The US Capitol building in Washington, DC.

The mainstream US media takes its marching orders from the leadership of Republican and Democratic parties, who are funded by the corporations, according to American political analyst and activist Myles Hoenig.

Hoenig, a former Green Party candidate for Congress, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Saturday while commenting on a new poll that shows the faith of the American people in the integrity of the country’s election system has dropped following the events of January 6, 2021.

Now, just 20% of the public say that it is very confident about the system, a new ABC/Ipsos poll finds.

The new findings show a significant fall from 37% in an ABC News/Washington Post poll carried out in the days after the insurrection last year.

The lack of strong confidence in the US’ ability to hold an honest election crosses partisan lines.

Among Democrats, 30% believe they are very confident in the election systems overall, while only 1 in 5 people considers themselves very confident in the country’s elections.

Trump has been casting doubt on the outcome of his loss by insisting it was the result of fraud. He has said that the 2020 presidential election was the greatest Election Hoax in history.

Trump on Friday also reiterated his claims that the 2020 election was rigged, pointing to why the House select committee investigating the January 6 attacks was not discussing the rigged Presidential Election of 2020? and again said the big lie was the election itself and not his claims that the result was rigged against him.

It’s because they don’t have the answers or justifications for what happened. They got away with something, and it is leading to our Country’s destruction, Trump claimed. They want all conversation concerning the Election ’Canceled.’

It is surprising that overall confidence in our electoral system has fallen to such levels. One would think this would apply to mostly Republicans, who have bought into the ‘Big Lie’ for more than a year now. Normally, most Americans believe in ‘American exceptionalism’, that whatever we do is right, and that would apply to our voting systems, Hoenig said.

Over the years there have been calls for electoral reform - ending the Electoral College, greater access for voting, revert back to paper rather than machine voting, etc. Yet overall, it seemed more because of a belief that we can only do better, not that the system itself is totally corrupted, he added.

But it is corrupted. Even though there have been complaints of machine irregularities, much of the complaints involved where the machines were located or not. Democratic districts often saw fewer machines, allowing for longer lines and more disgust with the process, he noted.

Another aspect of the corruption of our voting system regards who can vote. It’s not just the voter suppression (of Black voters) that the Republicans are pushing for, but there is a near lack of alternate parties on the ballot at the highest level. Not only do third or alternate parties have little chance of being recognized by Democratic and Republican state parties who set the rules for who is on the ballot, but the mainstream media is 100% behind this exclusion, the analyst said.

The media takes its marching orders from the leadership of the parties, who are funded by the corporations that advertise on such networks. That is why they not only exclude parties like the Green, Libertarian, Socialist, etc. in their broadcasts, but also did a hatchet job on Bernie Sanders at the orders of the DNC and the Clinton campaign, he said.

In many ways, American democracy is in peril. Confidence in our voting systems is just one of the factors in its downfall, he concluded.