Listen to “‘Trust in Trump?’” on Spreaker.
Monday night, the White House posted a graphic on Facebook: President Trump seated behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Blue suit, red tie, gold cufflinks, American flag lapel pin. The president sits confidently, arms stretched forward across the desk.
The graphic carried a simple message:
“It will all work out well in the end.”
Accompanying text read:
“TRUST IN TRUMP.”
Along with a quote attributed to the president:
“Just sit back and relax. It will all work out well in the end. It always does.”
One assumes the message was aimed at the situation with Iran, but it could apply to any number of issues facing the country.
Maybe everything will work out. Who would hope it doesn’t all workout? Only bad people guilty of bad citizenship.
But the notion that Americans should trust the president — this president, any president, of any party — is not merely misguided… it is contrary to the very principles upon which the country was founded.
James Madison, writing in Federalist No. 51, famously observed:
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”
Madison and the other Founders understood human nature. They recognized that government is necessary because people are imperfect, fallible and susceptible to vices. But they also understood that government itself cannot simply be trusted.
Madison continued:
“If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”
Few sentences better capture the American experiment.
Writing as “Publius,” Madison explained:
“In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
That is the genius of the Constitution. Not trust. Verification. Checks. Balances. Ambition counteracting ambition.
The Founders did not design a system built on faith in leaders. They designed one built on skepticism of them.
So what does it say about our politics when any leader — especially a president — encourages Americans to simply trust him? Nothing good.
Have we forgotten our responsibility as citizens? To question. To verify. To remain vigilant regardless of who occupies the office? Pray no. Does this president or any other elected official believe Americans are that far gone – so separated from the vision our Founders cherished that we would acquiesce?
Our role in that vision – our duty – may seem small, but it is essential. Surely, we know that.
Of course, none of this means Americans cannot support a president – root for him to win. Madison and the Founders expected citizens to have loyalties and preferences, and we should all want good things for our nation.
But support and trust are not the same thing in this context, not at all. Support can be earned. Trust, in the sense of suspending scrutiny, is something Americans should never grant to any elected official. None. Not this president. Not the next one. Not ever. “Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise,” to quote a familiar phrase from my southern West Virginia upbringing.
Because the day Americans stop questioning those who govern them is the day the constitutional safeguards envisioned by Madison begin to fail.
And anyone who tells you that skepticism of government is somehow unpatriotic – complete rubbish – has fundamentally misunderstood the American system, or is just trying to deceive you.
The Founders didn’t build a nation that required citizens to trust their leaders. They built one that required citizens to watch them.
Post Script: this way of American government – this citizen check – is not exclusive to the federal government, but is alive and well in any state or local government worth having.