Can You Trust Anybody?
The president, the media, experts—all that’s left is our new sages, ‘influencers.’
By Andy Kessler
Joe Biden, flanked by Kamala Harris, attends a briefing at the White House in Washington, Jan. 9. Photo: evelyn hockstein/ReutersWho can you trust anymore?
Just before leaving office, President Biden railed against a “tech-industrial complex” claiming, “The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit.”
Hmmm, was he referring to the coverup of his own health decline and the sharp-as-a-tack charade?
Can we trust presidents?
The press?
Anyone?
We’re told to trust the process.
Trust the system.
Even trust the science.
Trust always starts with a belief in truth and adds in a little integrity, reliability and character.
Often, it’s more faith than belief.
Being trustworthy is the first attribute of Boy Scout Law.
How quaint.
We’re told to trust “experts.”
I like to say, “I trust them about as far as I can throw them.”
In 1964, according to Pew Research, 77% of Americans trusted the government to do what is right.
Around that time, the Free Speech Movement’s Jack Weinberg coined the phrase, “Don’t trust anyone over 30.”
Maybe that was the start of trust’s decline.
Lately, 22% of Americans trust government.
Ouch.
Lockdowns, social distancing, masks and school closings didn’t help.
Neither did the Hunter Biden laptop coverup.
“Donald Trump” and “trust” rarely cohabitate the same sentence.
Ask Elon Musk.
The president has done some smart things and plenty of dumb ones.
But on optics—which leads to trust or superficial trust anyway—he’s failed.
The Trump administration’s crypto hustle, going after political enemies and Middle East deals don’t signal trustworthiness.
Are 747s the new political-action committees?
Once lost, trust is hard to regain.
Technology amplifies mistrust.
Google’s new text-to-video system, Veo 3, enabled a strikingly realistic fake-news broadcast, with an artificial-intelligence-generated talking head saying, “The White House announces AI will now write all press briefings to ensure 100% factual incomprehensibility.”
That sounds about right.
In 1994, Ukraine trusted Russia enough to send its nuclear weapons there for dismantling.
No one will make that mistake again.
ABC News’s Terry Moran asked Mr. Trump about Vladimir Putin, “Do you trust him?”
The president replied, “I don’t trust you.”
Great deflection, but an answer would be nice.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s recent Make America Healthy Again report was filled with inaccuracies and fake references.
It sure smells like AI wrote it.
And playing on such conspiracies as fluoride, red dye and seed oil combusts trust.
In the finance world, we have trusts to hold assets and trustees to manage them for beneficiaries.
That’s a lot of trust.
According to White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly, “President Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children.
There are no conflicts of interest.”
Notice she didn’t say “blind trust,” which is the norm for presidents.
Many in government, and sadly in finance, live by the expression “no conflict, no interest.”
The press is another trust bust.
Believe it or not, in the 1970s more than 70% of Americans trusted the media “a great deal” or “a fair amount.”
Thanks to things like the Russian collusion and “mostly peaceful protests,” that trust hit a record low of 31% in 2024.
A self-inflicted wound.
No question that “has trust issues” describes Generation Z.
As far as I can tell, they mostly don’t trust themselves, what with their made-up problems like decision anxiety.
So who do people trust?
In perfect symmetry to media trust, a colossal 69% of today’s consumers trust influencer recommendations.
Influencers!
Trust Mr. Beast, Khaby Lame and PewDiePie?
Let alone Kylie Jenner?
As far as you can throw them!
And speaking of influencers, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said about young folks last month, “They don’t really make life decisions without asking ChatGPT what they should do.”
That might be the ultimate hallucination.
A New Yorker headline asks, “Can Sam Altman Be Trusted With the Future?”
First, that’s a tad presumptuous.
And second, heck no.
In our hyper-interconnected world, all you have is your reputation—others’ trust in you.
It’s precious and easy to lose.
Guard it like the crown jewels.
Maybe the tech-industrial complex can rescue its own trust. Professors are now armed with AI detectors.
There’s even AI to help fact-check AI.
Let’s insist on watermarks for all AI-generated photos and videos.
Trust is like blood.
You can’t go through life without trusting family, friends, traffic signs and maybe even warning labels.
Still, I’ve always liked the Ronald Reagan idiom: Trust but verify.
That’s hard to square with “In God We Trust” written all over our currency.
But faith is part of it.
Someone online wrote, “Trust is belief tinged with optimism.”
Pretty good.
But hope isn’t a game plan.
Be skeptical.
Don’t be influenced.
Vindicate and substantiate.
Trust me on this.
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