On Trust …

Posted on by under Global Issues, Political commentary, Social commentary

On Christmas Eve, Trump tweeted …Trump-tweet.pngThe reactions from ‘round the globe told the true story …

Definitiv nicht! Grüße aus Deutschland! (Translation:  Definitely not!  Greetings from Germany)

Nope

By whom?

Hahaha that was so funny with a baby president can never be respected

Ha ha, Na mate you are mistaken!

As an European, I assure you it is not

Only when the all caps unstable President is gone.

Australia says nope.

Really?  Did you resign?

Hi.  Ireland here.  Nope.

America will not be respected as long as Trump is in office. Resign.

And many more … 68,000+ comments, in fact, and as far as I could tell (obviously I did not read all 68,000!) not a single one was positive.  While I could pick Trump’s two years apart and come up with hundreds, perhaps even thousands of reasons why Trump has, in fact, cost us the respect we may have once had, in the long run it all boils down to one single word:  trust.trust-1Trust, along with respect, is the single most important element of any relationship, whether it is husband/wife, parent/child, friends, or on a grander scale leader/citizens.  Without trust, a marriage will crumble, and by the same token a nation will fail if the people cannot trust their leader and if other nations cannot trust the one.  The people of the United States cannot trust Donald Trump, nor those politicians who, elected to represent us are in fact acting in a manner contrary to our best interest.

Donald Trump has broken our trust in every conceivable way.  It’s quite an accomplishment, really, that he has not once told us the truth, has not once acted in the best interests of our nation, of our citizens, of our allies.  The odds were that he would accidentally do something right, make a true statement, somewhere along the line during his two-year tenure, but he defied the odds.

It is a terrible thing when the citizens of a country cannot trust an elected leader, and perhaps an even worse thing when no nation on earth trusts this country.  Think about that one … we have let our allies down in a number of ways, and Trump has talked down to and denigrated the leaders of many of the nations who were once our trusted friends:  Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, UK.  He allies himself, instead, with nations that we should never turn our back on:  Russia and Turkey.

Trust.  It is earned.  Or not.  Trust can take years to be built and strengthened and can be destroyed by sometimes a single lie.  How many lies has Trump told?  Last I heard, based on a couple of different fact-checkers, he had misled or outright lied to the American people more than 5,000 times … in under two years!  Must be some sort of a record.

Today, a large part of the government is shut down because Trump lied about his “big, beautiful wall” that “Mexico will pay for”.  Those of us who are capable of coherent thought knew that Mexico was never going to pay for the wall, but Trump kept saying it and his followers kept believing.  And now, he is asking us to pay for the wall that most of us do not want and for which there is no need.

Trust.  It is so easily broken.  Trump broke the trust of our allies when he announced he would pull the U.S. out of the Paris Accord.  He further broke their trust when he failed to renew the Iran nuclear agreement.  He has denigrated our allies and NATO.  And now … he is pulling out of Syria and Afghanistan in a move that will further de-stabilize the Middle East and leave our allies to try to keep the peace.

No.  America is not “respected again”.  We have less respect now than … perhaps ever in the history of our nation.  We broke the trust of the rest of the world, and Trump has broken our trust.

“The glue that holds all relationships together–including the relationship between the leader and the led–is trust, and trust is based on integrity.” –Brian Tracy

“Leadership requires five ingredients–brains, energy, determination, trust, and ethics. The key challenges today are in terms of the last two–trust and ethics.” –Fred Hilmer

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29 thoughts on “On Trust …”

  2. Jill, as you note trust is earned. Accountability and responsibility are vital traits in a leader, as well. President Harry Truman said “the buck stops here.” President Donald Trump blames people right and left.

    It saddens me to say I do not believe a word the US President says. Since the birther issue, I have had little respect for the man. But, I did not realize how untruthful the man is until he ran for office. Keith

    Liked by 1 person

    • Quite so … he takes credit, even where it isn’t his to take, and shuns responsibility, even when it is 100% his own. He lacks a few things besides honesty … integrity, honour, values, compassion, trustworthiness. I could go on, but I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. The question now is … how do we unseat him before he destroys not only this nation, but the rest of the world as well?

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      • Jill, maybe we should overwhelm all media outlets and Members of Congress with news of the 68,000 plus comments in reaction to his patting himself on the back.

        If someone ever did a truthful statue of him, it would be patting himself on the back. There are other more anatomically impossible poses that would suit, but the patting himself on the back captures his ego. Keith

        Liked by 1 person

        • That’s not a bad idea!

          Anytime I think of a statue of him, I think of it in the image I often use of him bent over, golf club in hand, ready to take a swing, with his belly hanging halfway to his knees! Roger loves that one … calls it “ol’ wobble-belly” 😉

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  3. To many in the UK he is seen as a symbol for all that is wrong in the world. I hate using the word but a clown, a clown to match our own Boris Johnson. But here comes the scary bit. Only 2 world leaders have backed Brexit. Trump and Putin. He is seen by many in the government including May as a necessary evil, someone we can do business with. A strong friend like Saudi Arabia. Now it’s time to return to behind the sofa and hope this terrible dream goes away.

    Liked by 1 person

    • I began calling him a clown back in 2015, before the presidential election season was even in full-swing. The first time, I think it was because he looked like a clown, with his orange hair and white makeup under his eyes, orange-y skin, and grotesque facial expressions. Later, I continued to call him a clown because he acts like one. I have also frequently referred to him as a snake-oil salesman. And a few other choice names 😉 I hope … I believe … that Ms. May is savvy enough to know not to ever turn her back on Trump, for he has no integrity and would just as soon stab one of his own kids in the back as not. Same can likely be said for Mohammed bin Salman. Okay … go back behind the sofa now 🙂

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  4. President Ronald Reagen often used the Russian Proverb : “Trust, but verify.” In matters concerning Trump, that requires 24 hour surveillance of every word tweeted or spoken. Every time that he says “believe me”, don’t! Just before reading this post, I was reading the GoodNewsNetwork’s Morning Jolt of Good News. I usually read it inbetween the bad news of the day. At the beginning was a quote from Benjamin Franklin, that Trump would do well to adhere to : “Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors and let every new year find you a better man.” Thank-you! Total aside…do check out the GoodNewsNetwork of today with the column by McKinley Corbley titled “When Man Finds Balloon With Girl’s Christmas List”…(a really good people that you will love)!

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    • Trump is, in my opinion, beyond hope. He won’t listen to any advice and is thoroughly convinced that he is smarter and knows more than anyone else in the nation. With that attitude, he cannot be helped and needs to be removed from the office to which he NEVER should have been elected! I bookmarked the article to read later on when I am finished with my work. Thanks!!!

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    • No way … some have words bigger than four letters! But seriously, with each of his tweets getting thousands of replies, I seriously doubt he or anybody else reads more than a sampling of them, if that. I imagine they are scanned electronically, though, for certain words that might indicate a threat. I try to be careful when I throw out the occasional angry response to watch what I say and how I say it. 😉 I’d rather not be interrogated by the Fibs!

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  6. Trump is not liked in Europe but that can be overcome as there have been other Presidents disliked in the past (though not as much) what can’t be overcome is the lack of trust in his word or the lack of respect for his style of leadership. The man is deranged and should not be in post.
    xxx Cwtch xxx

    Liked by 1 person

    • You are quite right … it isn’t about whether he is likable/personable or not, but whether he has integrity, values … whether he can be trusted and relied on. He fails in all those areas. There are actually days when I think that the best thing for the entire globe would be for Kim to drop a nuke on the White House and clean out the entire den of evil beings. He should not be in the post, but it is a sign of the foolishness of people these days that he was placed there.

      xxx Cwtch xxx

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  7. I’m so glad you wrote this post, Jill, because yesterday, I thought I was going mad. I checked someone out on Twitter and found retweet after retweet from someone who basically said that the people of the UK and France were cheering Trump and….they hadn’t cheered for Obama.

    I was so gobsmacked by this complete reversal of the truth that I had to re-read the same tweet, multiple times to make sure I wasn’t going nuts. The world admired and respected Obama. What we think of Trump probably shouldn’t be expressed in polite society. 😦

    I can only assume that Fox news has given up all pretense of truth telling and is now just vomiting propaganda to the faithful. :/

    Liked by 2 people

    • I have no doubt that there are some in the EU and UK who do cheer Trump and hated Obama … those would be the followers of Geert Wilders, Marine LePen, Boris Johnson, Norbert Hofer, et al. But the majority of those across the pond see clearly that Trump is a madman out to destroy the U.S. and its role in the world, and while Obama made mistakes for sure, they basically respected him and understood that he was trying to do the right thing.

      More and more, there is no longer such a thing as ‘polite society’, just as ‘civil discourse’ has slipped into the annals of history. Sigh. What will the world look like in another 20 years? I’m almost thankful that I won’t be here to see it.

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  9. Obviously Trumpmandias is living in a dream world with his gullible psychophants and otherwise followers. And he does not care one whit about anyone else. The world can rot at his feet, and he will sing the funeral dirges loud and joyfully. Long Live King Donald. I offer him a cup of egg nog to enjoy, liberally laced with hemlock.

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