I can remember being in a funky diner in a shady neighborhood in a rough part of a small town. The parking lot had deep puddles. I sat at the counter. A waitress in a tired apron and week-old hair put the cup of coffee I’d ordered in front of me. I took a sip. It wasn’t a bad cup of coffee. I drank it, paid, and went on about my business. That insignificant moment in my life popped up recently on my screen alongside the word “trust” while reading the news. It made me think about what a huge role trust plays in our lives, and how we don’t even think about it most of the time. I didn’t think about it when I drank that cup of coffee. I just subconsciously assumed the cup and the spoon had been properly washed, that the waitress kept her hands relatively clean, and that rats hadn’t been rooting around in the coffee. In fact, I recall that cup of coffee had gone down just fine, with no surprises or side effects.
Forgetting that assumptions are a major cause of disappointments, we Americans trust so many ways every day. When a driver signals a left turn, we pull right, around him, trusting (assuming) the driver will in fact turn left. At a 4-way stop, we trust the driver who came in after us will wait until we proceed. We drink the water out of the tap because we trust it and the pipes it travels through in its journey to our house are safe. We drive through fast food lanes and consume what we find in the bag they hand us because we trust the place meets sanitation standards. We casually initial legal documents at the doctor’s office (or on line!) without reading them because we trust they are fair. Who can understand that legalese anyway? We trust a stranger in a white nurse’s jacket at Walmart to inject us in the arm with a Covid vaccination, assuming the needle is sterile, the serum is valid, and that the person brandishing the needle is really a nurse who has been properly trained. Think about it: it’s a long list of blind trust we practice every day.
Our tendency for trusting has been certified – like it or not — with the slogan on our money announcing our trust in the Lord. The law written to have “In God we trust” printed on our paper currency was only passed in 1955. That declaration reveals our predilections, or so it must have appeared to President Dwight Eisenhower, who signed Public Law 84-140 into effect. After that wholesale declaration to an occult, metaphysical entity, where the assignment of trust is concerned the sky became the limit.
Most of us, and it had become more and more inclusive, have been trusting with reason. We have usually received what we’ve been promised, or believed it was attainable. For years we have felt, in the main, generally secure, comfortable as we have obeyed stop signs, maintained faith in our banks, our weather radar, our Constitution, gravity, and GPS, in concert with the majority of our fellow citizens.
It’s tempting to conclude that the harsh, authoritarian pronouncements of the current administration have reduced a long tradition of trust to a cipher, given the group of unqualified loyalists who have been selected to carry out a long list of harsh orders that are radically changing our country. Trust is not a valid response to the callous, drastic behavior of some senior officials. Gross incompetence, like using a commercial communications app for the exchange of highly confidential military attack plans, then falsely denying the material exchanged was secret, does not build confidence. Even what we have long believed to be proven facts have been challenged, creating groups of “facts” labeled variously “yours,” “mine,” and “theirs.” Opinions, maybe. Psychological manipulation, for sure.
With its escalating and ever more blatant money-grubbing scams, Social Media must share some of the blame for undercutting our willingness to trust. A recent film, The Beekeeper, creates a chilling scenario on cold calls one might receive promoting deals that are, in fact, too good to be true. Seduced by the smooth proposal of the movie’s fictional financial scamming operation, a lonely older woman gives out too much information and loses her entire savings. The film’s story is about the violent revenge carried out by an angry beekeeper who is the marked woman’s tenant. Perhaps our being less eager to trust isn’t all bad, given where our open, “data-based,” factually challenged culture is going. As President Ronald Reagan once cautioned, “Trust. But verify.”
Trust has always promoted opportunity for scammers. Even back a hundred years the Brooklyn Bridge got sold several times to buyers whose greed perverted their trust. One proud “purchaser” had to be stopped from building toll booths on the bridge he thought he’d bought.
In many ways, trust determines the future. We make decisions based on potential outcomes that are based on trust. We take our prescribed medications because we trust our doctor, because we trust the pharmacist who prepares and dispenses them. Trust is based on satisfaction, one reason it can be dangerously seductive. “Trust me,” we are often told. That’s become such a cliché it’s a standard sarcastic laugh line for comedians, and an opportunity for would-be scammers of all stripes. When to decide not to trust something (or someone) varies from person to person, but usually more than one disappointment is enough to cancel trust.
There don’t seem to be any polls that assess our nation’s current levels of trust; polls reflecting how we are all feeling about trust in general these days. Are we still as willing to trust our neighbors, our co-workers, our policemen, our local politicians, and our national government as we were a few years ago?
One thing demonstrably provable about Donald Trump is his constant willingness to flat-out lie. Presidential lying has a long history in the United States, but the accumulation of Trump’s lies is record-setting, way beyond all existing literature. Transparent as most of his lies are, they provided a media-rich strategy of confusion that gained enough attention to win him the presidency. To mention just a few of his lies, he actually said our government had spent $100 million on condoms for Hamas; he said immigrants were stealing pet cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio and eating them; he said Ukraine started the war against Russia; he said the USA is the only country with birthright citizenship; he said Canadians were enthusiastic about becoming America’s 51st state; he said China was operating the Panama Canal. None of those statements are true. All of those statements are demonstrably, unquestionably false.
The same basic strategy is being practiced overseas. As columnist David French (a Republican turned Independent) points out in the New York Times, the Trump administration has abruptly revoked America’s contracts funding malaria prevention, polio vaccine initiatives, tuberculosis treatments, Ebola surveillance, and hospitals in refugee camps. “Will any sensible world power now rely on America’s word–or on America itself?” French asks. “Lying destroys trust,” he writes. “And trust, once destroyed, is the most difficult thing to restore.”
One has to wonder how Americans’ collective tendency to trust will fare over the next four years. Celebrities are influencers. Celebrities’ styles trickle down into the population. America’s primary celebrity is whomever is President, meaning the current President’s style can have significant influence. Hats are a simple example. President Harry Truman wore hats, therefore hats became fashionable for men. Jack Kennedy did not wear hats. Hats were not in fashion during Kennedy’s administration.
Given the current administration’s reliance on deception, lying could become elevated to our national pastime. “Trust me,” uttered with a confident smile and a casual tug at one’s mustache, could become America’s new marketing slogan.
Roger Vaughan, a Massachusetts native, began writing, photographing, playing music, and sailing at a young age, pursuits that shaped his lifelong career. After earning a BA in English from Brown University, he worked as an editor and writer for Saturday Evening Post and Life magazines, covering major cultural events of the 1960s and 70s. His first book, The Grand Gesture (1973), launched a prolific freelance writing career. He’s written more than 20 books, including numerous biographies, films, and many videos. Since 1980, Vaughan has lived on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, where he continues his work documenting remarkable individuals and events.
Darrell parsons says
Thank you. It is hard to understand how anyone can trust anything promised by the Trump administration. Not only do they lie about all kinds of easily disproven things, they promise to do or not do many things and then do the opposite. I don’t understand why everyone isn’t angry, anxious or at least worried about the direction of our Country regardless of political affiliation…loss of due process for US citizens, attacks on social security and the health system, allowing measles to return, removing regulations for food safety, making war noises against allies, denying funding to colleges and universities which are in the forefront of finding cures for cancer, Alzheimer’s, etc etc. and that is just the tip of the iceberg. One doesn’t have to be “woke” to wake up to the very real possibility that we are headed for a government which is already disregarding the life and liberty of all of us. Trump says to be patient and endure a “little pain” because life will be “beautiful” after the pain. However, that which is a little pain is something different to a parent whose child dies from measles because they were lied to by the Trump administration. No one is immune to these people and their intentions. To those who think all of this is ok, how will you feel when it is your child who dies, or your friend who is deported, or your parents who lose social security, or your trans daughter is beaten up, or you are targeted because you are in some way unacceptable to Trump and his minions.
Reed Fawell 3 says
This is a highly untrustworthy article.
darrell parsons says
Maybe you could detail the ways in which it is untrustworthy.
Reed Fawell 3 says
Darrell = Maybe you could detail the ways the ways in which this is untrustworthy –
see https://talbotspy.org/letter-to-editor-elon-musk-and-the-ponzi-scheme/
Wherein Reed Fawell 3 says
April 15, 2025 at 8:11 AM
Darrell Parsons says “The American people in the last election did not overwhelmingly reject open borders.”
Darrell Parson’s statement is not true. It is an obviously false statement.
Witness applicable Pew Poll – How serious is the situation at the border? A sizable majority of Americans (78%) say the large number of migrants seeking to enter this country at the U.S.-Mexico border is either a crisis (45%) or a major problem (32%), according to the Pew Research Center survey, conducted Jan. 16-21, 2024, among 5,140 adults.
Witness also applicable Fox Poll – Immigration is a top issue to American voters this year, as a record number say the situation at the southern border is a major problem or an outright emergency, according to the latest Fox News national survey released Thursday. Nearly 9 in 10 voters say the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border is an emergency (44%) or a major problem (43%). That’s an increase since February, when about 8 in 10 felt it was an emergency (41%) or major problem (37%).
Darrell Parsons also says “Not to mention that we didn’t have open borders.” This Darrell Parson statement is also not a true statement. It is an obviously false statement.
See this government report with Release Date Mon, 04/14/2025
WASHINGTON — U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released operational statistics today for March 2025. CBP monthly reporting can be viewed on CBP’s Stats and Summaries webpage.
“U.S. Border Patrol’s apprehensions along the southwest border for the entire month of March 2025 were lower than the first two days of March 2024,” said Pete Flores, Acting Commissioner of CBP.
Last October 2024 encounters of 309,234 were reduced to 29,065 in February of this year 2025.
And these amazing statistics do not include all the illegal migrants flown into US by air.
Darrell Parsons also states that “Once the Social Security system begins to slip, it will be hard to stop the downward spiral.” is highly misleading. The US Social Security system has been slipping for many decades. It will collapse in the next decade under Democrat policies unless those policies are successfully reversed by DOGE policies under today’s Republican president.
How can we fix our nation if so many of our citizens refuse to tell the truth about our problems. And our problems are everywhere and compounding rapidly. For example the Democrats will not admit that half of our public high school seniors graduate from 12 grade functionally illiterate.
Deirdre LaMotte says
As far as “open boarders” Obama deported more people than Trump can only dream of.
And Biden wisely had a bi partisan agreement for the boarder until Herr Trump threatened
any R that would agree to it.
Leave it to Fox and idiots to drum the fear. Trump is and will continue to be in a pickle of his own doing deporting people without due process. Now we have learned that 90 percent of those deported recently to the gulag had NO criminal record.
Constitutional crisis indeed. Anyone who voted even one time for this maniac is loathsome.
Thanks ‘Merica!
Caroline Thomas says
Show the proof that the article is “highly” untrustworthy.
Lad Mills says
Thank you Roger, honestly worded and to the point, I certainly hope your readers take it seriously.
Reed Fawell 3 says
Caroline Thomas asked on April 15, 2025 “Show the proof that the article is “highly” untrustworthy.”
Below is my reply that deals with this article paragraph by paragraph.
First Paragraph:
“I can remember being in a funky diner in a shady neighborhood in a rough part of a small town. The parking lot had deep puddles. I sat at the counter. A waitress in a tired apron and week-old hair put the cup of coffee I’d ordered in front of me. I took a sip. It wasn’t a bad cup of coffee. I drank it, paid, and went on about my business. That insignificant moment in my life popped up recently on my screen alongside the word “trust” while reading the news. It made me think about what a huge role trust plays in our lives, and how we don’t even think about it most of the time. I didn’t think about it when I drank that cup of coffee. I just subconsciously assumed the cup and the spoon had been properly washed, that the waitress kept her hands relatively clean, and that rats hadn’t been rooting around in the coffee. In fact, I recall that cup of coffee had gone down just fine, with no surprises or side effects.”
This statement is typically true, although I sense that even in these simple and straight forward every day rituals of our lives, even this sort of “subconscious” trust is beginning to seriously erode among us. Today now, sometimes here in own country, normal living is akin to traveling alone in a strange foreign country where one by nature is hyper alert to danger lurking within one surroundings. And I suspect this hyper alert sense arises now by reason of the obvious fact that their are many strangers for many reasons surrounding us in our home territory. To confirm this one need drive down of road, and get on the computer, in the state of open and honest awareness.
Second Paragraph –
“Forgetting that assumptions are a major cause of disappointments, we Americans trust so many ways every day. When a driver signals a left turn, we pull right, around him, trusting (assuming) the driver will in fact turn left. At a 4-way stop, we trust the driver who came in after us will wait until we proceed. We drink the water out of the tap because we trust it and the pipes it travels through in its journey to our house are safe. We drive through fast food lanes and consume what we find in the bag they hand us because we trust the place meets sanitation standards. We casually initial legal documents at the doctor’s office (or on line!) without reading them because we trust they are fair. Who can understand that legalese anyway? We trust a stranger in a white nurse’s jacket at Walmart to inject us in the arm with a Covid vaccination, assuming the needle is sterile, the serum is valid, and that the person brandishing the needle is really a nurse who has been properly trained. Think about it: it’s a long list of blind trust we practice every day.”
Increasingly, this paragraph is no longer generally true. Instead it is ever more often false. Drive in a Central or South American, southern Italian city and you will find it most always false. And here, even on home ground, this former trust is rapidly eroding. We must protect ourselves with “defensive driving” and other defensive behaviors of all sorts whether on the road or in living life generally, now too when on every increasing “virtual reality” devices. For example, we now always must lock the doors to our cars or home or bathrooms, even when we are in them. And proof is obviously found in fact that stores increasingly protect their goods by lock and key behind glass to protect then from thieves increasingly lurking around us. Theft now is everywhere in America. Civility and basic human decently in this nation is plunging, even among friends and neighbors. We see this evaporation of manners and ethics everywhere today including notably on this web site, and in our growing legitment skepticism of medicines and doctors and teachers and scientists and food and water all based on ever growing facts of incompetence and/or malfeasance and greed, or the simple lack of caring. For example the Covid 19 debacle, the obesity and autism epidemic, the collapse of public education (half of HS grads are illiterate, most all the rest indoctrinated with ideology), the collapse of marriage, most kids now born out of wedlock without dads, as well as growing gender confusion, all this due to indoctrination by so called experts of all sorts. The list seems always growing now, indeed endless. And now we learn it often has been going on for decades – The official Pyramid of Healthy Foods for example are being proven to be intentional frauds by American Food manufactures who poison us while sending healthy foods to Europe because they must, not to mention the gross over medication of drugs foisted on us and our children, addicting many to what becomes poison.
Third Paragraph –
“Our tendency for trusting has been certified – like it or not — with the slogan on our money announcing our trust in the Lord. The law written to have “In God we trust” printed on our paper currency was only passed in 1955. That declaration reveals our predilections, or so it must have appeared to President Dwight Eisenhower, who signed Public Law 84-140 into effect. After that wholesale declaration to an occult, metaphysical entity, where the assignment of trust is concerned the sky became the limit.”
IKE was among our wisest and most competent Presidents, having served in two world wars, and lead the Allies to victory against the German Axis powers in WWII. He knew God’s singular power to reign in the worst of human nature while leading that same human nature to it greatest and best achievements. Today our fallen society is working hard to erase and destroy IKE’s monument to the divine. The foul evidence of this is everywhere around us, startlingly plain for all of us to see, the shaming and demeaning of the faithful.
And, although it is hard to believe given his fine biography, Mr. Vaughan’s statement that: “After that wholesale declaration (on our money) to an occult, metaphysical entity, where the assignment of trust is concerned the sky became the limit” would seem to be yet another attack on God and peoples’ faith in God, if only because his statement here is indecipherable at best. It’s an oxymoronic non sequitur. At worst this statement insults to one’s faith in the divine. See for example the Oxford definition of “occult.”
As noun: occult; – supernatural, mystical, or magical beliefs, practices, or phenomena – a secret society to study alchemy and the occult – Similar to supernatural, paranormal, magic, black magic, witchcraft, sorcery, necromancy, wizardry, the black arts, Kabbalah, occultism, diabolism, devil worship, devilry, voodoo, hoodoo, white magic, witchery, witching, orenda, mysticism, makutu, theurgy.
As adjective: occult of, involving, or relating to supernatural, mystical, or magical powers or phenomena. “a follower of occult practices similar to voodoo.” …
I strongly suspect that IKE knew, along with many devote and practicing Jews and Christians, that the Bible as God’s Word is the best and most reliable description and guide to the reality humans find in the world around them. And that Yes, when a people follow the Bible, its words teach and inculcate in them the ways and means to find and build trust and faith in the small and large rituals of life that are essential to a good life and without which we humans go haywire fast absent hard earned and disciplined sacrifice that we must put into practice daily and always with much trial and error. For in truth human nature loves to sin, given our fall in Genesis. Thus, doing the right and godly is a constant and unrelenting struggle of pain, sin, misery, and sacrifice as again and again we must push out into the unknown that never fails to terrorize us unless and until we see, recognize and confront and master those unknown spirits and realities that haunt us. Paradoxically, this leads to our greatest achievements, joys and grace. That’s how life works. Always has, and always will. And nobody is exempt. That is the teaching that made America great, and its been mostly lost for generations now. And so naturally what was plainly around and obvious before to our founders, is demeaned and attacked and lost and invisible now. So we are lost, empty, confused, and miserable now. As sin, evil, and the dark side of humanity floods over us every day and every where now.
It’s tough to admit but this is where the world of Norman Rockwell ends up after we humans have erased the ever present reality of sin and judgement in the real world to create in our world (heads and spirits) the false illusions that we must have and demand to satisfy our lusts, fears, envies, pride and hubris without the Divine. Hence we lose all positive meaning and purpose.
In part two to follow I will discuss that false world and its illusions raised in Paragraphs 4-13.