Circus, liars, joke, self centered,
crap, nasty, toxic, deceit, farcical.
>> Speaker 2: CNN's Abby Phillips just read off a few of the words that Americans
most commonly associate with politics in the United States, and
that's according to a recent Pew study.
Now you probably have that words like awesome and
productive wouldn't show up on a list like that,
but even we were a little surprised at how bleak that list was.
In fact, let's watch the list and Abby Phillips reciting it in its entirety.
>> Speaker 1: So Pew asked Americans to describe the state of the United States
politics in just one word.
And I want you to listen to some of the most common responses.
And I have to warn you here, some of these are not kid friendly.
Divisive, chaos, corrupt, messy, crazy,
bad, sad, dysfunctional, broken, disgusting,
ridiculous, petty, partisan, embarrassing,
hypocrisy, [SOUND], hellish, crooked,
sucks, fractured, circus, liars, joke,
self centered, crap, nasty, toxic, deceit,
farcical, convoluted, rigged, combative,
dumpster fire, aggressive, extreme, poor,
disaster, disgrace, unproductive, and well, effed.
>> Speaker 2: Now, I'm actually going to take back what I said earlier.
I'm not surprised.
I mean, when you look at every major issue that impacts ordinary Americans' lives,
Congress certainly has abandoned Americans on those issues.
They're more interested in their theater.
They're more interested in investigations, hearings.
And the hearings are never about actually looking into and
learning more about an issue that they might pass legislation on.
When was the last time they had a hearing where after the fact they came up with
legislation and voted on it?
No, the hearings are just part of the theater.
It's all about them, like puffing up their chest and giving you the illusion that
they're representing you, that they're fighting for you, that they're working for
you, when in reality they're doing no such thing.
No such thing.
So yeah, that list doesn't surprise me.
And just to give you a little more information about what Pew did,
that was taken from two Pew surveys conducted in June and July of this year,
each of which sampled many thousands of Americans, 5,000 and 8,000 respectively.
So there are more results from that survey that I think are worth going into.
But Cenk, what are your thoughts?
>> Speaker 3: So the only thing surprising about this is how mainstream media is
reacting to it.
They're, whoa, did you know this?
Yeah, of course.
You know what percentage of people used positive words to describe
politics right now?
2%.
That's probably the top 2%.
They're, wow, I don't know what you guys are talking about.
This is working out terrific for us.
But mainstream media is part of the establishment, so
they're never going to admit to you, yeah, we're the problem.
They just report that as, isn't this amazing?
It's probably about the gridlock or something.
If they were agreeing to bipartisan corporate deals,
then people would love politicians.
No, they don't love politicians, they don't love you.
You guys are all part of the crooked system that shovels all the money towards
corporate rule and screws the rest of us.
And that's the least surprising thing on Earth.
>> Speaker 2: So let's get into some of the other findings in these surveys.
So the Pew Research Center also found that just 4% of US adults say
the political system is working extremely or very well.
Just 4%.
>> Speaker 3: They all live in DC or New York.
>> Or they're the executives of some company that is performing very well,
thanks to certain tax cuts and goodies.
>> And subsidies.
>> Speaker 2: And subsidies, exactly.
But there's more.
Another 23% say it's working somewhat well,
about six-in-ten, 63% express not too much or
no confidence at all in the future of the US political system.
28% express unfavorable views of both parties,
I totally fall in that category, the highest share in three decades of polling.
And a comparable share of adults 25% do not feel well-represented by either party.
They would be correct.
They are not well-represented by either party.
And here's one big reason why Americans think that our government is so
dysfunctional.
Cenk, you will enjoy this because it validates something that you talk about
all the time.
86% say, the following is a good description of politics, Republicans and
Democrats are more focused on fighting each other than on solving problems.
57% also believe that conflicts between Republicans and
Democrats receive too much attention these days.
And 78% say there is too little focus on important issues facing the country.
But a lot of them are also concerned about campaign finance,
basically the corruption that's now been baked into our system.
I'm gonna give you the specific numbers on that in just a moment.
But any comments on what I've shared with you so far?
>> Speaker 3: Yeah, so whenever I talk about money and politics,
that's the next thing we're going to get to.
In the old days, what would happen is people would say, Cenk,
that's just a process issue, and the American people aren't interested in that
and they think things are working perfectly or generally fine.
So don't focus on that.
They don't care about it.
Well, you're gonna find out in a second how much they care about it.
But I will tell you, I've been now because of the book going on tons of podcasts from
right wing to left wing, okay?
And now people don't say that anymore, at least in the podcasting world,
in the non mainstream media world.
And anytime you bring out money in politics, both right wingers and
left wingers go, yep, that's definitely the problem.
Before when I said they were bribes, people would be, how dare you?
Now they're, obviously, you're totally right.
They're obviously bribes.
Thank you.
Now let's show you what the American people think.
>> Speaker 2: So an overwhelming percentage of the survey takers, 85%,
hold the view that the cost of political campaigns makes it hard for
good people to run for office.
It's 1000% true.
>> Speaker 2: It's impossible. >> Along with the hatchet job
the corporate press does on anyone who's an outsider who might want to run for
public office.
>> Speaker 3: 100%.
>> Yeah. >> And by the way,
there's the confluence of both of those things.
When you run for office and you don't have much money, the press will then not
only give incredible praise to your opponent, he has raised $1.2 million.
He's the leading candidate in this race, makes it sound super credible, right?
But when you come in and you don't have any money, you're a carpenter,
you're a librarian or something, they're, not a credible candidate.
She's only raised $27,000, which, by the way, for
you is a ton of money that you cobble together, right?
Not a credible candidate.
Poor people, middle class people, not credible.
People who take bribes from rich people, very credible, according to our press.
>> Speaker 2: In fact, 81% say members of Congress do a very or somewhat bad job of
keeping their personal financial interests separate from their work in Congress.
Large majorities say big campaign donors, 80%,
and lobbyists in special interests, 73%,
have too much influence on decisions made by members of Congress, and they're right.
So, did anything good come out of this survey?
All of these responses are obviously very negative.
There's hope in one area.
63% think ordinary Americans want to make the political system work well.
>> Speaker 3: Well, we all want it to work well.
I mean, I hope that that number should be higher.
We want democracy to work.
We want the system to work.
The Constitution is good.
Democracy is good.
Look, sorry, but I got to mention my book here.
Chapter four, explains what went wrong.
You guys never voted for this corruption?
There was never a vote on it.
This Chamber of Commerce, which represents companies, wrote a memo saying we should
take over the Supreme Court, and with just a couple of activist judges,
we can actually just basically upend democracy,
legalize bribery, and then we buy all of them.
And that's exactly what they did.
So that 80% number that you see there, where they're saying, yeah,
the big donors control politics.
80% of Americans believe that.
I'm surprised, again that that number is that low if you ask it, in other words,
I bet it gets above 90%, right?
In Washington, which I'm about to go to next week, you ask that same question,
I've done this not just dozen, maybe hundreds of times.
And people in Washington, when you suggest that they're outraged, they're, are you
saying they don't have real opinions, that they're just working for their donors?
Goddamn right I'm saying that, but I'm not saying it,
80% of American Americans are saying it.
But go ahead continue to be shocked every time the same exact poll comes out.