EV-0051
Confidence in Congress and the military, 1973 to 2026
Gallup (2026). Confidence in Institutions (annual trend); "Confidence in U.S. Institutions Remains Near All-Time Low" · Source
What this entitles us to say
Gallup's annual confidence-in-institutions trend, read directly from the published series for all seventeen institutions. Every figure the first edition cites for 2014 is correct. The military has since fallen thirteen points and is no longer the highest-rated institution.
What it found
The first edition's 2014 figures are all correct. Every one was checked against the published series.
| Claim in the first edition | Verified | |---|---| | Congress at 7% in June 2014 | Correct | | Lowest confidence rating ever recorded for Congress | Correct | | Gallup began recording this in 1973 | Correct - the Congress series starts 1973 | | Lowest rating of any institution, ever | Correct - checked against all seventeen series | | Military at 74%, the highest institution | Correct - next highest was small business at 62% | | Military at the top for almost three decades | Correct | | Military spiked to 85% in 1991 | Correct - 85% in February 1991, its all-time high |
What has changed since.
| | 2014 | 2026 | Change | |---|---|---|---| | Congress | 7% | 9% | +2 | | The military | 74% | 61% | -13 | | Gap between them | 67 points | 52 points | -15 |
Two further changes matter for how the passage is written.
- The military is no longer the highest-rated institution. Small business is, at 67% in 2026. The military is second. - Congress's 7% has been matched since. The 2022 reading was also 7%, so 2014 is now the joint low rather than the sole low.
For context, average confidence across the fourteen institutions Gallup has tracked since 1993 stands at 27% in 2026, below 30% for a fifth consecutive year, and twelve of those fourteen are at or near their trend lows.
Why it matters here
Chapter 1 uses the Congress-and-military contrast to make a single argument: we hand confidence to institutions on the basis of character rather than competence. Nobody doubts that Congress is staffed by capable people. The argument survives the new numbers intact, because a 52-point gap makes the point as well as a 67-point gap does.
The chapter is stronger for the update rather than weaker. The military's thirteen-point fall is itself an illustration of the book's thesis - confidence is not owned, it is continuously earned, and an institution that had it for thirty years can lose a chunk of it in twelve.
The limits
Read from the underlying datasets behind Gallup's published charts rather than from a summary, so the figures are exact. The 2026 reading is the June 1-15, 2026 poll. Note that Gallup's own comparison table for 2026 is scoped to the fourteen institutions tracked since 1993, which excludes small business; small business is in the longer trend and must be checked separately, which is what establishes that the military is no longer top-ranked.
What we do not say
"The military is the most trusted institution in America." It was in 2014. In 2026 small business is higher.