An opinion piece in the January 29, 2025, Chicago Tribune authored by a new U.S. citizen referred to Trump's "2nd coming" as fear arose that his citizenship could be denied before he took his oath on January 21, 2025. Considering all that we know of Trump's staunch Christian evangelical base, perhaps the "2nd coming" fits.
Trump sees himself as a master at negotiation, embracing a distributive negotiation worldview where he competes in a win/lose competition for limited resources. With such a view, uncertainty and chaos may be successful on many immediate initiatives. However, the downside is that uncertainty undermines rather than builds trust. But trust never was part of the Trump strategy and this is evident in who supported both his 2016 and 2024 campaigns. The pollsters all misread what was happening - Trump had so effectively sewn disbelief and distrust in media, government, education, and any sector that harbored "elites" that all were easy targets. Discrediting all those systems that more privileged citizens saw as serving and protecting them only reinforced the base of skeptics who love Trump. They say "he calls it as it really is" which "outs" a system that never worked for them as working class citizens with less educational opportunity and success. Governance by complaint, along with discrediting what previously served as separation of powers and church/state influence, has been significantly shaped by the rise of Christian nationalism and was driven by the the growing reliance on money, lies, and citing of God's provenance.
Researchers on trust in government in Canada reported early findings of their study at the International Leadership Association conference in November, 2024, in Chicago. The preliminary analyses indicates that we no longer live in a world where trust and distrust is a continuum with two alternatives. Trust in Canadian government has become a balance between justified and unjustified trust and mistrust. The result is four quadrants of justified trust, justified mistrust, unjustified trust, and unjustified mistrust. In an era of disinformation these four quadrants become very important and the Canadian researchers findings indicate that a significant portion of the citizenry in Canada moved into the unjustified mistrust quadrant, complicating any effort to gain trust of any type. As a U.S. citizen, I was provoked to wonder where the electorate has shifted and my guess is that those who refused to vote for Kamala Harris, even though she was much more qualified and credentialed, were substantially coming from an unjustified mistrust of current U.S. government. On the other hand, those who readily supported Donald Trump voted from an unjustified trust perspective - when the system has never worked for you, why wouldn't you vote for someone who calls out the failings of the current system and proclaims a new path forward?
Maya Angelou's quote "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time" transcends time and is particularly applicable to today. Trump denied knowledge of Project 2025, which had many elements related to education, and now they are now coming to pass - reducing the scope of the Education Department, dismantling and punishing those committed to divesity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and imposing policies and practices that threaten free expression under the guise of protecting Jewish students and scholars. When asked about the origin of sometimes baseless assertions, Trump cites "common sense" or that he's a very smart person. Albert Einstein's comment that "common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind before you reach eighteen" is perhaps applicable.
These reflections about Trump's 2nd coming will likely be updated and revised in the coming days as I continue to try to sort out what is happening. My concern in particular is identifying ways that will support a return to reason and trust in leadership and the systems that they oversee and use.
