The trust collapse came first, the hyper-polarization came second. Trust collapsed in the mainstream following the Iraq War, bank bailouts, etc. in the 2000s.

The trust collapse came first, the hyper-polarization came second. Trust collapsed in the mainstream following the Iraq War, bank bailouts, etc. in the 2000s. The problem really goes all the way back to Vietnam, Watergate, the credible suspicion around the JFK and MLK assassinations that was never addressed, etc. Things really started to go off the rails in the 1960s but it took until the 2000s for the bottom to fall out. Trump is just an opportunistic grifter taking advantage of this.