes it hard for good people to run for office (85%);
  - Special interest groups and lobbyists have too much say in what happens in politics (84%).”
• “About two-in-ten adults cite deep divisions between the parties as the biggest problem with the U.S. political system, with respondents describing a lack of cooperation between the parties or among elected leaders in Washington.”48
• “Half of Americans today say there are clear solutions to most of the big issues facing the country, while about as many (48%) say most big issues don’t have clear solutions.”49

Government

• “As has been the case for more than a decade, a majority of Americans (59%) say they feel frustrated toward the federal government. About two-in-ten (21%) say they feel angry toward the government, while 18% say they are basically content.”50

Congress

• “Between the period of 1972 to 1979 and the period of 2010 to 2021, confidence in Congress declined by 45 percent. … These changes mirror the drop in trust in “government” of about 40 percent found over the same period on another set of surveys, the American National Election Studies.5”51

The President

• “confidence in the presidency has gone from usually nearer “quite a lot” in the 1970s and 1980s (except for just after the Watergate scandal around 1972 to 1974) to just “some” in the last decade.3 … Confidence in the presidency and in the executive branch declined by about 20 percent … These changes mirror the drop in trust in “government” of about 40 percent found over the same period on another set of surveys, the American National Election Studies.5”52

Nonpolitical Institutions

• “The decline in confidence in these nonpolitical institutions is less well known than the drop in trust in government.”53
• “If we compare average confidence in each of these nonpolitical institutions from 1972 to 1979 with average confidence from 2010 to 2021, confidence has declined in fourteen of the institutions, stayed the same for one (science), and increased only for the military.”54
• “These declines have been significant, and nonpolitical institutions have gone from being trusted quite a lot to being trusted only somewhat. The American people expressed “quite a lot” of confidence in 1972–1979 in thirteen of the sixteen non political institutions, and they expressed merely “some” confidence in only three of them (labor, law, and television) back then. By 2010–2021, only six institutions –education, higher education, medicine, the military, science, and police–still enjoyed “quite a lot” of confidence, and ten institutions warranted just “some” confidence. Recent data suggest that Americans probably have only “some” confidence in higher education as well because the time-series for higher education from the Harris Poll used in Figures 3 and 5 ends at 2012, and data from the Pew Research Center show that trust in higher education has fallen significantly since 2012.8 So Americans have gone from believing that thirteen of sixteen nonpolitical institutions deserved quite a lot of confidence to believing that only five of sixteen merit quite a lot of confidence, and that eleven deserve just some confidence.”55
• “Confidence in science is about the same in the 2010–2021 period as it was in the 1972–1979 period, and confidence in the military has increased by about 21 percent, according to the Gallup-GSS-Harris data.”56
• “In addition, the GDP growth rate is positively associated with about 30 percent of the variance over time in confidence in Wall Street, 11 percent in business confidence, and 11 percent in confidence in banks, but it is not, just as we would expect, associated with confidence in any other nonpolitical institution.”57
• “First, the most trusting are always the partisans of the president’s party. When there is a Republican president, then Republicans are the most confident in the president, and when there is a Democratic president, then Democrats are most confident.”58
• “Second, the lowest level of trust is for the out-party partisans, those of the opposite party from the president, and it has fallen dramatically over time from midway between “some” and “quite a lot” to closer to “hardly any at all.” Republicans did not have even some confidence in Obama and Democrats had hardly any confidence in Trump. Third, trust among independents has gone down over time. This decline in confidence among out-party partisans and independents has caused trust in the presidency to decline overall.”59
• “As indicated above, only business and labor fall significantly from the diagonal line of neutrality in the 1972–1979 period. … While there was some polarization, what is most remarkable about this picture is that there was very little partisanship with regard to trust in most major institutions.”60
• “For the 2010–2021 period depicted in Figure 9 using the same scale, many institutions have moved to the bottom left of the graph, indicating a loss of confidence, and almost all of them have moved outward from the solid line and beyond the dashed lines, indicating polarization. In the current period, there is now polarization in trust across almost all institutions that is comparable to or more than the polarization in partisan trust of business and labor in the 1970s.”61
• “Democrats trust the knowledge- and information-producing institutions and organized labor more than Republicans”62
• “Republicans trust the norm enforcing institutions and business more than Democrats”63
• “A comparison of Figures 8 and 9 also reveals that law, public schools, science, and medicine have moved from being more trusted by Republicans than Democrats in the earlier period to being now more trusted by Democrats than Republicans.”64
• “Finally, an analysis that compares the 2010–2015 period to the 2016–2021 period reveals that polarization is continuing with more polarization in confidence for twelve of the fifteen nonpolitical institutions for which we have data”65
• “Trust in the military increased among independents between 1972–1979 and 2010–2021, but declined for every other institution, with especially large drops for Wall Street, TV news, banks, the press, public schools, and medicine.”66
• “Economic inequality has increased in the United States over the past fifty years, with the top 1 percent’s wealth going from 25 percent to almost 40 percent of all wealth and their income jumping from 10 percent to 20 percent of all earnings. This widening inequality followed an earlier period of growing income for everyone”67
• “Diversity increased dramatically from 1970 as the United States shifted from being over 83 percent non-Hispanic White, with only 11 percent African American, 5 percent Hispanic, and less than 1 percent Asian American, to being 58 per cent non-Hispanic White, with 19 percent Hispanic, 12 percent African American, 6 percent Asian American, and 5 percent other in 2020.21”68
• “In a national survey that we completed in September 2019, a representative group of Americans was asked about their perceptions of the partisan and ideological complexion of a subset of institutions. We found that highly religious people, police, bankers, and military generals are seen as typically conservatives and Republicans, and college professors, journalists, labor union members, public school teachers, and scientists are seen as liberals and Democrats. Only doctors and lawyers were seen, on average, as neither Republicans nor Democrats. Most institutions appear to be politicized. Unfortunately, these questions have not been asked in the past, so it is hard to know whether these perceptions are new or longstanding. Based upon scattered results from similar survey questions in the past, however, we believe that they are new. In addition, Kent has found evidence that at least some of the perceptions may be right. Since 1980, some professions and semi-professions have be come more partisan in their political contributions in just the ways found on the 2019 survey.27”69
• “Despite these significant partisan differences regarding the importance, cost, and competency of these institutions, one of the biggest predictors of a respondent’s confidence in an institution is their perception of its partisan makeup.”70
• “Part of the story may be that people have selected into these institutions based upon values and perspectives that put them on one side or the other of the cultural divide.”71
• “The threat to a political candidate of being outflanked in a primary on the left for Democrats and on the right for Republicans further reinforces ideological polarization. The result is that ideological debate has gone beyond the business labor divide of the New Deal to almost all American institutions.”72
• “About one third of the overall decline in trust might be due to specific events and experiences with institutions. Another one-third might come from nonpartisan factors such as increasing inequality and diversity, leading to anomie that undermines trust in nearly all institutions among all groups. These nonpartisan factors have probably been exacerbated by an increasingly skeptical and cacophonous media environment. And a final one-third might come from partisan factors related to the emergence of cultural, social, and identity issues in American politics that have implicated nonpolitical institutions.”73
• “Such compromises now seem less attainable because powerful interest groups on the left and right are especially entrenched in their positions, often because of moral concerns, deep-seated fears about com promises as “slippery slopes,” and perhaps the “zero-sum” nature of many of these issues. Consequently, it seems to be more difficult to forge compromise by meeting in the middle when it comes to conflicts over social and cultural issues, accounting for the political battles that now beset us.”74
• “There does not appear to be any middle ground. Instead, presidential administrations, sessions of the Supreme Court, and state governments are going in opposite, usually extreme directions depending upon their partisanship. Social cultural politics lead to conflicting sets of norms and mores, as well as different cultural logics and meanings that stymie trust across partisan boundaries. It is hard to bridge these divides, especially when almost every ostensibly authoritative institution is identified with one side or the other on most issues.”75
• “Finally, democracy in modern America is particularly vulnerable. It “lacks the heady sense that existed a century ago of vast, unfulfilled potential.”93 In short, “[d]emocracy is not working well.”94”76
• “As alluded to earlier, Juan Linz spent years researching the reasons for the tragic collapse of democracy in 1930s Europe.95 As a result, Linz proposed a “litmus test,” a list of actions by politicians that can put democracy at risk.96 These warning signs include a refusal to unambiguously disavow violence, a readiness to curtail rivals’ civil liberties, and the denial of the legitimacy of an elected government.97 If two of these indicators are present, that is cause for concern. If all three are present, that is cause for alarm.”77
• “So when the Washington Post described the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol in 2021 as “would-be saboteurs of a 244-year-old democracy” they were wrong.147 In reality, true democracy in America has only been around for less than 60 years, dating to 1965, “the year the Voting Rights Act guaranteed suffrage—at least on paper—to all American citizens, regardless of race.”14”78
• “Americans’ confidence in the police increased eight percentage points over the past year to 51%, the largest year-over-year change in public perceptions of 17 major U.S. institutions measured in Gallup’s annual update.”7985
• “Democrats’ confidence outpaces Republicans’ for 10 institutions, including the presidency, higher education, organized labor, newspapers, public schools, the criminal justice system, television news, large technology companies, banks and the medical system. Conversely, Republicans have more confidence in three institutions -- the police, the church or organized religion, and the Supreme Court.”8611080
• “Only 4% of the public says the political system in the U.S. is working extremely or very well today, while 23% say it is working somewhat well. About seven-in-ten (72%) say the system is working not too (45%) or not at all (27%) well.”81
• “Looking to the future of the system, about six-in-ten Americans (63%) say they have not too much or no confidence at all. A third say they have some confidence, and just 4% express a lot of confidence.”82
• “Just 16% of Americans say they trust the government in Washington to do the right thing just about always or most of the time. While public trust in government has been low for nearly two decades, the current measure is among the lowest in more than 70 years of polling.”83

Police

• “Aside from the police, small business (68%) and the military (61%) are the only other institutions in the June 3-23 poll that garner majority-level confidence from Americans.”10684
• “Americans’ confidence in the police increased eight percentage points over the past year to 51%, the largest year-over-year change in public perceptions of 17 major U.S. institutions measured in Gallup’s annual update.”8579
• “Democrats’ confidence outpaces Republicans’ for 10 institutions, including the presidency, higher education, organized labor, newspapers, public schools, the criminal justice system, television news, large technology companies, banks and the medical system. Conversely, Republicans have more confidence in three institutions -- the police, the church or organized religion, and the Supreme Court.”1108680

The military

• “The increase in confidence in the military is real, but feeling thermometers from the American National Election Studies that ask about “warmth toward an institution” starting in 1964 suggest that confidence in the military declined through the rest of the 1960s as a result of the Vietnam War and that some of the gain from the 1970s is a return to 1964 levels of confidence, although the rest of the gain reaches still higher levels of confidence than even the early 1960s.”87
• “Trust in the military increased among independents between 1972–1979 and 2010–2021...”88
• “The evidence is clearest for the military: confidence in the military closely tracks the ups and downs of national security events.”89
• “Although liberals trusted the military less, they were in 2019 also more deferential to the military than were conservatives, and they even wanted the military to be more publicly vocal on policy. These views derived from partisan respondents’ trust in Donald Trump. Republicans expressed great confidence in the armed forces, but those who trusted Trump wanted his preferences to become national policy,and they opposed a politically active military. Democrats,who distrusted Trump, wanted the military to act as a check on a president they abhorred. In a multivariate analysis, respondents’ party identification and approval of Trump were strongly predictive of their deference toward the military, swamping the impact of political ideology. The impact of partisanship comes across clearly when comparing our results to a 2013 survey, when Barack Obama was president and partisan and ideological interests were aligned: Democrats then backed civilian supremacy, and Republicans called for deference.”90
• “In short, as table 1 reveals, when it comes to when and how to use military force, Americans’ views are not in line with the principle of civilian supremacy. Large numbers, sometimes a majority, think the president should override his own judgment and simply do what senior military officers want.”91
• “Americans also seem to have few reservations about the military’s involvement in public debate over policy. A majority of respondents—56.1%—agree to some extent that “senior military officers should advocate publicly for military operations and policies they favor,” compared to just 17.2% who disagree to any extent (figure 2).”92
• “While Americans trust the military, that trust does not appear to be rooted in the belief that officers are “apolitical” (contra Hill, Wong, and Gerras 2013; King and Karabell 2003). Consistent with past polls, just15.9% of this survey’s respondents express any distrust of military officers.29 However, when asked to identify the reason for their trust, just under 10% of those who trust do so because “military officers do not get involved in politics.””93
• “In short, while the survey data suggest that Americans have only modest faith that military officers stay out of politics, that has little apparent impact on their trust in military officers.”94
• “The one area in which Americans are largely in line with traditional norms is oversight. In general, more Americans opt for the intense-and-frequent-oversight side of the scale than the light-and-occasional side.”95
• “In 2019, Republicans and Trump supporters were more likely to trust the military. Consistent with their ideological predispositions, they were less likely to demand frequent and intense oversight of the military.33 But their warmth toward the military evaporated when they realized that the preferences of the generals might trump those of Trump. Therefore, Republicans and Trump approvers adopted a relatively non-deferential attitude toward the military. They wanted Trump to have free rein, unconstrained by senior military officers. Democrats and Trump disapprovers were more likely to distrust the military, but they distrusted Trump even more. They were deferential to the armed forces because they hoped the military could act as a check on the president, whose policies they detested, whose judgment they found suspect, and whose impulsiveness they feared.”96
• “The pattern emerges even more clearly through the lens of respondents’ approval of Trump’s performance as president. As table 3 shows, respondents who strongly disapprove of the president were the most deferential to the armed forces, and those who strongly approve were the least: depending on the question, the former were 60%–80% more likely to adopt a deferential stance.34 These results are borne out as well in the Deference Index.”97
• “Put differently, in 2019, strong Trump disapprovers were 80% more likely to be highly deferential than strong Trump approvers. The effects were very similar with political partisanship: moving from one extreme (strongly Democratic) to the other(strongly Republican) translated into a 42% lesser likelihood of the respondent being highly deferential.”98
• “In 2013, virtually no Republican respondents adopted a position of maximal civilian supremacy: just 1% said that “when the country is at war, the President should personally direct both the broad objectives as well as the details of military plans.” In 2019, 18% of Republicans endorsed this view. In 2013, just 9% of Democrats opted for extreme deference: “when the country is at war, the President should basically follow the advice of the generals.” In 2019, 28% of Democrats chose this option. In 2013, 34% of Republicans preferred the most deferential position, but just 11% did in 2019.”99
• “Yet that is not the case: hawks are not significantly more supportive of the president overruling the military when he approves of the mission, nor are they significantly more deferential to the military when its leadership supports using force.43”100
• “We find that veterans are as deferential as non-veteran civilians to senior military officers regarding when to use force; they are less deferential only regarding how to use force. In other words, their view—even more than that of civilians—is antithetical to the “normal theory” of civil-military relations.46 Veterans are also significantly less supportive of oversight of the military—again contrary to civil-military norms.47”101
• “We are skeptical, however, of this Trump-as-threat-to-the-republic alternative explanation. First, concern about the health of the nation’s democratic institutions has long been related to party affiliation—as far back as 1996, when the American National Election Study first started asking people if they were“satisfied with the way democracy works in the United States.” In general, those whose party won the last presidential election think U.S. democracy is in better shape than those whose party lost.49 Weak faith in democracy’s present practice may be another mechanism through which partisan politics shape attitudes toward civil-military relations, but it is not an independent explanatory account.”102
• “Second, while this alternative explanation may conceivably shed light on why Democrats and Trump disapprovers were more deferential to the armed forces in 2019 than in 2013, it cannot explain why Republicans and Trump-approvers became less deferential over that span. By its logic, the many Republicans who believe the Trump administration a stalwart defender of democracy had no reason to shift their view of civil-military relations.”103
• “Recent survey data show that even West Point cadets, despite their intense and active socialization, do not endorse the principles of civilian supremacy (Brooks, Robinson, and Urben 2020).”104
• “Very few question that “military officers put the interests of the country first,” and even fewer think they are “not good at what they do.””105
• “Aside from the police, small business (68%) and the military (61%) are the only other institutions in the June 3-23 poll that garner majority-level confidence from Americans.”84106

Supreme Court

• “Fewer than half of Americans (47%) now express a favorable opinion of the court, while about half (51%) have an unfavorable view, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted July 1-7, 2024.”107
• “Nearly half of Americans (48%) view the Supreme Court as conservative, while 42% see it as “middle of the road.” Only 7% describe the court as liberal.”108
• “Between the period of 1972 to 1979 and the period of 2010 to 2021 … confidence in the Supreme Court declined by 12 percent.4 These changes mirror the drop in trust in “government” of about 40 percent found over the same period on another set of surveys, the American National Election Studies.5”109
• “Democrats’ confidence outpaces Republicans’ for 10 institutions, including the presidency, higher education, organized labor, newspapers, public schools, the criminal justice system, television news, large technology companies, banks and the medical system. Conversely, Republicans have more confidence in three institutions -- the police, the church or organized religion, and the Supreme Court.”8086110
• “Ignoring those risks, the dissents are instead content to leave the preservation of our system of separated powers up to the good faith of prosecutors.”111
• “As the perfectly named U.S. federal judge Learned Hand warned,amidst the Second World War,“liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it” (Hand 1977, 190).”112

Democracy itself

• “Far fewer adults name a specific strength of the political system today when asked to describe the system’s biggest strength in their own words. More than half either say that the system lacks a biggest strength (22%) or decline to answer (34%). As one woman in her 60s writes, “I’m not seeing any strengths!””113
• “Roughly eight-in-ten Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (81%) say the political system is working not too or not at all well, including more than a third (37%) who say it is working not at all well. Among Democrats and Democratic leaners, 64% say the political system is working either not too or not at all well, with 19% saying it is not working well at all.”114
• “Republicans also express less confidence in the future of the U.S. political system: 68% of Republicans and 56% of Democrats say they have not too much or no confidence at all in its future.”115
• “Donald Trump often tells audiences that “the system is rigged against you” and specifically claims that the 2020 election was stolen, the 2024 election could be rigged, the prosecutions against him are politically motivated, and the federal government is run by a “deep state” of immoral people. Indeed, about 50% to 70% of Trump’s most radical supporters agree with each of these four specific claims, and nearly 90% agree with at least one of them.”116
• “Trump is viewed as a far greater threat to democracy than Biden, by a difference of 52% vs 33%. Although lower, the level for Biden is still notably high.”117
• “Large portions (about 30%) of both Republicans and Democrats believe that their “wellbeing is gravely” at stake in the outcome of the presidential election in 2024.”118
• “Indeed, about 45% to 55% of Americans agree with each of these three statements indicating distrust of democracy, and nearly 77% agree with at least one, and nearly 25% agree with all 3.”119
• “Trump destroyed their remaining faith in electoral institutions, and now 64% of Republicans are convinced that the 2020 Presidential election was stolen by Democrats and traitorous Republicans (Pew Research Center, 2021).”120