Standing next to President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, Elon Musk conjured an image of a Social Security system riddled with fraud that was as vivid as it was make-believe. For example, Musk said that large numbers of 150-year-olds are receiving Social Security benefits. But, as Wired noted, when recipients’ birth dates are default or incomplete, the programming language that Social Security’s benefits system was written in defaults to 1875. What Musk came across was a programming quirk, not fraud.
But since Musk is now one of the key nodes of the right’s ever-mightier misinformation machine, his falsehood was quickly spread to untold millions as more (fake) evidence that the federal government is a mess. And it gets worse: The Social Security Administration’s top official, Michelle King, a civil servant with decades of experience, resigned in protest after a confrontation in which she refused to give the so-called Department of Government Efficiency access to the incredibly sensitive information about every American stored in Social Security’s databases.
Trump has always both exploited and encouraged distrust in government.
It’s not clear whether DOGE now has that access, or what they would do with it. And if that makes you deeply uneasy, know that that anxiety is perfectly fine with the Trump administration.
In the 1960s, as much as three-quarters of the public told pollsters they trusted the government to do what is right either most of the time or always; today that number sits in the low 20s. The reasons for the decline are complex, but Trump has always both exploited and encouraged distrust in government; the fact that it is so widespread is a key reason he is president right now.
Yet if electing Trump is a symptom of distrust toward the government, the early days of his administration indicate he will give Americans even more reason to believe that the government can’t solve problems, doesn’t keep its promises, and never deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Among the victims of this alternately haphazard and malevolent approach is a group that voted overwhelmingly for Trump. Farmers who signed contracts with the government to begin conservation and renewable energy projects on their land, that obligated the government to reimburse them for the cost of those projects, have seen the funds frozen. That leaves them holding the bag for loans they took out and money they invested on the assumption that the government would keep its end of the agreement. One farmer told The New York Times he would “never do anything with any government agency ever again.”
This story is playing out with various government programs across the country. Small nonprofits that receive federal funds to provide services like Head Start or rides for the elderly to dialysis treatment have had to lay off workers or shut down entirely because of the funding freeze. The Solar For All program had signed contracts worth $7 billion with states, localities and nonprofits to set up community solar projects; the Trump administration froze the funds and left many projects in limbo. Last week, the administration essentially shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, leaving consumers more vulnerable to financial scams. And the White House plans to lay off thousands of IRS workers, which will likely reverse the progress the agency had recently made in improving customer service.
The next Democratic president and Congress will have an enormous challenge. These are just a few of the actions the administration has taken, but the result will be the same: a government that gives people poorer service, can’t be trusted to keep its word, and isn’t there when we need it. In the future, how many people will want to enter into contracts with the government like the ones those farmers did? How many talented and idealistic young people will choose to go into public service after watching thousands of civil servants summarily fired? This is a tragic irony of the destruction currently in progress: A genuine, good-faith effort to improve government efficiency could save money, help Americans by improving the delivery of services and boost people’s faith in government. It would be an extremely worthwhile undertaking; there is plenty of room for improvement in how the federal government operates. This administration, however, is not operating in good faith, and it seems determined to give people more reasons to believe that government can’t do anything right. Many conservatives dislike government for ideological reasons; whether it does its job well or poorly, they’ll still say they don’t trust it. But there are millions of Americans who judge government based on what they’ve heard and what they’ve experienced. Long after Trump and Musk are done slashing and burning their way through Washington, their suspicions will remain. That means the next Democratic president and Congress will have an enormous challenge when they try to make the case that government can be an ally rather than an impediment. Not only will they face the practical task of rebuilding what Trump and Musk have destroyed, they’ll have to rebuild trust as well — and that could be even harder.
Paul Waldman is a journalist and author focused on politics and culture. 
