The saddest thing about America’s complete loss of trust is how little its leaders seem care. There’s been a lot written about the trust freefall. People haven’t trusted politicians for years (U.S. Congress: 18% approval), but now even formerly highly trusted institutions like the church (now at 31% confidence) and the U.S. military (trust down 25% since 2018) are in a trust freefall. It is reasonable to expect national leaders to be trying to rebuild trust. However, there isn’t any sign of that. Instead, the attitude seems to be “what the hell is wrong with the American people?” Leaders bemoan the rise of populism yet refuse to give even the briefest thought to its root causes.
National leaders and institutions seem oblivious to their own active role in America’s decline. People stop trusting institutions and leaders when they don’t see those parties acting honestly. People lose faith in leaders or organizations when they doubt their best interests. There is plenty of blame to go around for America’s decline, but to reverse it, the first step is for those in power to accept responsibility for their actions. It hasn’t happened yet.
America is no longer united simply because the average citizen sees two Americas. There’s now a common view that there is one set of rules for elites and another for everyone else. There’s no shortage of examples to support this view.
As well as our all-volunteer military worked for decades, the current reality is America’s long wars in the Middle East were fought mostly by working-class Americans enticed by national service, but also by pay and benefits. Their families and communities felt the worst, while elite America was spared.
The U.S. trade relationship with China has been a boon both to Wall Street, and to certain large American multinational companies that have benefited by cheap labor. It is harder to find the benefits for average Americans. America’s small-town communities are in disarray. Communities are in disarray. There is strong evidence that free trade can increase economic output and opportunities. It is less convincing to free trade with a corrupt, non-market economy that doesn’t adhere to basic rights. People feel sold out.
No one in power noticed that the opioid crisis was ravaging large swathes across middle America. Huge drug companies made billions of dollars pumping unimaginable quantities of opioids into American communities based on a bogus “pain management” theory of medicine ginned up by the companies themselves. The leaders of these companies were celebrated in elite society. Their names were attached as plaques to universities, hospitals and libraries. They were not shunned in polite society, they were celebrated.
As the depths of the opioid companies’ misbehavior first came to light, the first instinct of organizations receiving their millions in reputation-washing charitable contributions was to hold onto their millions and dodge the issue. The Daily Caller questioned 20 prominent, national organizations about the Sackler family’s blood money in 2017. 14 of them refused to comment while six continued to defend their family. As the pressure has increased, the Sackler family name has fallen (although many groups still have the millions).
Private charities are one thing; America’s political leaders behaved even worse. By 2016, as opioid overdoses were literally ripping through America’s heartland, Washington finally stepped in. They failed to act to save the lives of the millions of Americans at risk. Instead, Congress unanimously passed a bill protecting the drug industry from the Drug Enforcement Administration. The bill was signed by President Barack Obama. At a time when opioid addiction had killed over 200,000 Americans (three times the total casualties of the Vietnam War), Washington’s leaders not only didn’t act to help; they acted to protect the industry at fault. This wasn’t a Republican problem or a Democratic one. It was uncontroversial at that time, and unanimous even. Washington’s representatives stepped in to help the drug industry. Americans were suffering from chronic pain, and their leaders were either too detached or too captive to care.
The list goes on. Everyone hates Jeffrey Epstein today. He abused young girls. But the entire time he did this, he was embraced by America’s top financiers, celebrities, corporate and political leaders. Like the opioid crisis, American media did not say anything before it was too late. Vanity Fair, one of America’s top magazines, even ran a glowing profile of Epstein while covering up the three on-the-record allegations of sexual assault they were reportedly given against him. Epstein victims were first reported to have contacted the FBI in 1996. It would be reasonable to expect the FBI to provide an explanation for something this egregious. They’ve given no real answers.
These are just a handful of hundreds of examples from the past three decades. All point to the same conclusion: America’s top leaders and organizations have earned the loss of trust they now face. The problem of populism and its effects on American politics is the reason why complaints about it are so few. Trust loss is not something minor. It can lead directly to problems such as the nosedive in American military recruits.
It’s time for America’s leaders to own up to their out-of-touch behavior and chart a clear course for redemption. America is poised to reshape but only if these issues are addressed. If leaders continue to ignore all of this, the downward spiral will continue. It can sink to existential depths if it isn’t stopped. It can lead you to revolution.
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