How Do We Build Trust?
I spent part of the morning going back and forth with a woman who believes what she wants to believe and seeks information sources that reinforce her beliefs. She represents a growing challenge for our country’s future: trust (or a lack of it).
What she apparently doesn’t believe:
My reporting
Legacy media writ large
Law enforcement
Court system
2020 election results
Medical community
I’m not writing about this to ridicule her. Her beliefs matter. When she worked in a previous job, she and I would chat from time to time. I found her to be friendly, sincere and thoughtful. However, her messages to me over the past few years have taken a different tone. They are angry, accusatory and troll-ish. She seems like a different person.
She finds something online that alleges something dark and sinister about Democrats stealing the 2020 election, corporate media dictating local reporters to cover it up and COVID vaccines meant to control our lives. She is not alone.
What changes this? If only we could have had a true, earnest, month (s) long independent investigation into EVERYTHING…the 2020 election, how states conducted their elections, the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol Building, COVID 19…everything.
Or have the Congressional and myriad court cases already pursued all that can be investigated already? I honestly don’t know. What I know is that I haven’t seen definitive proof that widespread fraud changed the outcome of the presidential race. It’s been nearly 3 1/2 years. If fraud was so rampant that it changed the outcome, shouldn’t we have that proof by now?
Regardless, we have to increase trust in our process. Our future depends on it. But how do we do it? We need to figure this out.
TRUST THE AIRLINE? — Stay off my lawn! That’s what comes to mind when I bring this up. But…
We traveled to Florida to visit our family while our kids had Spring break. We arrived at the Des Moines Airport early and passed the time by talking with friends who were also on our flight.
It was time to board our flight and we noticed three things:
There was no agent at the gate.
There was no plane.
There was no updated departure time on the screen.
We later learned that there was one plane available…for two flights (One to Mesa and ours to St. Pete). Mesa got the flight. We got the delay. But we found out what was going on because we overheard the flight crew talking. The screen at the gate still said that our plane would be leaving on time.
We eventually arrived at our destination 3+ hours late.
Why can’t airlines regularly provide updates at the gate? Even if it’s only on the screen. I trust that they could if they really wanted to keep their customers updated. Yes, I know there are far more important things in life. But how hard is it to let us know what is happening?
DOESN’T TRUST HIS OLD BOSS — Former vice president Mike Pence went nowhere as a presidential candidate in this 2024 cycle. But he made a significant announcement this past week when he said that he will not endorse Donald Trump for president.
Will it convince other social conservatives that they should also support someone besides Trump? Someone other than Biden, too?
It’s hard to know how much sway Pence still has. But it’s quite a moment when a former vice president goes public to say that he doesn’t want a man — a man who previously chose him as his running mate — to become president again.
Paid subscribers can find out why Pence’s announcement could be part of a bigger strike against Trump’s candidacy.
WHAT ELSE: I had the week off from TV, so I don’t have TV stories to share here. But I did take a trip besides the Spring break to Florida. It was a trip down memory lane.
I talked with Joe Maxwell. More than two decades ago, I covered Maxwell when he was a state legislator in Missouri. These days, he is co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Farm Action. It’s a national advocacy group focused small family farmers and independent producers.
Maxwell explained why a revised ruling regarding labels on meat packages will be more honest. Watch that interview for American Farmland Owner here.
Meanwhile, I hope that you will also check out the latest work from other members of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. You can do that here.
Thanks for reading and thanks for your support.