That promise wouldn't have been attractive to the voters without the Republican record in office; it would've been a non-sequiter if Republicans hadn't "tarnished" their own "brand" so badly. Congress's low confidence rating has a direct causal relationship to Republican mal/misgovernance.

Okay, I'm not sure I've got this right: The Democrats screwing up wouldn't be as bad if they hadn't promised so much in the face of Republicans screwing up and then failed to keep their promises?

Fact is, Democrats made a bunch of promises on ethics, funding, lobbying, earmarks, and other things. When they got elected, they tossed them out the window, becoming even worse than the Republicans on some of them, and it became fairly obvious that they never intended to carry out their promises in the first place.

Suckers.

...But I think that you need to look at it in context of the question. It wasn't "which institution do you trust to be in charge", the question was actually rather open-ended, simply about "confidence". I'd interpet the question as asking whether I have confidence in each institution to do its own job, not to run things. My interpretation works for all institutions on the list, but yours (as I interpret it) isn't sensible to apply to a great many of them, for example the medical system.

Very good point. Thanks, I feel a bit better!