New York Times Columnist ‘Can’t Even Imagine’ Not Trusting The Government

During a recent appearance on PBS, a New York Times columnist stated that he “can’t even imagine” the “mindset” of distrusting the government.

New York Times columnist David Brooks made the out-of-touch comments during a Friday appearance on PBS NewsHour, where he brought up the sharp decline in the percentage of Americans who trust the government to “do the right thing most of the time.”

According to data from Pew Research, which appears to be what Brooks is citing, roughly 75% of Americans in the 1960s reported that they trusted the government to do the right thing “most of the time.” In 2022, only 19% of Americans reported trusting the government to do the right thing “most of the time” — with an additional 2% believing that the government does the right thing “just about always.”

Discussing this data, Brooks bizarrely cited the “glorious and inspiring” architecture of Washington, D.C., and wondered how Americans could look at that and think that it is “full of monsters.”

“Well, to me, the number one most important statistic in my life covering this stuff has been, two generations ago, you asked people, do you trust government to do the right thing most of the time? And 75% said, yes,” he explained. “And now, what is it, 12%, 19%? It bounces around, but it’s phenomenally low.”

“And so, imagine walking around the city where I live in Washington, D.C., looking at all — what I think of as glorious and inspiring buildings, and thinking, that’s full of monsters, all that’s illegitimate, it’s all a fraud,” Brooks continued. “To me, I can’t even imagine that mindset, to be honest.”

He went on to acknowledge that a lot of “things” have happened in the past few decades that have caused Americans to lose their trust in government — though he did not elaborate on what those incidents were — and admitted that the distrust “probably is justified.”

“But it is a mindset that a lot of people have, and, frankly, because of things that have happened over the last 30 or 40 years, a lot of people feel is justified. It probably is justified, because of the failures of a lot of things that have happened in this country over that time.”

Declining public trust has been a major issue on both sides of the aisle for some time now, especially under the Biden administration — with many people expressing concern about the growth of the weaponized and politicized federal agencies under President Joe Biden.