Tomorrow? It is trust that will restore our faith

“Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.”

It has been 244 years since Thomas Paine wrote those words in a 50-page pamphlet called “Common Sense” — and I don’t know why I have continued to read that passage over and over.

I guess it is because I am deflated by what has happened over the last five weeks with COVID-19 and my trust in the country’s leadership has come crumbling down.

I don’t see common sense in any decision.

As the worst is allegedly behind us and we began to reopen the country, what the future holds and how different things will be is front and center on everyone’s mind.

And while the focus on America’s future is on what happens to businesses, education and entertainment, I am going to keep my focus on the need to restore trust in our government.

But to do that, you have to have trust in the system and its leadership — and for me, that trust has to be rebuilt because right now, it is badly bruised.

Over the last two months, I have tried to make sense of the mixed messages coming from the White House about COVID-19 even as the deaths mounted.

And since most of those messages have come via a live broadcast and are unscripted and unedited, I think we can all agree it has been a circus of confusion with conflicting messages.

I don’t know which message was scarier: health experts telling us what we needed to prevent infection and stay alive or the empty store shelves that couldn’t provide what could save us.

It’s hard to know what to believe but with more than a million people infected and more than 63,000 deaths as I write this, I am no longer listening because I feel I can no longer trust what is coming from the Oval Office.

That is a problem because we need to believe and trust in the people and the decisions that come from that room.

And whether it is true or not, there just seems to be a disregard for people’s welfare and an aura of politics and greed behind every decision out of the White House.

As an African American, I am particularly angry that it took weeks for the government to release information that was clear to the naked eye: that COVID-19 was disproportionately affecting black people.

I am not sure if that information would have altered the inevitable for many, but the fact that it took so long for it to be released to the public, is unsettling. To me, it just represented a different southern tree.

And that didn’t just happen on a national level. The White House can’t be blamed for Connecticut’s slow response to senior citizens inside nursing homes when preliminary research showed people over 60 were the most threatened.

And how in the world could our response to senior citizens inside nursing homes have been so slow when preliminary research showed people over 60 were the most threatened?

Here in Connecticut, COVID-19 has claimed the lives of 2,257 neighbors, friends and coworkers and another 27,000 are infected, as I write this.

How many could have been saved if we had a government for the people and the country was not so concerned with the bottom line?

So, never have Paine’s words been more relevant to me as a new tomorrow is at stake — and the actions the government takes will play a big role.

Like everyone else, I am wondering what that new tomorrow will look like and if that new tomorrow will be anything like our yesterdays.

One thing I can tell you, I hope the yesterdays don’t come back because we are a people who need a new tomorrow — not old yesterdays.

And to me, that starts with a government — whether Republican or Democrat — that makes a real difference for the people.

I am not sure what it is going to take to restore my trust in the government but I do know, you have to have trust in the system and leadership for a country to survive.

Right now, I do not.

But then again, that is what tomorrow is for.

As long as there is a tomorrow, there will be hope for change. And no other word can power tomorrow forward and leave behind the past like the word “hope.”

It has been hope for a better tomorrow that has energized our brains and powered our arms and legs into the actions that have helped us overcome difficult challenges in the past.

But I admit, my hope in what tomorrow brings is weakened because what is happening in the present is a product of the past.

And it will take more than reopening America to fix it.

Tomorrow? It is trust that will restore our faith.