Government Distrust in the Post-Trump Era
Distrust is our past. Does it have to be our future?
Government distrust has been a formidable building block of American culture for the past 60 years. Before the rise of fast media and the extreme polarization of political parties, the majority of Americans supported and believed in the motives of their government. Events such as World War II caused spikes of patriotism within the United States, and movements like McCarthyism — a witch-hunt inspired by Sen. Joseph McCarthy that sought to expel ‘Communist spies’ from the U.S. — required citizen’s utmost loyalty to their country. The general fear of the threat of outside forces upheld American’s faith in their government. Until the late 50s, Americans, for the most part, strongly believed the notion that the U.S. was the same advocate for liberty and freedom that it was during the country’s founding in 1776.
However, when the public became outraged at the government’s role in the Watergate scandal, the controversial Vietnam War, and the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the American government had to watch as its people slowly began to doubt the capability of those in office. These events were the result of a neglectful and corrupt system, and civilians were beginning to take notice. Since then, trust has dropped from 73% in 1958 to as little as 19% in 2015 according to a study by the Pew Research Center. While there was a steep incline in trust after the prosperous economy of the late 1990s and the events of 9/11, it inevitably declined again after the 2008 recession and the ongoing wars in the Middle East.
Trends have not changed with the passing of Donald Trump’s presidency into the 2020’s. The Pew Research Center reported that only 17% of Americans in 2019 trusted the government to do its job efficiently. Trump’s administration fell short in upholding campaign promises, and he has been caught lying innumerable times in interviews, reports, and campaign rallies. Additionally, the Trump administration grossly mismanaged the pandemic and withheld information from the public pertaining to the severity of the virus. This mismanagement cause hundreds of thousands of deaths and only encouraged distrust in the government.
His obscene vernacular has not only encouraged distrust in the government itself but a distrust amongst American citizens. His unacceptable behavior and management while in office were met without consequence; his impeachments were shut down in the Senate, his words went unchecked by his team, and no one seemed to be able to hold him accountable for the hatred he stirred amongst his supporters. This pushed those on the Left to believe the government had lost its ability to properly enact its systems of checks and balances.
Additionally, he often encouraged the notion that Democrats were “unhinged” and “un-American,” and thus his supporters believed that Democrats were corrupt — the villains of the American narrative. By posing Democrats as the enemy and making their defeat the main goal, he turned the American political scene into a battleground rather than a conversation. He refused to accept or promote the idea that both sides were trying to help the people. There was no progress in Trump’s America, only petty feuds between parties. Donald Trump was not a leader of unity, but of division. This division led the public to further adopt wariness towards its leaders.
So if you want to hear the corporate spin, the carefully-crafted lies, and the media myths — the Democrats are holding their convention next week. Go there.
— Donald Trump, 2016 Republican National Convention
After the disruptive presidency of Donald Trump, is not a question of if the public distrusts the government, but of how far the distrust will extend before democracy becomes obsolete. Given the current trends, if future leaders do not make extreme efforts to gain the trust of the American people, we will find ourselves in a grid-locked, broken system. The United States’ system of government was built on the people’s trust that the government, if elected, will work to benefit the people. So where are we left if that trust vanishes?
Politicians in the past were held accountable by their constituency. If the people didn’t trust you to fight for their best interest, they voted you out of office. However, American voters have numbed themselves to corruption and mismanagement. Sure, there is concern when dirty truths are unearthed and policy is mishandled, but there is not enough furious uproar from the public to fix things. Politicians are no longer overly concerned with appeasing their constituency, because if they mess up, so has every other official.
Our future is faced with the threat of our rights being cast away. Allowing our politicians to continue working without the people’s trust lets the threat of authoritarianism grows closer; they will no longer feel the need to work for their constituency and instead fight only for their own needs, thus cutting the people out of government entirely. Policy will have the potential to diverge from the rights described in the constitution, and our civil rights could be imposed upon or disregarded entirely.
We’ve built the past half-century on distrusting the government. The people’s faith is now the rarest treasure a politician can hold, yet seen as one of the least valuable. We currently stand at a crossroads in American culture. Either those in charge give the public a reason to trust them again, or our democracy crumbles. By forcing those in power to work for our trust, or else face unemployment, the people can secure a future that fights for their best interests.
