Plurality of Americans are right: "dissatisfaction with government" worst problem facing country – Hilltop Views

The polling company Gallup has recently published its monthly poll of what Americans view as the most important problem in the nation. It lists each issue with the percentage of Americans who stated that that particular issue was the most important.

Some of the issues with the largest percentages were dissatisfaction with government/poor leadership, Immigration/illegal aliens, unifying the country, race relations, and the economy in general. While all of these problems are important, the issue with the highest percentage chosen by Americans is dissatisfaction with government/poor leadership at 19 percent.

I agree with the American public that the biggest problem in American society today is dissatisfaction with the government and poor leadership. All of the other problems pointed out culminate into dissatisfaction with the government; therefore, the poll could hypothetically be summed up into the one problem: dissatisfaction.

Unifying the country and race relations are directly related to governmental dissatisfaction and poor leadership. Most citizens feel that the federal government is not promoting healthy relations between its citizens. Many believe that it is supporting things such as systematic racism and that it does not do enough to prevent the oppression of minorities.

This creates a divide in the country, which causes citizens to be unsatisfied with the government. Trumps statements about certain minorities has done nothing to help mend this divide. Much of the division stems from the poor leadership we have in the White House.

The debate over immigration can cause dissatisfaction for both sides of the political spectrum. The left tends to think that the government is not doing enough to help immigrants, both legal and illegal. They are also growing tired of the anti-immigration rhetoric from our president. This can give the public a general sense of governmental incompetence. If the government leans towards the left point of view, the right is upset and vice versa.

Although we live in a capitalist, free market country, the government still plays a large role in the economy. This is why debates over the economy are so heated. Many Trump supporters believe that he is the perfect man for the job in regards to the economy because of his business background; however, there is a large portion of the population that believes his policies, especially his tax plan, favor the rich and privileged.

Unemployment also gained a large percentage in the Gallup poll. Part of the governments role in society is to stimulate job growth in order to keep the economy stable. Americans become unhappy with the government when unemployment rates are high because they think that the government is directly responsible for unemployment and the economy in general.

If people do not have trust in the government, they start to lose faith in the system as a whole. The worst thing for a democracy is when its citizens lose faith in the democratic process itself. All of these previously mentioned problems tie into this overarching issue.

Citizens begin to think that the government is not capable of functioning the way a modern democracy should, which leads to lower voter turnout because people feel that that their votes do not matter. Dissatisfaction with the government causes less participation by the citizens in government, which is the basis of American ideology.

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Plurality of Americans are right: "dissatisfaction with government" worst problem facing country - Hilltop Views

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