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Americans are more dissatisfied with their government than the citizens of any other major democracy, according to an analysis by the Washington Post.

Fewer than 20% of Americans trust government, according to polling by the Pew Research Center.

As the Post’s Dan Balz and Clara Ence Morse write, Americans “believe the political system is broken and that it fails to represent them. They aren’t wrong.”

In recent years, however, trust has been in a slump. Since 2007, trust in government hasn’t topped 30%. Trust has also declined in big business, the news media, higher education, the justice system and other institutions.

The Post analysis ties distrust of government to two sets of factors. One is that provisions in the U.S. Constitution make government unresponsive to majority rule. The other is that today’s intensely partisan politics make our representatives less likely to get things done.

With the growth of social media, cable TV and talk radio, many Americans live in partisan bubbles. To win elections, politicians appeal to the extremes and refuse to compromise. But compromise is necessary to address the issues that people care about, like immigration, jobs, abortion and gun control.