• About 45% of Americans think democracy isn’t functioning properly, a new AP-NORC poll found.
• Only 16% of Americans say democracy is working well or extremely well, the poll found. 
• “Public trust in the democratic process was dealt a further blow in 2020 by the refusal of the outgoing president to accept the election result,” a report found.
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Only 16% of Americans say democracy is working well or extremely well, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The poll found that almost half of Americans (45%) think democracy isn’t functioning properly. Meanwhile, about 38% say it’s working only somewhat well.

Negative feelings about the state of democracy also appear to be bipartisan. 

Just 22% of Democratic voters and 10% of GOP voters said democracy is working very or extremely well, the poll found.

The poll was conducted from January 28 to February 1, just a few weeks after a violent insurrection at the US Capitol that was provoked by President Donald Trump, who leveled baseless claims of widespread voter fraud that were rejected by his own officials. None of the dozens of legal cases to challenge the election from Trump and his GOP allies succeeded, many of which did not allege mass voter fraud.

The fatal violence at the Capitol was linked to the former president’s untrue allegations, and false insistence that he won the 2020 presidential election. The mayhem transpired as congressional lawmakers met to certify the 2020 Electoral College vote. 

Trump was impeached for inciting the riot, and his impeachment trial begins Tuesday. If Trump is convicted, it could pave the way for him to be barred from running for office in the future. 

Trump’s attacks on American democracy have seemingly made an impact on Republican voters. AP-NORC polling before the election back in October found that about 68% of GOP voters said democracy was working at least somewhat well. By January, that number had collapsed to 36%. 

But the poll also found that nearly half of Americans (49%) said the country is on the right track, with 57% expressing a favorable view of President Joe Biden compared to just 36% for Trump. 

The apparent perception among Americans that democracy is eroding and fragile is not unwarranted, based on broader research. 

Global democracy declined once again in 2020, according to the latest edition of the Democracy Index from the Economist Intelligence Unit.  The annual survey rates the state of democracy across 167 countries based on five measures or categories: electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, democratic political culture, and civil liberties.

The US remained in the “flawed democracy” category  in this year’s Democracy Index out of four possibly classifications: “full democracy,” “flawed democracy,” “hybrid regime,” or “authoritarian regime.”

“Public trust in the democratic process was dealt a further blow in 2020 by the refusal of the outgoing president to accept the election result,” the report said of Trump. “Trump and his allies continued to allege voter fraud long after the election was over, without producing reasonable evidence to substantiate their claims and in the face of court rulings finding against them.”

“Through his unfounded allegations and intemperate language, Mr. Trump called into question the reliability of the democratic process and further undermined public faith in democracy,” the report added.