“Gradually, Then Suddenly:” The Collapse of Civic Trust
“How did you go bankrupt?”
“Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”
- Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
Trust in America has followed a similar trajectory: gradual erosion over decades, then abrupt collapse under the weight of political polarization, social fragmentation, and institutional failure.
At the recent Trust in Practice Summit, convened by the Alliance for Social Trust at the Aspen Institute and the Allstate Foundation, leaders from across sectors gathered to confront this reality. The summit emphasized that (re)building trust requires more than acknowledgment; it demands intentional, sustained work that addresses the structural and social roots of distrust.
The latest Pew Research Center report, Americans’ Trust in One Another (May 2025), affirms what many already feel:
Only 34% of Americans believe most people can be trusted, virtually unchanged since 2016.
64% say most people can’t be trusted at all.
Among young adults (18-29), trust drops to just 26%. For adults over 65, it’s 44%.
Trust levels vary sharply by income, education, geography, and perceptions of safety and belonging.
Even within the same cities, zip codes, or neighborhoods, access to green space, housing, and community life plays a major role.
People are far more likely to trust those they perceive as similar, racially, politically, and educationally.
In other words, trust behaves like a public good, but its distribution is anything but equal.
For many Americans, especially younger generations and historically marginalized communities, the call to “rebuild trust” rings hollow. Trust isn’t being restored for them; it’s being imagined for the first time.
We often treat trust as if it’s singular, stable, and retrievable, something we can bring back with the right message or initiative. But trust is deeply contextual and relational. It’s not built through statements or strategy decks. It’s built in the everyday:
Whether your neighborhood feels safe
Whether your newsfeed feels honest
Whether your vote feels like it matters
Whether anyone ever truly listened to your story
And perhaps most critically: trust is shaped by politics, and politics are shaped by trust.
And perhaps most critically: trust is shaped by politics, and politics are shaped by trust. Our democratic choices, institutions, and civic behaviors don’t exist apart from trust; they’re built on it, and often unravel without it.
That’s why trust isn’t just a social virtue, it’s the foundation of self-governance. Without it, even the best-designed institutions can’t function as intended.
What we need now is a new social contract. One that recognizes trust not as a byproduct of programs or policies, but as civic infrastructure in its own right. One that values proximity, relationship, and repair as much as innovation and scale.
This means funding what’s already working – quietly, relationally, and locally. It means shifting how we define success, from rapid outcomes to lasting connections. And it means designing systems that are accountable not only to impact metrics, but to the people whose trust they seek to earn.
Because if trust is essential to democracy, then building and sustaining it must be treated as a strategic, moral, and long-term commitment, not a crisis response.
