70 percent of US voters fear intel agencies will interfere in elections: Harvard poll

As polarization grows unabated among the US population, distrust of law enforcement agencies and news media is also spiking

By News Desk- May 23 2023

https://thecradle.co/article-view/25161/70-percent-of-us-voters-fear-intel-agencies-will-interfere-in-elections-harvard-poll

An overwhelming majority of US voters say they are concerned about law enforcement and intelligence agencies interfering in future elections, according to a new Harvard CAPS-Harris poll.

When asked whether they were concerned “about interference by the FBI and intelligence agencies in a future presidential election,” 37 percent of respondents said they were “very concerned,” while 33 percent said they were “somewhat concerned.”

This comes just months after the Ronald Reagan Institute (RRI) revealed that less than half of US citizens trust their nation’s military.

The Harvard poll shows that 71 percent of US voters believe the federal government needs “wide-ranging reform” to prevent the same meddling US spy agencies regularly conduct abroad.

Seven out of ten respondents also said they were “not surprised” that the FBI violated its rules to launch an investigation into the 2016 Trump presidential campaign over the so-called ‘Russiagate’ scandal.

A scathing report released last week by special counsel John Durham said the FBI probe lacked “analytical rigor.” It concluded the agency did not possess evidence of collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia before launching an inquiry.

The report’s findings fly in the face of US corporate news outlets, which relentlessly hyped the Trump-Russia collusion allegations for three years and then downplayed the report, calling it a “whole big nothing.”

Such manipulation of information has eroded public trust in US media, with the Harvard poll showing that 56 percent of voters believe ‘Russiagate’ is a “false story” and that the Steele dossier – the basis of the FBI probe – was false.

On the other hand, more than 60 percent of respondents believe the son of US President Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, engaged in illegal influence-peddling and tax evasion. Similarly, 53 percent believe the president was involved in these schemes as vice president.

Over half of US voters also believe the FBI and the US Department of Justice (DOJ) are not investigating the Biden family’s alleged corruption. At the same time, 59 percent agree the story is real and not “Russian disinformation.”

As the US hurtles toward crucial elections next year in the shadow of the assault on the Capitol building by hordes of Trump supporters in 2021, researchers have been warning about rampant polarization along political lines that could lead to a “second civil war.”

According to an AP-NORC poll released earlier this month, nearly three-quarters of US adults believe corporate media is increasing political polarization, while just under half say they have “little to no trust in the media’s ability to report the news fairly and accurately.”

The AP poll also shows that four in 10 respondents believe the press is doing more to hurt US democracy, while only about two in 10 say the press is doing more to protect it. An additional four in 10 say neither applies.

On top of this, in the years since Trump left office, polls have shown that one in three US citizens – including at least 40 percent of republicans – believe violence against the government is sometimes justified.

The alarming figures come at a time when the US government is increasingly losing influence abroad, particularly in the Arab world, and as nations across the Global South move away from the US dollar hegemony to bolster their national currencies.

Nonetheless, Washington’s warmongering and interventionist policies continue full steam ahead, with the Pentagon boosting defense spending to astronomical levels. At the same time, the nation battles pervasive homelessness, drug addiction, and mental health epidemics.