Public trust. Is it engendered or eroded when elites, experts, and egos generate and double down on “dead right” narratives that distort and even deny reality leading to deception, disorder, dysfunction, and even destruction of life and do so for dubious and decidedly power-hungry and vainglorious ends?
In the past six months I’ve come across two pastoral letters imploring Christians to think kindly toward the millions of foreign invaders that crossed our borders illegally.
When we hear someone say crazy things, we might say “Yeah, right” and shrug it off. But when a group of people say crazy things in concert and people agree with said crazy things, we wonder “What in the world is going on?”
My 70+ years as an American have not made me an optimist nor a pessimist nor an end of-history utopian. I am an American realist. I see things as they are and work from there.