I took a bullet for democracy, Trump says at first rally since assassination attempt The Times of Israel
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I took a bullet for democracy, Trump says at first rally since assassination attempt - The Times of Israel
The proportion of people dissatisfied with democracy is growing in the U.S. and internationally, a new survey from Pew Research says.
According to the new survey, 31% of Americans said they were satisfied with the way democracy is working in the U.S., compared to 68% who said they were dissatisfied. In 2021, 41% of Americans said they were satisfied with the function of U.S. democracy.
In a survey that included citizens from 31 democracies throughout the world, just four had a higher proportion of satisfied respondents. Peru has the population most dissatisfied with its democracy, with 89% upset with how the government is functioning. According to The Associated Press, Peru President Dina Boluarte has been under investigation for allegedly acquiring an undisclosed collection of luxury watches since working for the government.
Greece is the nation next-most dissatisfied with its democracy. Like many Western nations, Greece has struggled with the cost of living, prompting Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to make changes within his cabinet to focus on the economy.
Colombia and South Africa also had a high proportion of citizens dissatisfied with their democracy.
Several nations saw large drops in support for their respective democracies. The United Kingdom saw its democratic satisfaction go from 60% in 2021 to 39% in 2024. South Korea saw a drop from 53% satisfaction to 36%. Canada went from 66% to 52%.
Of the 31 nations surveyed, 54% said they were dissatisfied with their government's democracy, compared to 45% who were satisfied.
Singapore, India and Sweden reported having the highest satisfaction with their nations' democracies.
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More people becoming dissatisfied with the function of democracy, survey finds - Scripps News
Labour Party placards reminding UK voters about the upcoming July 4 elections. (John Keeble/Getty Images)
Voters in the United Kingdom head to the polls on July 4 for the countrys first general election since 2019. Ahead of the election, Britons see the state of the UK in relatively bleak terms.
No major political party receives a favorable rating from a majority of the British public. Few think the nations economy is in good shape. And people are more dissatisfied than satisfied with the state of democracy in their country, according to a Pew Research Center survey of 1,o17 British adults, conducted Jan. 11-March 9, 2024. (The survey was conducted before British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak officially called for an election.)
This Pew Research Center analysis examines how people in the United Kingdom view the countrys major political parties, its economic situation and the way democracy is functioning.
Data comes from a survey of 1,017 adults in the UK conducted by random-digit dial from Jan. 11-March 9, 2024. The survey is weighted to be representative of the adult population in the UK with the following variables: gender, age, education, region and probability of selection of respondent.
Here are the questions used for this analysis, along with responses, and the survey methodology.
None of the four major British political parties we asked about in our survey the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Conservative Party and Reform UK receive net positive ratings from the British public.
This year, 35% of Britons have unfavorable views of both the Labour and Conservative parties. This is up 7 points since last year and has nearly doubled since the fall of 2020, when 19% had unfavorable views of both of the countrys dominant parties.
By way of comparison, this is also higher than the 28% of Americans who had unfavorable views of both the Republican and Democratic parties in 2023.
In the UK, people who identify with the Conservative Party are, unsurprisingly, more likely to have a favorable view of the party (74%) than those who identify with Labour (13%) or who say they do not feel close to any party (25%). But even among people who identify as Conservatives, the share who have a favorable view of their party has fallen in recent years. In 2020, 89% had a positive view.
Labour Party supporters, for their part, are more likely than Conservatives to have a positive view of their own party: 87% do. And the share who feel this way has been largely consistent in recent years.
Few in the UK (22%) think their countrys economy is in good shape. With 78% saying its in poor shape, Britons are more negative about their countrys economy than people in most of the other countries we surveyed this year.
Conservative Party supporters (27%) are more likely than Labour Party supporters (18%) to think the economy is in good shape as is often the case with members of a countrys governing party or coalition, according to our research. But even among Conservatives, positive views of the economy have fallen sharply in the last three years.
Today, more in the UK are dissatisfied than satisfied with the state of their countrys democracy (60% vs. 39%). As recently as 2021, 60% of British adults were satisfied with their democracy.
Conservative Party supporters are more likely than Labour Party supporters to be satisfied with democracy in their country (55% vs. 40%). Once again, weve found this is common for supporters of a countrys governing party.
But Conservative Party supporters are much less satisfied today than they were a few years ago, when around three-quarters or more were happy with the way democracy was working in the UK.
Note: Here are the questions used for this analysis, along with responses, and the survey methodology.
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Ahead of UK election, dissatisfaction with economy and democracy - Pew Research Center
More than a year ago, as leading voices on opposite ends of the Democratic spectrum, we sounded the alarm that third-party candidates could once again hand the White House to Republicans. The candidacies of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Jill Stein have made that threat more real now than ever before.
Trump has attempted to muddy the waters by characterizing RFK Jr. as a Democrat plant and a radical left liberal. No one should be fooled by this desperate attempt to define RFK Jr. as a liberal, or even a Democrat. His policy stances read more like a resume to be Trumps running mate. He and third-party candidate, Jill Stein, are parroting views right out of the MAGA/Vladimir Putin playbook and yet, perhaps counterintuitively, they risk dividing the anti-Trump coalition and putting a convicted felon back in power.
Neither third-party candidate has any chance of winning the presidency. But, for a moment, lets put aside their lack of a path to 270 electoral votes and talk about their agendas.
RFK Jr. came to national prominence as a conspiracy monger and anti-vaxxer. Since then, he sounded even more like a MAGA radical: he has argued for a 15-week national abortion ban, declared that the government can do nothing to restrict gun violence, said climate change is a pretext for clamping down totalitarian controls, and proclaimed that Biden is a greater threat to U.S. democracy than Trump. He also released a YouTube video on the Ukraine war riddled with so much Russian propaganda and misinformation it took one journalist almost 3,000 words of analysis to correct the record.
Stein has echoed similar MAGA sentiments, also arguing that the U.S. is at fault for Putins war. She has a long history of touting Russian propaganda, and after dining in Moscow with Putin and Trump aide Michael Flynn, she received help from Russian election-meddlers during her 2016 run.
Its no coincidence that this time, Stein has directed her attacks exclusively at Democrats and Biden not Trump. She has lied about Bidens climate laws, lied about his expansion of the Affordable Care Act, lied about his immigration policy, and accused Democrats of being fascists posing a threat to democracy.
These are not the views of radical left liberals. Indeed, they are antithetical to Democratic values and the MAGA elite know it. Beyond a long list of MAGA endorsements, there are some eye-popping donations from Trump allies to these supposedly independent candidates. RFK Jr.s super PAC, American Values 2024, got $25 million from Timothy Mellon, a MAGA financier who has also donated tens of millions to Trump.
There is a reason MAGA donors see bankrolling third-party candidates as money well spent: they know a strong third-party showing even from those spouting MAGA rhetoric is going to help Trump and hurt Biden.
Biden won previous third-party voters by 30 points in 2020. Young voters, moderates, and independents all top targets for the Stein and RFK Jr. campaigns backed Biden by double digits last cycle. Recent polling shows that a multi-candidate race this cycle could siphon off those exact voters. The national polls tracking Stein and RFK Jr.s on their impact on the race remain fluid, but simple math shows that if a tiny percentage of these voters in the swing states back RFK Jr. and Stein this November, they could tip several battlegrounds from Biden back to Trump.
Simply put: There will be no President Kennedy or President Stein. But third-party candidates could determine who holds the White House. That happened in 2000 and in 2016, and the data and evidence suggest it could happen again in 2024.
MoveOn and Third Way represent different views about the future of the Democratic Party, but we share a common goal: protecting our democracy and fundamental freedoms by ensuring Donald Trump is defeated.
Democrats failed to take the third party threat seriously in 2000 and 2016, and they cannot make the same mistake again in 2024. RFK Jr. and Stein are on the Red Team, and a vote for either could help Trump retake power and destroy our most sacred institutions. We have to sound the alarm now.
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No debate: RFK Jr. is a threat to Democracy - Salon