Trust is the firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something, according to the dictionary.

As a society, we trust that the basic functions of our government will work in the best interest of all.  Justice, safety, service, education, health care; yet most of these are not provided by the government but contracted out to private companies.  With the privatization of these services we lost the basic eliminate they stood for; trust that the safety and service to the public is the top priority.  Unfortunately, the only thing we can trust these days is that money is more important than human life.

With a massive pandemic sweeping the globe, an economic collapse, millions of people unemployed and lacking health coverage, and now riots in the streets, we have seen little evidence that we can trust our government. While many states have done their best to mitigate the spread of disease, destruction, and oppression, the president thrives on instigating hatred, violence, dominance, and petty insults. These not only are not helping the multiple situations currently burning through our nation, but they also do little to instill trust that our government can see us through these crises unscathed.

Our country is at a crossroads, we can either continue our current path to destruction, or we can use 2020 and its seemingly bottomless catastrophes to build a better country.  A country that is built on trust between the citizens and the government.  Trust between the people and the police.  Trust between employers and employees.  Trust that all people, no matter their race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation will be safe, taken care of, educated, feed, housed, and receive equal treatment under the law.

Trust is a fragile thing and once it is lost, it is so hard to rebuild, but rebuild it we must.  If we don’t, we may be doomed.

2 Replies

  1. This is, again, right on! As several people have pointed out recently, the social contract between we the people and government is broken. We need a new one that allows all of us, regardless of race, gender, age, sex, etc. to be happy and healthy.

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