People trust.
It’s both instinctual and learned. At the moment we are born, trust is not optional. Defenseless, we are pulled from the warm and safe confines of our mother’s womb and into a new world that immediately works to reassure us–swaddled, held, fed, soothed, made to feel safe. The new environment feels like the old, and the change is not so abrupt. It makes sense to trust–it’s our first survival instinct. And it serves us well. The majority of us make it to adulthood. Trust is the first learning.
There is learned security in trusting, and ultimately survival in doing so. Even when the environment changes, trust allows adaptation. This is good for families, good for communities, good for schools, towns, and countries. Trust is the path of least resistance because it works most of the time.
Citizens of the United States of America have benefited from a general trust in our leaders for 250 years. It is a national pastime to joke about it, but at a fundamental level, trust persists. We trust the government, out of necessity for sure, but mostly for our sanity, for order, for regularity, for normalcy, for peace, for serenity.
We trust that planes and trains will run on time and not collide. We trust that garbage will be collected, the traffic lights will function, and the police will protect us. We trust that Social Security checks will be sent to our retirees and that their promised Medicare coverage will be met, that highways will remain open and maintained, and that the nation will be defended. We trust the government to enforce contracts so commerce may be conducted efficiently and smoothly. We trust the government to keep our elections honest and accurate.
People trust, and that’s a good thing.
The danger arises when individuals with bad intentions deceive their way into positions of power. They understand the power of trust and exploit it. Recognition of the threat is often slow, while the bad actor moves quickly to “flood the zone” with chaos under the guise of “fixing things.” The delayed recognition by the trusting masses allows the cancer to metastasize, often past the point of saving the patient.
People often ask why the German people allowed Hitler to create the death and destruction in the world that he did. When trust is understood as a human predisposition rather than a moral failing, the answer becomes clearer. Many reasonable Germans trusted that Hitler would restore dignity and strength to a nation humiliated by defeat in World War I and the punitive Treaty of Versailles. There was a desire for national restoration—an understandable impulse—and a belief that a strong leader was required to achieve it. Strength itself is not evil. But strength without restraint is something else entirely.
The German people trusted Hitler. People tend to assume good intentions and are slow to abandon that assumption, even as evidence of evil intentions accumulates, as it did with Hitler. There can be no argument that the German people eventually and inevitably were in a state of denial at scale, followed by rationalization, and ultimately the shock and shame of their ignorance.
In most social systems, this inclination toward trust in government is beneficial. Cooperation depends on it. But when the central organizing force mutates into the system’s greatest threat, the system often cannot defend itself. In such cases, only an external force can intervene—as the Allied Powers ultimately did, defeating Hitler and, in doing so, saving Germany along with the rest of the free world.
It’s a good thing that society trusts its government. It’s dangerous when constitutionally designed checks and balances prove inadequate. A nation built on laws depends on those laws to restrain power. When they fail, citizens are left with few options. Voting out a wayward government is the logical response. But if those in power succeed in manipulating elections or preventing fair ones altogether, the republic itself is in peril.
When considering loved ones and friends who continue to place their trust in leaders undeserving of it, some grace is warranted. Trust is human. It is logical. It provides order and stability—until it is abused. Awakening to betrayal is rarely instant; it is often painful and disorienting. But when the harm becomes undeniable, trust can dissolve quickly—almost like a switch flipped.
Grace and love make a return possible.
And trust, carefully placed, remains essential