me_irl

That was a short lived trust. Go back further and you had things like the Boer War, even further all the medieval wars of conquest in Europe. It used to be that medieval peasants had just as much to worry about with their own “friendly” soldiers as with the enemy soldiers, since both sides in a war would pillage the countryside in order to gather food and resources for the army.

Trusting the government is a modern invention. In some cases it’s justified, but it should never be an unconditional trust.

The best sort of trust comes from knowing what the incentives are for all parties involved. If everyone is behaving rationally, then you can trust those whose incentives align with your own. One of the big issues we have right now is an outbreak of extremely irrational and erratic behaviour.