A government that fails to win

the trust of the people is

doomed to fail. Comment
Author: Junwei

School: Hwa Chong Institution

Year Written: 2020

Grade: 36

The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election seemed to defy all previous political
norms. The incumbent seeking a second term, Donald Trump, treated the
dignity and credibility of his office with utter disregard, posting and sharing
fake news stories that included assertions that Obama was born in Kenya or
that Biden had dementia, from both his private and public social media
accounts. Despite this, he came within 42000 votes of securing another term,
out of more than 100 million cast. It seems that the conventional wisdom
regarding trust and governance is no longer valid, and that a government
could possibly be able to stay in power even if it loses the trust of the people.
Given technological advancements allowing a greater degree of information
control and the rise of political polarisation, while a government that loses trust
might suffer electorally, it is by no means guaranteed to fail.

The most direct way a loss of trust from the people damages the
government’s standing is through slumping electoral fortunes. As citizens no
longer believe the government is accountable or honest in the intentions of its
legislation, it would be natural for citizens to seek a replacement. After all, are
honestly and accountability not the most valued virtues in public service,
where so much is at stake? That was the case, for example in the 2008
Presidential Election in Taiwan. Sitting president Chen Shui Bian’s Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP) had been in power for 8 years, but those 8 years had
seen an unbroken string of corruption allegations against high-ranking
ministers, including Chen himself. Voters’ trust of Chen’s government was at
an all-time low and to no one’s surprise, the DPP was swept out in 2008,
losing the presidency and their majorities in Parliament. However, just
because Chen’s government was defeated in a landslide does not mean it
was a complete failure. An electoral failure, perhaps, but slipping in the
opinion polls did not prevent Chen from continuing to push through legislation,
from broadening democratic reforms in what was then still a young
democracy, launching further investments into computer technologies that
gave Taiwanese companies a slice of the pie in lucrative industries like image
processors or chip manufacturing. It is naive to suggest that garnering popular
support is the only measure of a government’s success and even if a
government’s poll numbers slide due to to a major scandal, it does not destroy
their ability to govern and render them ineffective. Although it must be
conceded that a government who has lost trust may find it harder to have the
people accept its policies as legitimate, such effects are ephemeral and have
little bearing when policies see fruition in the future, where any scandal is
likely forgotten. Overall, a loss in trust might reduce a government’s ability to
govern, but does not mean it will definitely fail at governing, despite the
electoral implications.

Another way governments can remain in power if it cannot gain the people’s
trust is by stifling dissent. Although democracy is the prevalent form of
government in today’s world, let us not forget that autocracies nonetheless
persist. In such places, the concept of press freedom or freedom of
expression is laughable. Without such liberties, even if a government loses
trust of the people, the dissidents are unable to coordinate in public via
protests or uprisings of the sort. As such, there is little avenue for the
government to be punished for its ‘trust-losing actions’, as the traditional way
of doing so, via elections, has been gutted. Do North Koreans have faith in
their government? Hard to tell, given the amount of brainwashing they face on
a daily basis, but likely not, given how their standards of living have stagnated
at Third World levels, with starvation and poverty a feature of daily life for
many. However, some might argue that being able to remain in power does
not mean a government is not a failure. Instead, it is contended that such
governments have failed to be deemed credible and lost its position of
legitimacy, which could be the greatest failure of all, to fail to be recognised by
the people. But it is difficult to prove that such an impression can last. Citizens
are fickle, poorly-informed for the most part and have an irritating habit of
‘forgiveness’. Putin, the Russian President, has been in power for a decade
and the protests against him and his anti-democratic regime, most recently
over the imprisonment of opposition leader Navalny. But such protests have
come and gone, yet Putin is still there. The Russian people seem just as
concerned about the economy as human rights, as the protests seem to
always coincide with periods of economic downturn or drops in price of oil, a
major export. As long as Putin keeps the economy going strong, his approval
ratings and trust numbers go up. The conclusion from this is that any loss of
trust is not permanent and governments can recover and are not doomed to
fail if they have lost trust.

Finally, the rise in partisanship has also made it more difficult for governments
to fail even if it is deemed untrustworthy. Essentially, people might just stop
caring about credibility and more about politics. That is the trend of increased
partisanship seen in some parts of the world, where voting for the party of
one’s views is more important than voting for the candidate with better
character (who is therefore more likely to win trust). Such political tribalism
means that losing or winning the people’s trust becomes less relevant to
governance, as a government’s legitimacy, credibility and electoral support
becomes tied to how many conservatives and liberals answer opinion polls
and vote, not politicians’ character. A concerning example of this was in the
2019 UK General Election where Prime Minister Boris Johnson handily beat
Labour, led by Jeremy Corbyn, even though Corbyn’s trustworthiness,
according to some polls, was 30 percentage points higher. In the aftermath of
Brexit, Corbyn’s pro-EU stance was simply a bad read of the public mood and
too much to bear for many swing voters, causing them to support Johnson,
who was determined to see Brexit through. It did not matter whether voters
believed Johnson was truthful. They only cared who was for Brexit, which
happened to be Johnson, who went on to win the election. Voters put too
much stake into their own political opinions for peripheral factors like trust to
influence their vote at all in these cases, leading governments who might not
be seen as trustworthy to continue to govern due to essentially blind support
from the people.

Regardless of increased political polarisation, or attempts to stifle dissent, it

should be agreed that losing trust is not a good thing to happen to any
government. Electoral losses, the most direct way for citizens’ displeasure to
be heard, are still incurred for most governments and even though Trump only
lost 42000 or so votes, he still lost. The ultimate punishment for politicians –
losing power, while not the defining factor to whether a government is a failure
or not, is still significant.