If US senator Hiram Johnson was right over 100 years ago that the first casualty of war is truth, then it is arguable today that the first casualty of the Donald Trump years has been trust.
As the Financial Times’ Martin Wolf observed: “The triumph of deceit, incompetence, unpredictability, indifference and xenophobia under Mr Trump has damaged trust in the US among its allies and respect for it among its opponents.”
04:33
As Biden enters White House, world leaders express ‘relief’ and welcome ‘friend’ and ‘mate’ back
As Biden enters White House, world leaders express ‘relief’ and welcome ‘friend’ and ‘mate’ back
David Brooks, writing in October in The Atlantic on how “America is having a moral convulsion”, said: “Levels of trust in this country – in our institutions, in our politics, and in one another – are in precipitous decline. And when social trust collapses, nations fail.”
While people such as Brooks take a longer historical sweep, Edelman’s annual survey allows a more granular examination of the forces at work. And for the past year, the combined impact of the pandemic, Trump and perfidious forces of social media have been little short of catastrophic.Governments that earned brownie points early in the year for their efforts to wrestle with Covid-19 saw a sharp collapse in public trust as the pandemic killed more people, ruined more jobs, and showed no sign of coming under control.
By Edelman’s measure, trust in governments across 27 countries rose from 55 points in January to a peak of 61 in May, and then collapsed back to 56 today. Trust slumped by 17 points in South Korea between May and the end of the year, and by 15 points in the UK – though muddles over Brexit may have contributed to that.
03:48
US House impeaches Trump for inciting deadly Capitol attack
US House impeaches Trump for inciting deadly Capitol attack
In the US, trust in government collapsed much more sharply among Trump voters, compared to Biden voters – a reality spectacularly illustrated by the January 6 assault on the US Capitol building in Washington, and by persistent Trump-inspired organisations that continue to claim government fraud not just in Washington, but in state capitals across the country.Most fascinating, trust among Chinese in their government, which sat at an improbable 82 points at the end of 2019, has fallen by 10 points. If President Xi Jinping ever bothers to take note of such research, he cannot be amused.
Among the four institutions tracked by Edelman – government, business, NGOs and the media – only businesses are seen as both ethical and competent. Trust in NGOs and the media – the latter badly tainted by the fact-free polarisation that has occurred among social media cocoons – has declined sharply.
The Trust Barometer also shows a rapidly widening divergence between levels of trust among the “informed public” – those with university degrees, high household incomes and significant engagement in public policy – and the general population, a force that is undermining trust in the elite, and even “experts”.
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Edelman also found lower trust levels among those with “poor information hygiene”: people who do not “engage” with news, people who unquestioningly subsist inside social media echo chambers, who fail to verify information, and who pass on unvetted information.
An alarming 60 per cent of respondents thought news organisations were more concerned with supporting an ideology than with informing the public. The implications here for political polarisation and populism are clear.
For us here in Hong Kong, the pregnant question is what has happened to trust. Yes, trust levels must surely have crashed, yet I am still shocked when I revisit Hong Kong’s performance in the 2019 Trust Barometer. Trust levels in Hong Kong then had surged by about 10 points compared to the previous year – more than any other economy surveyed.Trust among under-24-year-olds was higher than for any other age group. When asked “whether my government is failing me”, just 23 per cent of Hong Kong survey respondents said yes – far lower even than patriotic Singapore.
07:30
China’s Rebel City: The Hong Kong Protests
China’s Rebel City: The Hong Kong Protests
It is almost embarrassing to ask how the survey could have found such exceptionally optimistic survey results, just months before the city fell into the most traumatic and sustained period of social unrest seen in 50 years.
At the time, Edelman researchers credited the positive mood to a recent rapid rise in household incomes, unemployment at a record low of 2.8 per cent and falling crime levels. The survey results profoundly failed to catch any hint of the horrors that Hong Kong was to experience just months later.
Clearly, the Trust Barometer needs to address how it missed the dark forces that we now know were then at work. We also need to pay especial attention to the obvious collapse of trust that has occurred since.
06:15
BN(O) passport holders flee Hong Kong for new life in the UK, fearing Beijing’s tightening control
BN(O) passport holders flee Hong Kong for new life in the UK, fearing Beijing’s tightening control
Tantalisingly, Edelman cannot at this point clarify. A special briefing on Hong Kong findings is awaited in March. I and many others will be fascinated to pour over the findings and their predictions.
As Brooks wrote: “When people in a society lose faith or trust in their institutions and in each other, the nation collapses.” They become a “broken, alienated society caught in a distrust doom loop”.
Whether Hong Kong has already fallen into such a “distrust doom loop” is moot. Edelman’s special March briefing on Hong Kong must shed some light.
David Dodwell researches and writes about global, regional and Hong Kong challenges from a Hong Kong point of view
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