Who Can You Trust?

Behind the tweets: Even in dark and uncertain times, we must overcome doubt—and forge ahead

Photo credit: Netflix.

In the Netflix drama Ozark, Marty and Wendy Byrde (Jason Bateman and Laura Linney) somehow keep their family alive, despite being surrounded by an erratic collection of hard-core criminals and violent, unhinged locals. Again and again, they are faced with the precarious predicament of needing to act boldly even when one wrong move might be their last. Who can they trust? Imagine trying to navigate a safe path while at the mercy of vicious Mexican drug lords, the whims of a murderous opium farmer and heroin-dealing mobsters, the self-serving demands of the FBI and even the felonious activities of your own family members.

Yes, Ozark is fiction and, honestly, how could anyone survive the day in, day out madness of their lives when surrounded by killers who don’t care if you live or die? Even if you somehow avoid a violent end, how could you possibly emerge with your sanity intact?

But beyond the classic dramatic device—toss ordinary people into extraordinary circumstances and see what happens—I think Ozark appeals because it doesn’t feel so disconnected from the world in which we find ourselves these days. What happened to the shared values and principles that used to hold us together? Is there a reliable safe harbor? And, perhaps most fundamentally, who can we really trust?

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It’s almost laughable to say that I don’t trust Mitch McConnell, Newt Gingrich and Bill Barr. Almost laughable, because each of them popped up this week to remind us of how they poison the body politic and make life in America more corrosive and dangerous. And that’s not a laughing matter.

There was Mitch, referring to the voting habits of Black Americans as compared with those of Americans. He later claimed he misspoke, but the damage was already done—one hopes providing fuel for Black Americans to not let this profoundly cynical man get the final word.

Steven Beschloss @StevenBeschloss

May Black Americans show Mitch McConnell who real Americans are in this year’s midterm elections.

Then there was Newt Gingrich, the nasty former Speaker of the House, who took his airtime on Fox News to threaten the January 6 House Select Committee and insist that a GOP takeover will put them all in danger. “The wolves are going to find out that they’re now sheep and they’re the ones who are in fact, I think, facing a real risk of jail for the kinds of laws they’re breaking​,” he said. Don’t trust Gingrich, but trust that he means what he says—and is not alone in his desire for retribution if the Republicans take back the majority.

Steven Beschloss @StevenBeschloss

Hear loud and clear when Newt Gingrich insists the Jan 6 House committee should be jailed if the GOP takes over. This is the hostility to the rule of law now driving the party that once dared to call itself the party of law and order.

As for Bill Barr, Donald Trump’s Roy Cohn, who departed from the DOJ on December 23 last year, he has a book coming out in early March and may imagine his exit weeks before the insurrection and full-scale coup attempt will absolve him of culpability. Anyone who was paying attention on March 24, 2019, when he released the four-page letter that misled Americans about the contents of the Mueller Report, knows this is not a man to trust.

Steven Beschloss @StevenBeschloss

Bill Barr may be testifying before the Jan 6 committee now, but where was he before January 6? Did he open his mouth and state the danger America was facing from the Big Lie and a coup plot? Did he serve the country? Nope. He praised Trump before slipping away.

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It’s probably no surprise to learn that Americans’ trust in government—and in virtually every public institution including schools, the presidency, the criminal justice system, even the military and particularly Congress—has declined. In July, Gallup reported a drop in confidence in 14 major institutions, with an average of 33 percent confidence. At the bottom of the list: Congress, in which a whopping 12 percent of Americans still have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence. As you might expect, trust in government typically swings one way or another for Republicans and Democrats based on which party is in power.

But given the announcement by 82-year-old Justice Stephen Breyer yesterday that he was retiring from the Supreme Court this year, one other number caught my eye: Trust in the Supreme Court has dropped to a historic low, down from 62 percent approval in 2001 to 40 percent this year. Remarkably, as recently as 2020, 58 percent of Americans approved of the job the court was doing. As Gallup noted, its poll was taken “shortly after the Supreme Court declined to block a controversial Texas abortion law.”

With President Biden committed to nominating a Black woman for the open seat on the bench, this may increase the confidence some Americans feels toward the land’s highest court, even if that selection will fail to shift its 6-3 conservative-to-liberal balance. Lacking expansion, it’s painfully hard to see how justice can be served when SCOTUS has become so blatantly partisan, especially with the addition under Trump of Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett.

To be sure, with the insertion of Barrett eight days before the 2020 election and the refusal by McConnell to give nominee Merrick Garland even a hearing 11 months before the 2016 election, it’s tough not to be cynical:

Steven Beschloss @StevenBeschloss

Awaiting Mitch McConnell statement that it's too close to the 2024 elections for Joe Biden to nominate a new SCOTUS justice.

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Perhaps it’s inevitable that the lack of trust has expanded doubts that our usual allies will come through this time. If you are a regular reader here, you know I was initially among the strong advocates of AG Garland, trusting that he had squarely sized up the dangerous moment facing the country, yet sadly have become more skeptical that he’s got the necessary fire to round up the perpetrators of January 6 at every level.

But the lesson from Ozark offers caution about tossing away all trust. We may be surrounded by untrustworthy people. We may have gotten stuck with a bad hand. But we have to do what we can, especially if the future looks bleak, to strengthen our allies, neutralize our opponents, use our wits—and forge ahead. The midterms beckon.