Every democracy depends on a certain level of trust among its citizens and in its key institutions of government, business and civil society. We clearly have work to do, according to new research.
More in Common, a nonprofit that works to end polarization, released "Two Stories of Distrust in America" on Monday. The report catalogues across-the-board distrust and identifies ways to restore faith in institutions and each other. With more than 10,000 people participating via surveys, long-term study and dialogue, it's a comprehensive view of why trust is missing with institutions and among people.
The report breaks the issue down into two parts: "an ideological 'us versus them' distrust and a 'social distrust' that tracks interactions and feelings of belonging, dignity, and equality."
The top-level ideological data shows a remarkable lack of faith in core institutions. Only 11 percent of Americans believe the federal government or corporations are honest (conservatives are slightly more positive about corporations). The national media scores better — 22 percent overall — with liberals and progressives sharing a much more positive opinion than moderates and conservatives.
There have been dramatic swings in Americans' confidence that the government will do what is right for the country. In March 2021, 50 percent said they are confident, up 11 points from June 2020. But that data point belies a huge partisan divide. Confidence among Republicans dropped 29 points while raising 50 points among Democrats. (There was virtually no movement among independents).
The More in Common survey also found that a lack of trust in other people has continued to steadily decline. Four in 10 Americans said "Most people can be trusted" but 61 percent said "You can't be too careful in dealing with people." The National Opinion Research Council has been asking whether most people can be trusted for decades, and positive responses haven't cracked 40 percent since the mid 1980s.
"Without a baseline of trust in key institutions and in each other, we cannot solve collective problems or advance changes that benefit all sectors of society," reads the report." In high-trust societies, people are able to organize more quickly, initiate action, and sacrifice for the common good. High trust societies have lower economic inequality and growing economies, lower rates of corruption, and a more civically engaged population."
There are also significant feelings of a lack of belonging across ideology, age and race. Overall, 34 percent of Americans say they do not feel a sense of belonging in any community.
Additional takeaways from the 50-page report include:
- Disgust is more prevalent than anger, which is the path to dehumanization of each other.
- Exposure to people different from ourselves, in settings where we share an overlapping identity is critical. For example, parents share an identity that is not based on ideology. Positive interactions on non-risky identities leads to more tolerance overall.
- Participation in civic life increases our sense of belonging, which increases trust. Participation (or lack of) is both a cause and a cure for distrust.
- The easiest place to start is local, in our neighborhoods and communities where we can see the impact of our involvement.
- Communication from elected officials and leaders needs to be thorough, with clear acknowledgement of the impact when people participate. Let people know they've made a difference.
Building trust will be among the most important societal design challenges for the 21st century.
"Efforts from government leaders to promote bipartisanship and to restore Americans' confidence in the institutions of democracy should be complemented by strategies and programs for building social trust within and across communities, groups, and people," reads the report. "A comprehensive strategy to build trust would catalyze a virtuous cycle wherein efforts to reduce ideological and social distrust reinforce and accelerate one another."
Eric Trump, the newly appointed ALT5 board director of World Liberty Financial, walks outside of the NASDAQ in Times Square as they mark the $1.5- billion partnership between World Liberty Financial and ALT5 Sigma with the ringing of the NASDAQ opening bell, on Aug. 13, 2025, in New York City.
Why does the Trump family always get a pass?
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche joined ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday to defend or explain a lot of controversies for the Trump administration: the Epstein files release, the events in Minneapolis, etc. He was also asked about possible conflicts of interest between President Trump’s family business and his job. Specifically, Blanche was asked about a very sketchy deal Trump’s son Eric signed with the UAE’s national security adviser, Sheikh Tahnoon.
Shortly before Trump was inaugurated in early 2025, Tahnoon invested $500 million in the Trump-owned World Liberty, a then newly launched cryptocurrency outfit. A few months later, UAE was granted permission to purchase sensitive American AI chips. According to the Wall Street Journal, which broke the story, “the deal marks something unprecedented in American politics: a foreign government official taking a major ownership stake in an incoming U.S. president’s company.”
“How do you respond to those who say this is a serious conflict of interest?” ABC host George Stephanopoulos asked.
“I love it when these papers talk about something being unprecedented or never happening before,” Blanche replied, “as if the Biden family and the Biden administration didn’t do exactly the same thing, and they were just in office.”
Blanche went on to boast about how the president is utterly transparent regarding his questionable business practices: “I don’t have a comment on it beyond Trump has been completely transparent when his family travels for business reasons. They don’t do so in secret. We don’t learn about it when we find a laptop a few years later. We learn about it when it’s happening.”
Sadly, Stephanopoulos didn’t offer the obvious response, which may have gone something like this: “OK, but the president and countless leading Republicans insisted that President Biden was the head of what they dubbed ‘the Biden Crime family’ and insisted his business dealings were corrupt, and indeed that his corruption merited impeachment. So how is being ‘transparent’ about similar corruption a defense?”
Now, I should be clear that I do think the Biden family’s business dealings were corrupt, whether or not laws were broken. Others disagree. I also think Trump’s business dealings appear to be worse in many ways than even what Biden was alleged to have done. But none of that is relevant. The standard set by Trump and Republicans is the relevant political standard, and by the deputy attorney general’s own account, the Trump administration is doing “exactly the same thing,” just more openly.
Since when is being more transparent about wrongdoing a defense? Try telling a cop or judge, “Yes, I robbed that bank. I’ve been completely transparent about that. So, what’s the big deal?”
This is just a small example of the broader dysfunction in the way we talk about politics.
Americans have a special hatred for hypocrisy. I think it goes back to the founding era. As Alexis de Tocqueville observed in “Democracy In America,” the old world had a different way of dealing with the moral shortcomings of leaders. Rank had its privileges. Nobles, never mind kings, were entitled to behave in ways that were forbidden to the little people.
In America, titles of nobility were banned in the Constitution and in our democratic culture. In a society built on notions of equality (the obvious exceptions of Black people, women, Native Americans notwithstanding) no one has access to special carve-outs or exemptions as to what is right and wrong. Claiming them, particularly in secret, feels like a betrayal against the whole idea of equality.
The problem in the modern era is that elites — of all ideological stripes — have violated that bargain. The result isn’t that we’ve abandoned any notion of right and wrong. Instead, by elevating hypocrisy to the greatest of sins, we end up weaponizing the principles, using them as a cudgel against the other side but not against our own.
Pick an issue: violent rhetoric by politicians, sexual misconduct, corruption and so on. With every revelation, almost immediately the debate becomes a riot of whataboutism. Team A says that Team B has no right to criticize because they did the same thing. Team B points out that Team A has switched positions. Everyone has a point. And everyone is missing the point.
Sure, hypocrisy is a moral failing, and partisan inconsistency is an intellectual one. But neither changes the objective facts. This is something you’re supposed to learn as a child: It doesn’t matter what everyone else is doing or saying, wrong is wrong. It’s also something lawyers like Mr. Blanche are supposed to know. Telling a judge that the hypocrisy of the prosecutor — or your client’s transparency — means your client did nothing wrong would earn you nothing but a laugh.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.