When I first arrived in the US, one thing clearly stood out to me about American society (or, at the very least, Minnesotan society): how everyone trust everyone else. I actually experimented from time to time, just to feel the awesomeness of this trust: walking on the street, I would randomly say "Hi, how do you do? Is it not a beautiful day?" to people. I afraid that such behavior would earn little more than some guarded "are you trying to scam me off something" in Vietnam, but on American streets (from San Francisco to Minneapolis to Chicago to middle-of-nowhere Nevada), people would not miss a beat. Warm conversation would ensue between two strangers as if they have been friends since forever. Another instance of such trust: once, I was in San Francisco to apply for Visa, and happened to sit next to a lady. We chatted for about 5 minutes, then the lady needed to visit the restroom. She asked me, a guy she hardly knew for 5 minutes, to look after her bags while she was away. And that was San Francisco, where, I swear, I cannot go a mile without some jerk cutting me off.
There are evidences that such social trust is fundamental to an developed economy. In The Alchemists, Neil Irwin opined that British empire was built on British financial system, which in turn arose from the social trust among British people. Lacking the bloody revolutions prevalent in France, and the deep segregation between tiny states in Germany and Italy, that trust flourished, convinced the common people to entrust their savings into hands of others, who employed millions and millions of the small saving to build the greatest empire ever graced this planet. Today, in all advanced society, we (through our banks and investment funds) regularly hand over money to strangers to fund their strange ideas and business models. Such act speaks volume of how much we trust each other.
Nothing proves this trust more than a democracy. Democracy means "people's rule," which means that all citizens of a state get together to make political decisions together. Just imagine this: in the US, our democracy means that 300 million people, from all religions, all races, all cultures, all heritages ever existed on Earth (and I mean this literally), get together to decide on how to govern ourselves. Or think about Indian democracy: one billion people (more than the whole world population as late as 2 centuries ago), whose differences would shame the tiny squambles between Germans and Greeks, from all of the warring religions in the world, and some of whom are actively warring against each other, would periodically get together and form a government and to make decisions. If that fails to blow your mind, I don't know what would succeed.
Now, imagine for a minute to share decisions with, says, a dog. OK, dogs are quite stupid, so let's try something more intelligence. Try to share decisions with monkeys. They are closer to humans than dogs, no? Obviously, such thought exercise is only to prove a point. One can't share decisions with a monkey: it can't speak, it can't reason logically, and yes, it does throw shit. We only seriously listen to, debate with, and decide together with those whom we can trust to be fair, honorable, rational, and won't try to scam us.
Thus, democracy requires social trust. It requires all citizens to trust the system to make their voices matter, to count their opinions fairly, to empower their wisdom and actions. Most importantly, democracy requires citizens to trust one another, to consider each other worthy of listening to, of debating with, and of deciding important matters together. Without this trust, democracy can't exist. Just ask the Arab Spring uprisings. Yes, democracy temporarily formed, but the lack of trust quickly showed it the door. After all, the Muslims suspected liberals of destroying their values, while liberals suspected Muslims of religious lunacy; Shi'a wanted Sunnis gone, and Sunnis responded with passion. How can debates and mutual decisions, let alone governments and complex society, arise from such distrust?
Back to the US: we need to protect our trust! For our elections and democratic processes to function, we need to trust each other. This explains why we can't "protect" free speech by retaliating hate speech: free speech builds on trust, and all forms of debasement, including debasing hatred, will destroy that foundation. Unfortunately, the movement of conservatism, embodied by the Republican party, seems to do anything and everything to destroy that precious trust.
Now, I don't mind disagreements: it facilitates diversity, introduces perspective, and voices second opinions. What I mind is the name calling, the debasement of different groups, the conspiracy theories, and the active rejection of cooperation. After all, if Muslims worship Satan, homosexuals anger God, atheists have no morals, blacks rob, poor people steal, then there would be no point debating with them. Such people are barely above animals, so why share decision, why debate, why listen to them? Similarly, if the UN plans to invade my land, if the government oppresses my rights, then I should do everything to stop them, rather than contributing and understanding. Finally, when one's agenda is solely to grab power ("to make Obama one-term president"), then there is no point debating, since changing minds is impossible. Thus, conservatism, especially its spearhead (i.e. the Tea Parties), is sowing seeds of the destruction and disintegration of the whole democracy processes, and maybe even the economy and society.
The weird thing is this: normal Republicans are absolutely nice and polite people most of the time. All conservative people I know are perfectly rational and friendly and anything but racist. Until the politics comes. A friend of mine, who is extremely friendly and understanding, would sneer at President Obama's reference to his belief as "don't speak of God when you don't believe Him." Why? Why would you assume that he did not believe? Or, when some gun regulation debate raged, they would buy up and stash up all ammunition possible. They just assume that "the government is going to take away my guns," when the debate was about how to make gun ownership safe and meaningful. It blows my mind every time when this happens. Why can't those conservative, for a change, try to trust their distant fellow citizens a little bit? Why can't they trust the system, the government, the country a tiny bit? Why do they have to insist on distrust?
Like many concerned citizens, I believe there are much to be done with our government. However, different from many, I don't think big change is required. We don't need to change the Constitution, we don't need new election method, we certainly don't need finger pointing. All we need is a bit of trust.
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