“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” H. L. Mencken (1918)
“The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive.” Thomas Jefferson (1787)
“Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.” Thomas Paine (1776)
“There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.” Sam Clemens (1896)
“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.” Ronald Reagan (1986)
“The biggest lesson I learned from Vietnam is not to trust our own government statements.” J. William Fulbright
“Distrust & caution are the parents of security.” Benjamin Franklin (1733)
“The fact that you continue to undermine public confidence in a vaccine, if the vaccine emerges during the Trump administration, I think is unconscionable.” Mike Pence (2020)
Now let’s turn to the editors’ of the Washington Post’s remarks on the mortality rate due to COVID-19 in the U. S. compared with other “rich countries”:
The covid-19 death toll in the United States has soared again, and the U.S. per capita death rate now exceeds that of other wealthy nations. Why? Wasn’t the United States supposed to be best prepared for such a calamity? What accounts for the different pandemic fates of nations and peoples — and what can they do to prepare better for next time? The answers lie in biology, but also in human behavior.
This is the kernel of wisdom in a new study published in the Lancet that examined how 177 nations fared from Jan. 1, 2020, to Sept. 30, 2021, and the impact of various factors on sickness and death. The study examined infections per capita and each country’s infection-fatality ratio, the proportion of deaths among all infected individuals. It was led by Thomas J. Bollyky, director of the global health program at the Council on Foreign Relations, along with Erin N. Hulland and Joseph Dieleman of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, with others. It measured the impact on the pandemic of such factors as age, economic output, population density, air pollution, body mass index, smoking, cancer prevalence and trust in government and interpersonal trust, among other things.
For many factors, the correlations weren’t clear, but some stood out. Most importantly, there is a link between lower infection rates and three factors: trust in government, greater interpersonal trust and less government corruption. The researchers said “higher levels of trust (government and interpersonal) had large, statistically significant associations with fewer infections for the entire study period.â€
This is not a new idea but explains so much of what has occurred in the United States and elsewhere over the past two years. Especially in free societies, a high degree of trust in government and among people has led to better pandemic outcomes because people were more willing to comply with public health guidance — to wear masks and social distance, for example. But in the United States, the rise of distrust, misinformation and suspicion has seriously eroded that compliance, and has taken a toll. The study points out that higher trust also leads to a greater number of people getting vaccinated, and thus fewer deaths. Trust is important, the researchers found, not only by people in their governments, but between individuals. When people trust each other, such as in wearing masks when prescribed, it reduces the pandemic burden for all. The researchers also found that smoking and obesity, both health risk factors that can be reduced, contribute to worse outcomes.
The emphasis is mine. As the quotes with which I opened this post document, the United States was born with a distrust of government and Americans have never had a great degree of trust in our government. During World War II and its immediate aftermath there was a surge of trust in government but that was quickly eroded and by 1970 was all but completely gone.
The mortality rate from COVID-19 is higher in the U. S. than in any other OECD country. Besides a lack of trust in government and a higher mortality rate from COVID-19, we differ from other major OECD countries in a number of ways. Income inequality is higher here than in other major OECD countries other than the UK and Mexico, countries with which we have much in common. We are also racially/ethnically more diverse than nearly any other OECD country other than Belgium which has a mortality rate due to COVID-19 not incredibly different from ours. Like it or not racial/ethnic, linguistic, economic, and cultural homogeneity increase trust.
Additionally, when we have political parties and major media intent on making us distrust one another, what else would you expect?
We have always had distrust of govt but I do think its nature has changed a bit. It seems a bit more selective now. Congress gets very low ratings but people generally like their own congressperson. Look at govt employees like teachers. Widely distrusted now yet many people are asked about their own teachers they like and trust them. Then we have the opposite where we saw incredibly high levels of trust, pretty much religious faith, in Trump. Cant think of another American politician in the modern era that generated that level of trust. Think this is mostly just becoming more tribal but media plays a big part.
Steve
America was born because of it’s distrust in government, as Dave said. And, the Constitution, generated from people fleeing governmental restraints, was one designating government’s role to be small, with “we the people†and the states making the majority of their own decisions. Consequently “Freedom of choice†has long been the rallying cry of our nation – a pride seated in self governance, not in a large centralized, bureaucratically-run one.
Today, though, the sanctity of â€freedom†has been notched well below the enforcement of mandates and governmental demands for “conform or else†type of federal government “tyranny.†Nonetheless, the un-empowered people are becoming more aware of how lopsided the power has become – where government now holds and manipulates what is approved and not approved, rather than what the public at large desire. Hence, you have events bubbling up like the Truckers and J6 protests.
Trump’s emergence and popularity on the political stage, however, was less tied to an adulation of the man himself, but rather people seeing him supporting their issues and individual rights, keeping his campaign promises by the policies constructed under his leadership, responding to the faith/respect he showed towards the working men/women, and a coalesce around his positive outlook for America’s future. Consequently his rallies evolved into huge “parties†of happy people, unified by shared principles, amassing and harmonizing together despite being labeled by progressives and the MSM as “deplorables,†“fly over county people,†or “government-dependent victims†of racial discrimination. Under Trump’s vision everyone was capable of being a full-fledged, independently contributing, productive, free member of American society. IMO, that’s how mutual trust and loyalty between government and people is formed.
I guess you’re too young to remember Kennedy. And Obama attracted an astonishing level of adulation.
I remember Kennedy and Obama. I never heard or read anyone who claimed that they never lied. Or that they were the only ones who could fix America. I know real people, not just internet trolls, who made those claims about Obama. Heck, I am sure you remember that Sullivan whom you cite here adored Obama. He never claimed that Obama never lied. You have to go back to George Washington for that.
Steve
Neither of those criteria are the sole measures of the degree to which a president is adulated or how much trusted. Not before or since including Trump have I seen anything that compares with Kennedy.
“As the quotes with which I opened this post document, the United States was born with a distrust of government and Americans have never had a great degree of trust in our government.”
And both government and prominent institutions have certainly not earned our trust. Not in 60 years. Hoover’s FBI, anyone? Comey’s?
My recitation of 6-8 institutions in a recent comment wasn’t an original thought. Dave’s list makes that clear. The one clear difference in my opinion (and I’m well aware media has never been pure) is the scope and absolute propagandist nature of dominant media. The only good thing to be said is that they are self immolating.
In any event, yes, I think distrust has played a factor in the US. But we are an older population. And we are fat. And we are independent minded. Hard to imagine those aren’t very large factors.
https://nypost.com/2022/02/03/truckers-are-starting-a-working-class-revolution-and-the-left-hates-it/
â€A working-class revolution led by the working class is the left’s worst nightmare because the working class doesn’t want what the left wants. The working class wants jobs, a stable economy, safe streets, low inflation, schools that teach things and a conservative, non-adventurous foreign policy that won’t get a lot of working-class people killed. It’s not excited about gender fluidity, critical race theory, “modern monetary theory,†foreign adventures and defunding police.â€
The American Revolution was mainly comprised of the working class. Those who opposed it, wanting to stay with the Brits, were more the powdered wigs types – intellectuals cocooned in the comfort zones of the aristocracy. IMO, the same societal chasms are at the crux of the political/populace divisions and upheavals being played out today.
What has visibly changed, however, with political groupings are the political parties advocating for them. The democrats are now the party of the elites (powdered wigs types) and the conservatives (not the current GOP) are backing the people and their fight for economical survival – something that is being snuffed out by elitist greed, hypocrisy and the wholesale exportation of jobs overseas. Just look at the tribal (Steve’S term) membership in the progressive democrat party – Hollywood celebrities, legacy media, big business, tenured professors, Ivy League students, Silicon Valley tech giants. In the conservative column are the middle class/blue collar American workers, enrollees in jr. college education, trade schools, small business owners, legal immigrants, and yes, truck drivers.
Obama certainly didn’t advocate for the little guy or minorities, except by lip service. Would a Kennedy have done so? Maybe. The 45th president, though, was seen more in the mold of watching out for those who were not in the higher income brackets, which is where the title of “blue collar president†was aptly coined by his constituency.
“Not before or since including Trump have I seen anything that compares with Kennedy.”
You confuse the media loving the glamor vs real people actually trusting them. This was before the 60s changed fashion and the idea of glamor so much. It was after some older, stodgy presidents and their family. For the first time in ages you had you kids running around the White House and a president who played football on the lawn. I dont recall that resulting in people saying they though he never lied and was the only possible person who could be president.
Steve
It wasn’t just the media, steve. I know people who still have pictures of Kennedy hanging in their dining rooms.
It’s interesting how even the best can entail the seeds of its own destruction. The U.S. government built a great well of trust with the American people in the Great Depression, as the Roosevelt administration fought to help the downtrodden and to build a social safety net which still undergirds American society today. With WWII, the U.S. government had a great need for secrecy, and the triumph over fascism deepened the well of trust.
The need for secrecy was carried over into the Cold War, and the fountain of trust was slowly spent down. But even by the time of Kennedy, there was still a great deal of trust remaining. (“In the dark days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy sent former Secretary of State Dean Acheson to Europe to build support. Acheson explained the situation to the French President de Gaulle, and then he offered to show him highly classified satellite photos as proof. De Gaulle waved the photos away saying, the word of the President of the United States is good enough for me.”)
However, Vietnam and Watergate ended that unskeptical trust. And indeed, government should always be held accountable so that trust must always be earned.
Jan: Consequently “Freedom of choice†has long been the rallying cry of our nation – a pride seated in self governance, not in a large centralized, bureaucratically-run one.
During the early twentieth century, the question was whether liberal societies were capable of addressing an existential threat, or would they tear themselves apart and leave themselves vulnerable to collapse and invasion. Or is autocracy the only way to unite a people? The answer then was that America could unite under a leader the vast majority trusted. The question is being asked again.
Those countries that can respond most effectively to modern challenges, including global pandemics, will be those that survive and prosper.
Jan: Under Trump’s vision everyone was capable of being a full-fledged, independently contributing, productive, free member of American society.
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best. They’re not sending you, they’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists and some, I assume, are good people”.
Jan: IMO, that’s how mutual trust and loyalty between government and people is formed.
Trump was very divisive, and took actions to undermine American democracy. You are being played.
That’s an insightful comment, Zachriel. I would add that there were some signs of that erosion of trust among our erstwhile allies that preceded Vietnam or, at least, preceded the big build-up of Vietnam. These included the U. S.’s not joining with the British and French during the Suez Crisis and the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
Dave- I know people who still think Trump is President. Iwou die willing to bet at least $20 if you asked those people with pictures if they thought Kennedy never lied they would concede he was a politician and they all lie.
Steve