Commentators today are more often discussing the differences between high-trust societies, where citizens have a high degree of faith in both one another and their leaders, and low-trust societies, where the desperate search for security and belonging leads people to create relationships built upon kinship and tribalism that exclude anyone outside of one’s own group—while ignoring and disdaining the needs of others. A country that lacks interpersonal trust and shared ethical values is one where conflict predominates and common cause is elusive.
It seems to me—and to many others these days—that America has become a low-trust nation. This is not just a gut feeling. Poll after poll shows we have crushingly low faith in one another and our major institutions, and the time bomb of government overspending and unsustainable debts, which is the result of decades of stupidity, malfeasance, and outright fraud, is now detonating. The big reveal regarding the scale of the financial crimes that have impoverished our nation will snuff out what remaining trust we have in our clueless leaders and their extremist ideologies.
How we reached this point is both obvious and depressing.
There is not the least doubt that the primary cause of the terrible lack of trust in America today has been the ridiculous decades-long growth of our government, one that now ensnares us, enslaves us, infantilizes us, and encourages conflict. A vast web of federal and state agencies, whose bureaucrats now control most every aspect of our lives against our will, make us pay for the privilege of living and dictate our existences from their perches on high. It is hard to think of almost any daily activity in America that does not require a license, a form, a fee, a tax, or a wait in a long line. The astronomical growth of the regulatory state has also cost us indirectly in higher prices for every good and service that we need to survive, which we can grumble about but do little to change. Government grows more arrogant and inefficient, operating on remote control like a braindead Terminator, while emptying our wallets and bossing us around in every way imaginable.
We are told that the onerous controls shackling our daily lives are for our own good, but few believe the bureaucracies benefit anyone but the bureaucrats. Quashing our freedoms and circumventing our wishes has become, for a great many both in and out of government, a lucrative career path, which is about as far from the spirit of our nation’s founders as one could possibly imagine.
Of course, we still have theoretical recourse to petition our elected federal and state officials, who cannot (we like to think) gain or keep office without our votes, but outrageous gerrymandering and the power of the all-mighty dollar have effectively changed America’s office holders from public servants to paid spokespersons for big business, culture war revolutionaries, and hyper-focused special interests who all insist their obedient pets stick to a script that empowers the few at the expense of the rest of America—or else. Unsurprisingly, few will ever risk their re-elections by crossing those who fill their campaign coffers, so we are all captive to first-class foolishness, second-class thinking, and third-class lies.
Why would we have any trust in our government or the educational institutions and legacy news organizations who today act as propagandists for campaigns of hatred directed at Americans who do not want to be forced to abandon their faith, patriotism, and freedom? The leadership of our nation has perhaps never been more egregiously distant and disconnected—yet simultaneously demanding and damaging—during the entire course of our 250-year history.
What is truly bizarre is that, in a 1984-ish sort of way, so many Americans truly believe, as George Orwell foretold, that freedom is slavery. The idea that our citizens should be free to talk and behave as they wish—and, worse yet, be permitted to openly and loudly reject the dictates of our credentialed elite of experts—triggers a level of soul-clenching dread that apparently causes tattoos, piercings, and blue hair to sprout like daffodils after a spring rainstorm. The toddler-like meltdowns posted on social media regarding election results, changes in policies, and the traditional morals that still predominate among most Americans speak to a toxic combination of personal insecurity and intellectual rigidity that is unhealthful for both those individuals ranting into their cell phone cameras and our nation’s democracy as a whole.
Trust is difficult to regain once squandered, and our lack of trust is going to be a big problem in the stormy years ahead. Lacking the money to placate voters who have grown comfortable with not asking whether our government’s spending is either affordable or wise, the elected officials tasked with cleaning up the financial mess left by the profligate and cowardly loonies who decided to look the other way while our accumulated wealth was being looted by felons, fakers, and fools will face a thankless task made no easier by activist judges, shrieking celebrities, and angry citizens who will be learning the party is over—and the bill is now due.
We will, in the final analysis, be faced with two choices: pull together or fly apart. Our decisions will almost wholly depend on whether we can find it within ourselves to trust one another—and find leaders whom we can trust. This will be a tall order, and there is no guarantee we will not succumb to the performative hatreds of demagogues who want to keep us divided to help their own financial backers. However, if only because our survival as a nation might depend our our ability to reconnect and renew our commitment to one another, I suspect we will (perhaps grudgingly) find that being an American is far more important than being part of a subgroup that massages our egos and dulls our minds.
Flag and country might offend the snobby Leftist intelligentsia, but it is our only salvation.