Wanton Destruction--The Decimation of Trust

My recent personal loss has kept my mind pretty well removed from what is happening in our country and in the world. The only way I can describe it is "wanton destruction". I will leave it to others and to history to asessthe economic damage that is being done by the tariffs, but I have to record the wanton harm and in some cases destruction of our most important institutions, including our universities, funding agencies for research and foreign aid. But my greatest concern in the wanton destruction that is being carried out by this diabolical president is the destruction of trust. Trust among our allies is decimated. Trust among workers is decimated. Trust within institutions, for example, university professors’ trust in the administration to have their back; that, too, is decimated. Alongside this decimation of trust is the establishment by Trump of a culture of “dog eat dog,” a zero-sum game. This is true of our relations with other countries. All of the cooperation that was necessary to create the economic abundance and peace of the last 75 years has been torn to ribbons. It will be a long time getting it back. To be sure, there was change, in some cases radical change, that needed to be made in our relations with other countries in terms of having a fair and balanced playing field, in our government structures, and in getting rid of needless regulation and waste. The same kind of issues that exist in a corporation like Procter & Gamble that require determined and brave correction. But they cannot and have not been undertaken in the past, referring again to Procter & Gamble, in a way that undermined trust among the employees, that created a zero-sum game, and that threw integrity in honoring past commitments out the window. There is going to be enormous pain here. I believe it will result in a recalibration of trade terms. Trump will claim victory. Victory it will not be. For whatever the outcome, the trust has been shattered. It will have to be re-earned by a strong leader pursuing actions that honor the primacy of our nation’s interests, but that recognizes that those interests can only be served by active collaboration with allies and all key countries on matters of existential interest that require global collaboration, including climate change and nuclear proliferation.