It’s everywhere—MSNBC asks, “Can Hillary Clinton Overcome Trust Issues?” Kimberly Atkins, of the Boston Herald, says that Clinton is “going to have to do a lot better…if she’s ever going to convince voters she’s trustworthy.” The New York Times posts headlines about Clinton struggling to overcome a “trust deficit.”

    Anyone can see that Americans are particularly interested in the issue of trust. It’s natural, of course. Trust is an integral part of how our society functions. We get by on the assumption that others will look out for us. Friendships, families, banks, transactions, everything is built on the concept of trust. It’s easy to want to put that same faith in our elected officials. Assuming that this is a key quality to a candidate, however, is in fact missing the point entirely.

     America’s government is the sole exception to this standard of trust. In an absurd contrast to literally everything else in society, our ruling body functions based on an opposite principle. The founding fathers assumed that people are, in fact, self-centered sociopaths. Of course, Americans take pride in their system of checks and balances. They are something we regard as the keystone of our nation, the very thing that holds back the forces of tyranny. So at some level, we all understand that the constitution assumes our leaders to be dangerous. 

    Then we complain about whether a politician can be trusted. Really? Trust? Americans are failing to realize that the issue is not trust. It never has been. It is strange that while the American people prize their freedom and liberty, they espouse a need for trust, as if they are electing a dictator rather than a representative of the people. The American people are free, but they behave with authoritarian expectations.

    You want to complain about Hillary Clinton? Talk transparency. Of any of the Secretary’s failings, this is the most important, the one that America should really be discussing. Trust is for your friends, family, co-workers, and business partners. When you’re electing someone to be the leader of the most powerful nation on the planet, you can never really trust them. We never elect someone under the expectation that they’re just going to do what they want. The idea of democracy is that we don’t allow that.

    That’s why congress is allowed to deny a presidential veto, that’s why the judicial branch is allowed to declare legislation unconstitutional, that’s why presidents can be impeached. Trust was never in the equation when it came to government. What the founders wanted was a government that was fully visible to, and controllable by, the people.

    And this is where Hillary Clinton fails. Forget the emails, think about how she handled the fallout. Up until the very last minute, we heard nothing but denials. “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email,” Clinton said in March 2015. “There is no classified material.” This, as it was later discovered, was patently false. What’s important to note in this is her avoidance of the issue, however. To this day, she still claims that “Everything I did was permitted” when there are people who are very clearly concerned, permitted or not. The issue is not what actually happened, the issue is her failure to recognize, care, or even slightly understand the public’s concerns.

    So where does this begin to become a serious problem? Listen to Bernie Sanders–having attention laid on her speeches given to Goldman Sachs and other major Wall Street players, Clinton has refused to release transcripts. Such transcripts could reveal further ties with large banks, could demonstrate further her relationships with moneyed interests, and at the very least would shed light on the Secretary as a person. Yet she refuses. Such reluctance displays little concern for openness with the American people. When someone runs for President of the United States, particularly a United States with such massive wealth inequality issues, they must be upfront about their relations with the nation’s economic elite. America, as a democracy, cannot tolerate consolidation of power.

    So getting back on track, this is not to suggest that Hillary Clinton is colluding with Wall Street to control the American public. No, they’re probably not sitting in an underground lair, wearing top hats and twirling mustaches while laughing maniacally. But that doesn’t matter. Whether or not they are expressly evil is not the issue. In fact, that’s my point. We don’t elect leaders on the basis that we trust to do no wrong. We elect them on the basis that we watch their every move, and make sure that they are held responsible for their actions. We elect them on the basis that they will be removed from power if we find their actions unsatisfactory.
    This doesn’t work when politicians aren’t transparent. Hillary Clinton is at best resistant to transparency. So, when you talk about Hillary Clinton, don’t say she’s “untrustworthy.” Say that she’s untransparent. Trust never came into it. Take it from the fourth president of the United States, James Madison: “The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.”