Decline and fall, part 3

 More institutions:

The first two, from the 1970s, asked about "medicine."  I think that could account for the difference--to me, "medicine" suggests treatments, while "the medical system" adds administration (or maladministration) and finance.  If we set aside those two early surveys, there's no definite trend.  There was a big jump in 2020, and confidence was still pretty high (tied for second in the period since 1990) in 2021.  It's interesting that confidence was higher in 2020, before the vaccine, than in 2021. 

A downward trend in the last decade, in contrast to many other institutions.  The figure for 2020 was particularly low--that survey was taken just after the killing of George Floyd.  It was higher in 2021, but still lower than in any year before 2020. 

A similar pattern, at a lower level.

For schools, there is a strong downward trend, but it seems to have leveled off in the last decade.  There was a big jump in 2020, presumably because people were sympathetic to their efforts to deal with the pandemic.  Confidence was still fairly high by recent standards in 2021, despite widespread criticism of school policies, especially delays in returning to in-person instruction.  

For organized religion, there has been a definite decline in the 21st century.  There was a jump in 2020, but 2021 was back to the second-lowest level ever.

Finally, the big exception:

Over the whole period, confidence in the military has increased--it's the only institution with a clear positive trend.  But there has been a decline in recent years--confidence in 2021 is at the lowest level since 2007.  Given Donald Trump's efforts to involve the military in his attempt to remain in office, and the military's efforts to avoid that, it would be interesting to see a partisan breakdown.

OK, that's the data.  My next post will try to say something about the general patterns and what they might mean.