Big majorities of Americans say the political system stinks. Will immigrants and young people change it?

WASHINGTON —  A few days ago, The Times launched a series of stories about the immigrant experience in America.

At a time when 1 in 6 adults in the U.S. are immigrants and when immigration is one of the central issues of political debate, the series takes a deep look at what immigrants’ lives are like and how they feel about the country they’ve adopted. It’s grounded in an unprecedented poll The Times conducted with the nonprofit KFF.

Our initial story focused on a key immigrant trait — the optimism that a majority express about their lives and their futures in the U.S. A second installment, published Thursday, looked at the particular experiences of the nation’s growing number of Black immigrants.

We focused on optimism in part because until very recently, it was viewed as a quintessential American characteristic. Outside of immigrant communities, however, optimism has been very much in eclipse recently.

For more than two decades, social scientists have traced a steady rise in pessimism, especially among white Americans. When asked whether “people like me and my family have a good chance of improving our standard of living,” about three-quarters of Americans of all major racial and ethnic groups said yes in 2000. But attitudes among white Americans have grown much more gloomy since. Today, only about 40% say so, according to an analysis by NORC at the University of Chicago.

Deep political discontent

Former President Trump’s campaigns, with their warnings about “American carnage” and national decline, have reinforced that grim mood among his overwhelmingly white followers. But the discontent didn’t start with Trump — he tapped into an existing feeling.

And as a major new study by the Pew Research Center shows, discontent, especially about the nation’s political system, is bipartisan and deeply felt.

Only 4% of U.S. adults say the political system works very well or extremely well; 23% say it works somewhat well. About 6 in 10 Americans express very little or no confidence in the future of the U.S. political system, Pew found.

Americans say they often feel exhausted (65%) or angry (55%) when they think about politics. Those who have the highest level of engagement — people who actively support candidates, stay informed about public affairs and have strongly held opinions about issues — are the most likely to feel that way.

Only 10% say they often feel hopeful about politics; just 4% report often feeling excited.

Americans have almost always had a jaundiced view of politicians, but the current depth of cynicism toward the political class is startling: 63% say that all or most elected officials in local, state and federal government run in order to make a lot of money.

Pew asked the people it surveyed to list weaknesses and strengths of the U.S. political system. The request for weaknesses brought forth a torrent: too much money in politics, too much influence by special interests and, above all, too much partisanship.

Strikingly, though, when asked to name strengths, a majority couldn’t.

Negative feelings about the system “cut across partisan categories and demographic groups,” said Carroll Doherty, Pew’s director of political research. “It’s just across the board.”

Those findings highlight a paradox: More Americans participate in the political process today than ever. In the last three national elections, voter turnout has hit record levels. Low turnout remains a problem in local elections, but on the national level, we’ve successfully banished apathy.

And Americans agree that the system offers them clear choices: Pew found that only 10% say they don’t see much difference between the parties — a sentiment that was still widespread a generation ago.

That leads to a second paradox: In poll after poll, Americans say they deeply dislike partisanship. Yet we’re more partisan than ever: The number of swing voters in the electorate has shrunk to a handful.

What explains those contradictions is that many Americans vote more out of fear than hope. They may not be enthusiastic about their own party, but they’re convinced the other side poses a deep threat. Many voters see their ballots not as an affirmative choice so much as a move to block bad acts.

The share who say that the outcome of elections matters has steadily ticked upward, Doherty noted. “They see the idea of loss as devastating.”

Political leaders have reinforced negative partisanship. In the 2020 election, Trump threatened that a Democratic victory would bring socialism, rising crime and racial disorder. President Biden then and since has warned that reelecting Trump would destroy democracy and empower white supremacists.

The optimism of President Obama’s “Yes we can” and President Reagan’s “shining city on a hill” seem like increasingly quaint relics.

The prominence of negative messages may play a role in the well documented national unhappiness about another match between Trump and Biden. But discontent runs further down the ballot: Just 26% of Americans now rate the quality of political candidates as very or somewhat good. That’s down about 20 percentage points in the past five years, Pew reported.

“It has cratered,” said Jocelyn Kiley, Pew’s associate director of political research.

Since 1994, the share who have a negative view of both major parties has nearly quintupled and now stands at nearly 3 in 10 Americans, Pew reported. Among people younger than 50, that share rises to 35%.

All that portrays a system that is fundamentally unstable. And it raises a question: At what point does such widespread discontent force change? And what might cause that to happen?

Some scholars, like the political scientist Lee Drutman, argue that the U.S. needs to end the two-party stranglehold on politics and move to a multiparty system that would give voters more choices. The Pew study found more than a third of Americans were open to that, although many doubted it would lead to better results.

Others argue for reforms within the two-party system, like more effective limits on campaign spending.

No major political leader in either party, however, has seized on public discontent to make the argument for structural reform. In fact, the one well-funded effort at a third party in this election cycle — the proposed No Labels campaign — goes in the opposite direction, refusing to advocate anything beyond a vacuous appeal to “common sense.”

But a campaign for reform is not an impossible idea. In the early 20th century, a national debate and calls for systemic change led to the direct election of senators, widespread adoption of ballot initiatives and women’s suffrage. In the 1960s, another wave of reform enfranchised Black Americans and swept away legally enforced racial segregation.

Could that happen again? The optimism about the future that our Times/KFF poll of immigrants found and the deep discontent the Pew survey documented among younger Americans point to a possible way the current era of stalemate could end.

Both immigrants and young people vote at much lower levels than the rest of the population. Many immigrants aren’t citizens, and even those who do have citizenship often aren’t plugged into U.S. politics. Young people often aren’t habitual voters and need a cause to motivate them.

But both groups are poised to play a larger role. Millennial and Gen Z Americans are forecast to become a majority of voters by the end of this decade. And the number of immigrant voters will grow as well, as more achieve citizenship. Both groups want more than the current system offers and could push it out of its rut.

At least they could in theory. “The question,” said Kiley, is: “When these groups get politically engaged, do they change the system, or does the system change them?”

A deep look at immigrants

If you haven’t read the Times series on the lives of immigrants, I strongly recommend it. You can also check out the poll yourself, and see how your answers compare with those of the immigrants we surveyed. Here are some of the key pieces.

In an increasingly pessimistic era, immigrants espouse a hallmark American trait — optimism

The vast majority of immigrants say they came to the U.S. seeking better economic and job opportunities and a better future for themselves and their children. Most say they’ve found both. Eight in 10 immigrants surveyed said their financial situation was better because of moving to the U.S., and roughly 8 in 10 said educational opportunities for themselves or their children have improved because of immigrating. Eight in 10 also said if they could go back in time and do it all again, they would still choose to emigrate, Brittny Mejia, Jeong Park and Jack Herrera reported.

Black immigrants face more discrimination in the U.S. The source is sometimes surprising

“You know, the people who tell me to go back to my country the most is Black people — not white people,” Winsome Pendergrass says with a sigh. Her experience reflects a widespread reality among Black immigrants, whose ranks have swelled from just over 2 million in 2000 to nearly 5 million today, or about one-tenth of the nation’s Black population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. These newcomers, who’ve settled mostly in East Coast cities such as New York, Newark, Washington and Miami, are expected to double in number by 2060, Tyrone Beason reported.

Ten languages, thousands of phone calls: Accurately polling immigrants posed unprecedented challenges

Seventy-five thousand, eight hundred surveys mailed, more than 13,000 hours of phone interviews, translations into nine languages in addition to English: Conducting an accurate survey of the nation’s hugely diverse immigrant population required resources far beyond what’s needed for a typical poll, I wrote.

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