Trust in our institutions and each other is a hugely important factor in a society’s wellbeing. The lack of it can cost billions of dollars and inconveniences in airports and other security measures and in the extreme can lead to physical attacks on our government such as the January 6 attack on the U.S. Congress.
Russia has produced and helped disseminate fake news about U.S. government responses to recent hurricanes (“Russia amplified hurricane disinformation to drive Americans apart”, “Covert war on American minds”) and destruction of mail-in ballets for next week’s elections (“Pennsylvania ballots video by Russia”). Donald Trump continues to deny that he lost the 2000 elections despite knowing otherwise according to his staff. “Indictment claims Trump knew he lost”
Responding to government incentives, pharmaceutical companies developed COVID vaccines in amazingly quick time during Trump’s administration, which then lost public trust as a result of Anthony Fauci’s lie about the lack of need for face masks (“Noble lies-covid-Fauci-CDC-masks”) and mixed messages from the American public health establishment. While the government’s understanding of the COVID virus and how best to protect ourselves from it evolved as more information was analyzed, their communications with the public did not give confidence that they were sharing what they knew and what they didn’t. Temporary lock downs might have been justified as the government geared up to respond, but each of us should have been given more freedom thereafter to make our own risk assessments based on the best available information. School closings have done permanent harm to a generation of children.
America has flourished because we are free and relatively unrestrained to live and innovate as we please within public institutions we trust. These facts—President Reagan’s “Beacon on the Hill”—have attracted the admiration of much of the world. But our record is not pure and the more we depart from these principles the more the world will come to distrust us. The current example is America’s complicity with Israel’s genocidal wars in Gaza, West Bank, and Lebanon. “Warnings of Israel’s UNRWA ban will collapse aid efforts in Gaza” The UN has condemned Israel’s attacks and blocking of food and medical aid to Gaza, and bombing schools and hospitals. “List of United Nations resolutions concerning Israel and the annexation of Jerusalem”. U.S. law forbids providing aid to countries guilty of such acts, but we continue providing it none the less. “Two governments linked by lies and bloodshed”
But our complicity with Israeli atrocities is not the first or only example of such behavior. Our ally, then enemy, Iraq used chemical weapons (nerve gas and mustard gas) during the Iran-Iraq War, starting in 1983 and continuing until the war ended in 1988. We closed our eyes and said nothing.
Even the Reagan administration, whose détente with the Soviet Union helped end the cold war, violated its principles and public trust with the Iran-Contra Affair. “Iran Contra Affair”
Such violations of our principles damage public trust at home and abroad. Beyond being despicable in their own right, they undermine trust in our institutions at home and abroad and threaten the life we have always expected to enjoy. This is not something Russia is doing to us, we are doing it to ourselves.
Be sure to vote next week and happily or graciously accept the outcome.
Warren's space 
Great assessment Warren. Sounds very Gurdieffian. I think you are correct.