Social Democracy and Trust | The Meanderer

Ever since a client of mine told me earlier in the summer that he did not trust government issued vaccines I have been mulling over why that was the case. Why did he distrust government so much and stuff he learned from his friends or by doing “private research” online so little? I think that is a very important question. It is actually a much bigger question than I realized before I started looking at this issue.

Louis Menand wrote a fascinating article in the New Yorker about why people had lost their faith in government. Specifically, he wondered if liberals or conservatives were at fault. He noted that both liberals and conservatives in the US distrusted government:

“December, 1958, by pollsters from a center now called the American National Election Studies, at the University of Michigan, seventy-three per cent said yes, they had confidence in the government to do the right thing either almost all the time or most of the time. Six years later, they were asked basically the same question, and seventy-seven per cent said yes.

Pollsters ask the question regularly. In a Pew survey from April, 2021, only twenty-four per cent of respondents said yes. And that represented an uptick. During Obama’s and Trump’s Presidencies, the figure was sometimes as low as seventeen per cent. Sixty years ago, an overwhelming majority of Americans said they had faith in the government. Today, an overwhelming majority say they don’t. Who is to blame?”

I know I have been quick to blame Ronald Reagan and his coterie of conservatives. Now I realize the blame can be spread much more widely, though this is certainly part of the problem. Let’s start with Ronald Reagan. Reagan became wildly popular when he said “the 11 most scary words in the English language were, ‘I am from the government and I am here to help.’ ” He also made the following statement in his inaugural address “In this present crisis,” Reagan said in his Inaugural Address, “government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” People began to think that governments were inherently bad and untrusworthy.

I am not saying Reagan caused the problem, but the neo-liberal ideology was given a big push by him in the US, Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Brian Mulroney in Canada. At about that time a serious decline in trust in government began.

Yet as Menand pointed out, Reagan a very popular President, one of the most popular ever and who later became an icon of conservatism in America, did not remove one major government program! Why? Because people realized government delivered some pretty good and important things and programs. Really until then most people understood the benefits of public health care as we have in Canada and to a more limited extent in the United States, and understood the importance of schools, libraries, armed forces, police forces, fire fighters, social assistance to the needy, public parks and many other public goods. It was difficult to persuade people to believe that government is all bad.

But things have changed Bigly. Now they have more trust in Amazon, or Facebook, Wal-Mart, Canadian Tire, ExxonMobil, Safeway, or any other company than the government? How can that be?

Even during the 8 years that Reagan was President of the United States the trust index for government never rose above 45%. In the last 14 years it has never been higher than 30%. That is not a lot of trust!

How is this significant? The absence of trust in government has been disastrous during the pandemic. During a pandemic if public health officials are not trusted, people won’t follow their instructions and we will all suffer. That is the problem. And, as we have seen, it is a big problem. That is why it is so important to look at this issue.

Why do so many people distrust government and what is the significance of that?

One of the things that is so interesting about this pandemic is the astonishing fact that so many people mistrust so many so deeply. The distrust is virtually unshakeable. I am trying to understand why that happens. And it happens a lot where I live, in Southern Manitoba.

This has caught me by surprise. Or at least it once did. After nearly 2 years of this pandemic, it no longer surprises me. I expect it. I am surprised when someone demonstrates trust. I think it has something to do with the deeply felt religious beliefs in our community, but that still does not explain it.

Here is what Winnipeg Free Press reporter Dylan Robertson said about exactly this issue:

“Manitoba children could qualify for COVID-19 vaccines within weeks, but evangelical parents might not let their kids roll up their sleeves.

In a recent Probe Research survey shared with the Free Press, two-thirds of evangelical Manitobans said they “worry about the long-term effects of COVID-19 vaccinations in children,” compared with 41 per cent of overall respondents.

In addition, 49 per cent of those identifying as evangelical said COVID-19 as an issue was “overblown,” compared with 28 per cent of the overall population.”

What would lead Manitoba parents to distrust government or the authorities so much that they would put the lives of their children in danger when the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence, and by now, real life experiences, make it so clear that not taking vaccines is a dangerous choice?

The Free Press interviewed Rick Hiemstra, research director of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada and this is what he said, “A lack of trust and polarization have come home to roost.” So many of these evangelicals now identify with their group—Christians who don’t trust vaccines. They don’t trust scientists. No matter how many of them. They don’t trust the government. Instead, they trust what other members of their tribe has told them or trust what they have “learned” from their own “research” on the Internet. And they do while they put the lives of their children in danger.

Here is what a local theologian said as reported by the Winnipeg Free Press,

“Evangelical scholar Nicholas Greco said numerous factors cause that gap, from a desire to rely on God for healing, to science clashing with creationism, to general skepticism of media and government.

Evangelicals often are reflective of a social and political conservatism, which calls for smaller governments (and) personal autonomy, but also tends to lead to a mistrust of government,” said Greco, who is provost of Providence University College in Otterburne.

Greco, a long-time communications professor, said there’s a perception the government wants to control everyone, and that the media is overhyping the virus as part of some sort of conspiracy.

“The rhetoric I hear from many of my colleagues… is that we don’t want the government to have further control, because if they do, we will lose our freedoms,” he said.

The evangelicals believe conspiracy theories rather than scientists and they believe it so strongly they put the lives of their children in danger. It is like an article of their faith that vaccines are untrustworthy, and no reasoning, no data, or no actual experiences will shake them from their convictions.

Here is what the Free Press reported, “At a recent panel, one congregant said everyone who got the vaccine is going to die within a few years, and that they’ll all go to hell.”

As an aside, think for a moment about what a monstrous God this person believed in—a god who would punish someone for eternity for doing what our scientists have strongly recommended.

It is as if denial of vaccine efficacy has become part of their religious faith.