By Glynn Wilson –

The level of trust Americans have of the federal government’s ability to handle problems has sunk to the lowest point in more than two decades, according to a new survey from the Gallup Poll.

Only 35 percent of Americans have “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of trust and confidence in the U.S. government’s ability to deal with domestic issues, down from 45 percent four months ago. Public trust and confidence in the U.S. government’s ability to handle international issues has dropped nine percentage points in the same period, from 50 percent to 41 percent.

“The public’s trust in the government’s handling of both domestic and international issues has been severely breached, reaching record lows in the latest polling,” Gallup says. “This may be a temporary reaction to recent events or to Republicans’ loss of power in Washington, but Trump and Republican leaders might want to take heed.”

The latest poll was conducted Jan. 21-27, as the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history was in its final days.

On the domestic front, President Donald J. Trump has commanded the attention of the press and the public with a fake crisis focusing on the nation’s Southern border with Mexico, where Trump has demanded $5.7 billion for a wall while refusing to provide a detailed plan on how the money would be spent to Congress.

Even the less than qualified cabinet members appointed by Trump and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to oversee the nation’s intelligence agencies disagree with the president, saying there are many national security threats facing the country, but immigration on the Southern border is not one of them.

U.S. Intelligence Threat Assessment Highlights Russian Election Tampering, Not Mexican Border Security

On the international front, the U.S. was dealing with a political crisis in Venezuela, while President Donald Trump’s plan to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria and his upcoming North Korean summit continued to draw widespread bipartisan criticism, according to Gallup. The polling company fails to mention the wall controversy in its analysis or Trump’s controversial trade war and tariffs, which has financially harmed many of the rural farmers who supported Trump in his election bid in 2016.

These questions rating the public’s trust in the government’s handling of problems at home and abroad were included in several Gallup polls in the 1970s and have been regularly asked since 1997. The highest readings for both the domestic issues (77 percent) and international issues (83 percent) were recorded one month after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, when Americans rallied around the U.S. government and its leaders in the aftermath of that crisis.

“Although the 35-day partial shutdown of the government seems like the obvious explanation for why trust in the federal government’s competency is at record lows, it may not be the only reason,” according to Gallup. “Republicans’ discouragement over losing their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in the November midterm elections could be another,” Gallup says, although the survey research firm seems to totally ignore the blatant incompetence of Trump and the people he has chosen to run federal agencies, all of which appear to be ethically compromised and unqualified for the jobs they were hired to do.

Nearly all of the decline since September in Americans’ trust in government has occurred among Republicans and independents, according to Gallup, which may indicate the beginning of an erosion in Republican support for Trump and his regime.

Republican confidence in government has fallen 12 points since September, while the confidence of self identified independents voters has dropped nine points.

A majority of Republicans viewed the Trump shutdown as a “crisis” (21 percent) or a “major problem” (36 percent). While a similar decline in trust might have been expected among Democrats, their confidence was already extremely low.

Republicans’ confidence in the federal government’s handling of international problems fell from 84 percent in September to 66 percent, while trust among independents went from 43 percent to 38 percent. Democrats were already not happy with the performance of the federal government under Trump, but even their support fell in the past few months from 31 percent to 26 percent.

For historical perspective, majorities of Americans consistently expressed confidence on both fronts prior to 2007, when the Bush Great Recession hit and led to a major federal government bailout of the banks.

“The latest overall declines in trust,” Gallup says, “are mostly attributable to Republicans’ falling confidence.”

Clearly the Trump administration is in trouble. Other polls show that president Trump may have no chance of being reelected in 2020 – in the absence of some major crisis that could be trumped up between now and then.