To the editor,

Many have dreaded the arrival of 2024, fearing the political violence and unrest that may result from our present toxically divided state. As we enter the new year, I’ve been reflecting on a thought from the historian Tony Judt about the importance of trust in our institutions and in each other.

In his book Ill Fares the Land, Judt makes the observation that “The more equal a society, the greater the trust.” Judt notes that societies where there is greater trust function more effectively at maintaining the basic services that guarantee well-being, peace, and stability.  

Where there is more economic equality, citizens act more cooperatively and therefore get more done to positively advance the common good. European countries such as Sweden, the Netherlands, and Austria presently excel at this.  

However, those countries have relatively small populations and are more culturally homogenous than ours. It appears to be baked into human nature that people tend to trust those who are more like themselves. This is a problem especially for a racially diverse society like ours.

Under the stress of our current dividedness, our national government is now functioning at an extremely low level. Traditional congressional collegiality has broken down, with physical scuffles on the floor and minimal legislative action to show for the past year. 

We can see that with the growing economic inequality of American society and an increasingly diverse population, a widespread distrust of each other is intensifying. So what can we do to make our country work better for all of its communities and avoid catastrophic collapse of our democracy?

Among other things, when we go to the polls this year, we can be mindful of electing trust-builders rather than dividers. A productive and just future calls for leaders who can inspire disparate groups of Americans to come together in common purpose. If not, we stand to lose some essential glue that holds us together despite our differences. We all need to work on being trustworthy and responsible in our role as citizens, and we desperately need leaders who can help us trust and, yes, even like each other a little more.

Thomas R. Smith

River Falls