We can’t afford to lose more trust in government
Gather a group of Americans at a backyard BBQ this summer, say fifty of them. Watch the guests mill about, some fill their plates with potato salad and ribs, others grab a cold beer from the cooler. And then spot a small group, about eight people, standing by the dessert table, eyeing the pies.
Of the fifty guests at the party, these eight people spooning peach cobbler into bowls represent the proportion of Americans who say they trust the government all or most of the time, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Just 16 percent of Americans Pew surveyed in 2024 said they trusted the government to do the right thing just about always or most of the time, which was among the lowest measures in nearly seven decades of polling. Back in 1958, about three-quarters of Americans trusted the federal government to do the right thing almost always or most of the time. That is a precipitous decline. And with recent attacks on the US government’s nonpartisan, fact- based institutions, this number is likely to further decline.
Whether you cheer President Trump’s actions or abhor them, it’s hard to argue that the assault on the legitimacy of government data will make Americans trust the government more. Data, as the adage goes, don’t lie. But of course, how data are used, how recent they are, and the context underlying the data being reported, are all vital to using data responsibly. Trusting the source has never been more important given the many outlets Americans engage to consume news through today.
Partisanship has steeply risen in the last decade. In 2025 it’s possible for two people to read the same news story and come away with an entirely different view of it depending on where they read about it. Facts are spun. Data are manipulated to suit the source’s agenda.
Objectivity is in short supply. A trusted set of facts is becoming harder and harder to find.
As Republican Senator Rand Paul said in a recent interview, “We have to look somewhere for objective statistics. When the people providing the statistics are fired, it makes it much harder to make judgments that, you know, the statistics won’t be politicized. You can’t really make the numbers different or better by firing the people doing the counting.”
When “fact-based” organizations like the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Congressional Research Service, the Government Accountability Office or any of the many other nonpartisan government agencies whose job it is to provide credible facts to the American people are accused of being unreliable due to partisanship, Americans no longer know who to look to for credible information.
Why does this matter?
If a functioning society were a house, the erosion of trust in the institutions of government is akin to a large and growing crack in the foundation of the building. Eventually the building will collapse if the foundation is too badly compromised.
We live in a politically charged era. We have a provocative president willing to use shock and outrage as a tool. Social media exacerbates our divisions. Attacking the few remaining sources of credible government data will worsen the crisis of public trust in government when we can least afford it.
Article first posted on GovIntegrity.