SCOTUS Has Higher Approval Rating Than Before Dobbs Decision

Americans’ trust in mass media hit a new low again in Gallup’s annual survey on confidence in the press, while faith in the Supreme Court inched upward.

Gallup reported the results of the group’s latest poll on trust in the news media Monday. The poll found just 31 percent of Americans maintain a “great deal” or a “fair amount” of confidence in newspapers, television networks, and radio to report on events “fully, accurately and fairly.” The number of Americans reporting a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in the media has not increased in Gallup’s survey since 2018, when at 45 percent, the press enjoyed its highest level of confidence since 2009.

Today, 36 percent of those surveyed reported no confidence in the media, while 33 percent said their level of trust could be described as “not very much.”

Americans’ opinions of the Supreme Court, on the other hand, have begun to improve following the drop and subsequent plateau in support from 2021 to 2023, when the high bench faced unprecedented attacks from Democrats politicizing controversial decisions.

As of September, 44 percent of Americans approved of the way the Supreme Court is handling its job, according to Gallup. Fifty-one percent, or roughly half, disapprove, representing a 7-point drop from the same month in the previous two years after justices overturned the abortion precedent established by Roe v. Wade with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision.

“The Court currently has a higher approval rating now than before the Dobbs decision — even with nearly every Democrat disapproving of it,” wrote Justice on Trial co-author Carrie Severino on X.

Democrats, however, have escalated their efforts to undermine the court with plans to “pack” the high bench with political allies expected to rule in their favor. Vice President Kamala Harris supports a radical effort proposed in the upper chamber to appoint new Supreme Court justices every two years with a cap of 18 years on the bench.

Former Federalist Senior Editor David Harsanyi wrote about the left’s court-packing plans for The Federalist in July.

“Kamala Harris contends that packing the Supreme Court is necessary because ‘there is a clear crisis of confidence facing the Supreme Court,’” Harsanyi wrote. “Is there?”

“We find ourselves here because of decades-long attacks on the institution. Democrats have made a mockery of confirmation hearings since the 1980s,” Harsanyi explained.

After Barack Obama publicly castigated the Supreme Court for upholding the First Amendment, things really took off. Wealthy progressive activist groups began cooking up pretend scandals and laundering them through faux journalistic operations. The media can now affix the phrase “plagued by ethic scandals,” or some such nonsense, to every mention of the court. If there is any crisis of confidence, it’s because the left concocted one.

According to Gallup, meanwhile, public confidence in the Supreme Court is on the rise.