What Happens When We Stop Trusting Our Government?

There is a question I have been thinking about lately, and it is considerably larger than Donald Trump, Republicans, Democrats or the next election.

What happens when people no longer trust their government?

Not when they disagree with it. Americans have been disagreeing with their government since there was an American government.

I mean something deeper.

What happens when people stop believing their government tells them the truth? When they believe corruption is widespread? When they lose confidence in Congress, the presidency, the courts and the people charged with running important public institutions?

What happens when distrust stops being partisan and begins becoming structural?

History suggests we should take that question very seriously.

The numbers are difficult to ignore

Let’s begin with where Americans actually are.

In Pew Research Center’s most recent long-term measurement, just 17% of Americans said they trusted the federal government to do what is right “just about always” or “most of the time.” That is among the lowest readings in nearly seven decades of polling. (Pew Research Center)

This month, Gallup reported something even more extraordinary:

89% of Americans said corruption in the U.S. government is widespread.

That is the highest percentage Gallup has recorded in 20 years. Perhaps even more important, this perception crosses party lines: substantial majorities of Republicans, Democrats and independents agreed. (Gallup.com)

Then there is Congress.

In Gallup’s April polling, only 10% of Americans approved of the job Congress was doing. Eighty-six percent disapproved. Democrats, Republicans and independents differed in degree, but congressional confidence was extraordinarily weak overall. (Gallup.com)

Confidence isn’t confined to government, either. Gallup reported this summer that average confidence in 14 major American institutions stood at just 27%, near its historical low. (Gallup.com)

And then there is President Trump.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released September 21 found Trump’s job approval at 32%, the lowest point of his political career in that polling series. The poll found only 17% approving of his handling of the cost of living and 34% approving of his strikes on Iran. Even among Republicans, his overall approval had fallen from 82% a week earlier to 73%. (Reuters)

The people surrounding the president have not been immune to negative public opinion.

Earlier this year, Pew found Vice President JD Vance viewed favorably by 38% and unfavorably by 52%. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stood at 44% favorable and 48% unfavorable; Marco Rubio at 34% favorable and 44% unfavorable; and Pete Hegseth at 26% favorable and 41% unfavorable. These are favorability measures rather than job-approval ratings, and they were taken in January, so they should not be treated as current September numbers. (Pew Research Center)

But taken together, the picture is troubling.

This isn’t simply a country unhappy with one politician.

It is a country displaying extraordinarily low confidence in many of its governing institutions.

History has seen this before

Being the Francophile that I am, my mind naturally went first to France.

But history requires a little caution here.

The French Revolution did not happen simply because French citizens woke up one morning and decided they didn’t trust King Louis XVI.

France entered the late 1780s facing enormous government debt, economic hardship, a deeply unequal social structure, resistance to taxation reform, poor harvests and rising food prices. At the same time, Enlightenment ideas were challenging assumptions about monarchy and political authority.

Most critically, the monarchy was increasingly unable to adapt to those pressures or command the legitimacy it once possessed. (Unvis)

Then came 1789.

And once people ceased accepting that the existing political order was capable of solving their problems—or even entitled to govern them—the situation changed dramatically.

But revolution is only one possible outcome of collapsing legitimacy.

Consider Eastern Europe in 1989.

Communist governments that had appeared immovable suddenly discovered that political authority becomes surprisingly fragile when enough people stop accepting its legitimacy. In Poland, the Solidarity movement helped force negotiations and elections. In East Germany, hundreds of thousands demonstrated. Within months, the Berlin Wall was gone and communist governments across Eastern Europe were falling. (Office of the Historian)

Then consider the Arab Spring.

In Tunisia, longstanding corruption, economic exclusion and authoritarian government helped produce enormous public anger. A single horrifying event—the self-immolation of street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi—helped ignite protests that drove President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from power and inspired uprisings across the region. (House of Commons Library)

And here is an important warning from history:

What comes after a collapse of trust is not necessarily better.

The Arab Spring produced radically different outcomes. Tunisia initially moved toward democracy. Egypt later returned to authoritarian rule. Libya, Syria and Yemen descended into devastating conflicts. (Council on Foreign Relations)

Loss of faith in government can open the door to reform.

It can also open the door to chaos.

America has experienced profound distrust before

We shouldn’t pretend this is entirely new to us.

American trust in government began falling dramatically during the Vietnam era and fell further following Watergate. Economic turmoil during the 1970s contributed additional damage.

Trust recovered somewhat at various times.

But it never returned to the extraordinary levels seen in the late 1950s and early 1960s. (Pew Research Center)

That matters because democracy requires something beyond elections.

It requires enough people to believe the system itself remains legitimate even when their side loses.

I may dislike the person you elect.

You may dislike the person I elect.

But democracy survives because we continue believing that elections, courts, laws and constitutional processes are preferable to settling our disagreements by force.

When that shared agreement disappears, something fundamental has changed.

Researchers have found connections between low political trust and reduced willingness to comply with laws. Other research suggests declining trust can weaken support for representative democracy while increasing demand for alternative forms of political decision-making. (Cambridge University Press)

The OECD puts the problem plainly: declining institutional trust can increase political disengagement and polarization and make it harder for governments to address major problems. Across the countries it studied, only 31% of respondents believed people like them actually have a say in government decisions. (OECD)

So are we approaching some kind of breaking point?

I don’t know.

And I don’t think anyone can responsibly look at polling numbers and announce that America is approaching another French Revolution.

History doesn’t work that neatly.

There is no magic percentage at which a democracy suddenly collapses.

But neither should we dismiss what these numbers are telling us.

When only 17% of Americans say they generally trust Washington to do the right thing, when 89% perceive widespread government corruption, when congressional approval has fallen to 10%, and when confidence in American institutions broadly remains near historical lows, those are not merely interesting polling statistics.

They are warning signs of profound alienation from the institutions upon which democratic government depends. (Pew Research Center)

Perhaps the question isn’t whether America is approaching a revolution.

Perhaps that is the wrong question entirely.

The better question may be:

How much distrust can a democracy absorb before something fundamental changes?

And maybe an even more important one:

How does a country rebuild trust once it has been lost?

Not Republican trust.

Not Democratic trust.

American trust.

Trust that facts still matter.

Trust that laws apply consistently.

Trust that elections matter.

Trust that government officials serve the public rather than themselves.

Trust that disagreement does not make someone an enemy.

Trust that our institutions can correct themselves when they fail.

Because history teaches us something important.

Governments can survive criticism.

They can survive unpopular leaders.

They can survive protests, scandals, terrible policies and bitter elections.

What becomes much harder for any government to survive is a population that has stopped believing in the legitimacy of the system itself.

And looking at where we are today, I think that is a conversation Americans desperately need to have.

Thank you, as always, for reading Julie’s Journal and for being willing to wrestle with difficult questions with me.

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There are enough places in America telling us what to think.

I’d rather create a place where we can still ask the difficult questions.

Julie Bolejack, MBA

The Mindful Activist