One of the biggest changes during my lifetime has been how people trust big institutions and the Government.
Its possible I was naïve, but when I was young we felt that we could trust Government and most big institutions to have our best interests at heart.
After all these were the people we elected and they were elected to represent us, not lie to us.
Yes there were some people who attacked the Government but most of us had a lot of confidence it what the Government told us.
Then we had Vietnam, Watergate. the Pentagon Papers and Iran-Contra.
All of these were clear instances where people in Government lied or distorted things they told us.
In some cases it was for what they felt was the better good and in others it was simply for individual purposes, but it changed a lot of things.
In addition we had a proliferation of cable TV stations to the point where opinions could be presented as facts and reach large audiences.
The end result is a pretty common belief that the Government isn't trustworthy.
Of course if you believe the Government is at odds with the people, the only real solution is to get rid of it with a new one.
This is one of the things that helped the dotard win, the belief that he was going to "drain the swamp".
Of course he isn't doing anything of the kind and in all honesty is cementing the idea that the Government isn't to be trusted into a whole new generation's consciousness.
I doubt we will ever recapture the trust I grew up with and maybe that's a good thing.
It certainly felt better though.
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