Breath-taking Selfishness

One overlooked aspect of the rise of mistrust in all institutions that we seem to be living through is the selfishness of those who are cynically taking advantage of it for their personal and political gain, foremost among them the leadership of the Republican Party.

Our monetary and financial systems, the scientific research community, and democratic institutions large and small depend on a basic level of trust to operate, and as a consequence, so does our civilization. And yet we hear that pens at polling places can’t be trusted, our local pizza parlor is a locus for child sex abuse rings, and climate disruption is a hoax; no one can be trusted. Sewing these seeds of distrust is no small thing, and it threatens to bring about paralysis and chaos at a time when we face major challenges.

No one is more selfish in this regard than our disgraced former president. His poisonous example, and those abetting him and riding this tsunami for their own personal and political ends are more dangerous than we may realize. They belong in jail, but we still have a democracy, and it’s not too late to vote out those who would destroy us, including those who would deny the validity of our elections who now run for secretary of state that would oversee election results and other key administrative and leadership positions. It is not an exaggeration to say that our civilization relies on the trust they are undermining. They must be stopped.

Note: This was submitted for publication as a letter to the editor to the Boston Globe but not accepted for publication.