We do not trust the most powerful people in our country. Let that sink in. We do not trust the people calling the shots.
In a June 2015 Fox poll, only 47 percent of voters said they thought President Obama was honest and trustworthy.
Obama is not the first president the U.S. doesn’t trust.
Ulysses S. Grant and the Whiskey Ring scandal, Richard Nixon and Watergate and Ronald Reagan and the Iran-Contra scandal are prominent examples of corruption at the presidential level. The list goes on and on.
It’s hard to imagine the majority of Americans once trusted the government. Only 13 percent of Americans trust the government to do the right thing most of the time, according to CNN. In 1972, 53 percent of Americans trusted the government, but by 1974, that percentage plummeted to 36 percent in the wake of Watergate.
Nixon’s involvement in the scandal and the subsequent coverup shattered Americans’ image of the government as a trustworthy entity. This scandal drastically changed how Americans relate to the government.
Mistrusting the most powerful organization in the world is now a normal practice for its citizens.
Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton is getting a head start on deceiving the American people, with her private emails continuing to make headlines. She used a private server for her emails as Secretary of State, and two inspectors general found 150 emails to be classified, as originating from intelligence agencies. The records on her personal server were not under government control. She deleted 31,000 emails she said were personal.
Clinton argued what she did wasn’t illegal. The State Department allowed her use of a private server, Clinton said in a statement. She also said the classified emails were not marked as such when she received them. It is quite possible she didn’t break the law, but she broke something else of great value: America’s trust.
A Quinnipiac University poll showed 61 percent of Americans don’t think Clinton is honest and trustworthy.
Trustworthiness should be one of the most important, if not the most important, factor in selecting a presidential candidate.
Until recently, Clinton thought she could brush off the email scandal. She’s made jokes and avoided answering questions, but it isn’t going away.
Clinton was a first lady, a senator and secretary of state. She is a career politician. But is that what we really need?
Do we need someone who is trained to say the right thing instead of being genuine?
Do we need someone who prioritizes her political allies over her voters?
Do we need someone who is a product of the very entity we don’t trust?
If Clinton is elected, I fear we’ll have another four to eight years of Americans whining about dishonesty.
We need to pay attention to who is genuine and not just politically correct. I don’t mean Donald Trump’s crude and rude way of speaking, rather transparency and honesty. It doesn’t matter if a candidate’s policies align with our own beliefs if we can’t trust them to implement the policies we elected them for.
Caitlyn Atkinson is an 18-year-old mass communication sophomore from Pride, Louisiana. You can reach her on Twitter @catkin105.