by 
We base a lot of what we know about a person on two different things: how they appear and our experience with them. This can be in a person we meet, a restaurant where we choose to eat, or a product we purchase. People work hard at creating a good reputation, putting off positive experiences and presentations, with the hopes of convincing you to trust them. Influencers were around way before YouTube!
Take, for instance, the picture on the right. The clean look of the kitchen, the cheery smile… you can almost smell the homemade cookies on the stove. The picture gives off an image that you could trust food made by this person– and you got that from an AI-generated picture!
In politics, I’ve always been hung up on the issue of trust. The first Presidential election I could vote in featured President Bill Clinton running against Republican Bob Dole. Dole lost that one, but when President George W. Bush won in 2000, I was happy– until I realized one of the very specific truths of politicians– they all say whatever they can to get elected.
Former President Bush, running as a “compassionate conservative” governed more like a centrist or a democrat. Riding the national unity after 9/11, he didn’t accomplish much of why I voted for him– pro-life, less Federal Government, etc. Instead, we saw further government intrusion in our lives, tax increases, and the like. I found that I was now skeptical of all politicians (which is healthy), and figured that almost all of their promises would never happen.
The only person that I believed could be different was Former President Trump. I figured that his ego and the fact that he was self-financing his election meant that he wasn’t bought, wouldn’t have IOUs that people would collect on when he got into office, and so he would generally stick to what he said he would do. I’m less convinced of this for a second term, because he will not face voters again, but his ego is still there.
There’s no way that he’s earned my trust in other areas. He’s had multiple wives, and can’t be trusted on family values. He’s willing to make deals on many things, which is a power and a weakness. He has all sorts of court cases that he’s fighting, which may be overzealous prosecution but also might be legit. And it’s bad when the only reason that you feel you can trust him on something is that the other person seems to have a worse character.
So, who can we trust? We can trust God– he never fails and he is in charge of all things. And we should work to be people that others can trust– be dependable, reliable, men and women of character. People should be able to use both metrics– visual and experiential– to know that we are people that can be trusted.
