Get Caught Trusting Americans
Leaders don’t usually get in trouble for telling the truth. They get in trouble for not trusting people enough to handle it.
Take Covid. Trump knew it was airborne and serious, but he downplayed it. Maybe he thought panic would be worse, maybe he just didn’t want the blame. Either way, he kept the truth from us, and we paid for it. Fauci did something similar. At first, he said masks weren’t necessary, then flipped and pushed them hard. His excuse was that doctors needed them more. Fair point, but people felt misled and it opened the door for conspiracy theories to pour in.
The real problem isn’t just lying. It’s the assumption that the public can’t be trusted with the truth. That same fear shows up when people talk about a constitutional convention. A lot of folks admit our system’s busted. Congress is broken, elections need work, but when it comes to actually fixing it, everyone gets cold feet. What if it spins out of control? What if the people choose “wrong”? That’s just another way of saying: we don’t trust Americans to figure it out together.
But here’s the thing, we’ve been through worse. Wars, depressions, cultural battles. We make mistakes, but we learn, we fight, we adapt. We’re tougher than we’re given credit for.
So if leaders are going to err, they should err on the side of honesty. If they’re going to gamble, they should gamble on Americans.
Because in the end, it’s better to get caught trusting people than to get caught lying to them.