Americans have long expressed frustration with the federal government — but a new Pew Research Center report shows that those feelings are becoming more sharply polarized along party lines.
As of September 2025, nearly half of U.S. adults (49%) say they feel frustrated with the government, while 26% report feeling angry and 23% say they feel basically content. While frustration remains the most common sentiment overall, levels of anger and contentment are rising — and diverging by political affiliation.
Democrats, in particular, are angrier than ever. About 44% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents now say they feel angry toward the federal government. That’s the highest percentage recorded by Pew since the question was first asked in 1997 — even higher than during Donald Trump’s presidency. Another 47% of Democrats say they feel frustrated, and only 8% say they feel content.
In contrast, Republicans are expressing more contentment than they have in years. Forty percent of Republicans and Republican leaners say they’re basically content with the federal government, up from just 11% a year ago. Only 9% of Republicans say they feel angry, while half remain frustrated.
These emotional shifts align with broader trends in trust. Just 9% of Democrats say they trust the federal government to do the right thing all or most of the time — the lowest level ever recorded in nearly 70 years of polling. Meanwhile, trust among Republicans has rebounded to 26%, matching levels seen during Trump’s first term.
Frustration is a bipartisan emotion, but the gap between parties when it comes to anger and contentment is wider than at any point in the last two decades. The timing of the September survey — conducted just before a 43-day government shutdown — likely contributed to the heightened responses.
While political swings often shift how Americans feel about the government, the intensity of this polarization marks a new chapter in public opinion, with each party viewing Washington through a sharply different emotional lens.
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