At what point does trust bottom out?
The term “super-distruster” was coined by author Cory Doctorow. He introduced it in a December 2024 article for Campaigns & Elections, where he discussed the growing segment of the electorate characterized by extreme distrust in political institutions, media and elites. Doctorow highlighted that this group is disillusioned with traditional political structures and often refrains entirely from voting or engaging in political processes. Campaigns & Elections has found that they represent about 26% of the American citizenry.
There are a variety of ways to define and measure this super-distruster phenomenon. In the United States, a Campaigns & Elections study classifies super distrusters as those with “no faith” in at least three of five core institutions: the media, the federal government, elected officials, business leaders and online information. In the United Kingdom, research from the MHP Group and Cambridge University’s Political Psychology Lab estimates that nearly three in 10 adults fall into a similar category: those who believe that institutions are corrupt, the nation is on the wrong track and a self-serving elite is to blame.
Of course, American institutional trust has been dropping for decades, and American citizens are increasingly disillusioned with prominent institutions — leaving some individuals increasingly alienated. Across decades, the fall in trust is gentle but consistent — falling over the years to our lowest levels of trust that have ever been measured. And it shows no signs of slowing.
But these super distrusters represent more than ordinary skepticism. A healthier skepticism targets a specific leader or policy; a super distruster, by contrast, rejects institutions wholesale.
They are not defined by party, but by conviction. Super distrusters are somewhat more likely to lean conservative, but otherwise their ideological affiliation is similar to the average American. Despite this phenomenon being mostly ideologically neutral, ideology may still be driving this distinct form of distrust. The repeated volleys from the two sides catch many good, innocent people in the crossfire–people who essentially believe the worst of what both sides have to say about the other team. These people have a rational response: to trust no one.
Scientists use the term “free radical” to describe unstable molecules that damage the cells around them. A few free radicals are manageable, but when they multiply unchecked, they corrode healthy tissue and accelerate disease.
One way to think about super distrusters is as civic free radicals. They are very difficult to persuade, mobilize or integrate, with a totalizing disbelief that makes them unstable, reactive and corrosive to the institutions around them. A few may be tolerable, but in large numbers they spread cynicism and disorder, eating away at the very fabric of democracy.
Super distrusters often channel their disillusionment into what might be called civic nihilism — a conviction that nothing can be trusted, nothing can be reformed, and very little is worth believing.
Unlike that healthier kind of caution and vigilance, which still leaves room for debate and persuasion, civic nihilism closes the door altogether. Government is corrupt, science a scam, religion mere hypocrisy, business just exploitation — even community life is only an empty, superficial shell.
Once such a deeply cynical worldview hardens, little ground remains for genuine listening or cooperation.
For all these reasons, super distrusters may simply withdraw from civic life — or they may become something more dangerous.
Security analysts use the term “nihilistic violent extremism” to describe attacks not driven by ideology but by a worldview that nothing matters and destruction itself is the point. While most super-distrusters retreat into passive disengagement or corrosive cynicism, a smaller subset can drift toward this violent nihilism — treating violence as performance or rupture rather than as a means to reform.
Such cases are rare, but they are destabilizing: they turn alienation into aggression, and transform distrust from a private withdrawal into a public hazard.
This nihilism has echoes that are troubling: echoes of Weimar and totalitarianism. In Weimar Germany, Germans ceased to trust the institutions that were meant to protect them and offer stability. They also began to blame the elites — except, in this case, rather than the wealthy or the powerful, the “elites” were recast in propaganda as slanderous caricatures of Jews.
Profound distrust sows the seeds of a kind of vengeful populism that can wreak real havoc if left unchecked. That’s because populist anger rarely stays abstract; it looks for scapegoats. And tragically, it often falls hardest on those who deserve it least.
We are not Weimar, and we are not living amidst impending Nazi Germany. But the echo is worth heeding. America today faces its own corrosion of trust, which has gone from healthy skepticism to political weapon.
Fortunately, there are real solutions to hardening distrust. Political scientists note that trust grows when institutions are seen as both competent and fair. Sociologists argue that trust builds from face-to-face connections in communities, through volunteering, neighborhood ties, and local problem-solving. Psychologists show that transparency and accountability can interrupt the cycle of conspiracy and alienation. And economists remind us that growth and prosperity flourish where trust is higher, because cooperation is cheaper than enforcement.
After the 2008 financial crisis, Pew surveys found public trust in banks collapsed precisely because executives escaped punishment while taxpayers paid the price. By contrast, moments of real accountability — such as the post-Watergate reforms that strengthened oversight — temporarily boosted confidence because citizens saw institutions correcting themselves.
The lesson is clear: when leaders, corporations or public officials evade responsibility, distrust festers; when they face consequences, trust has a chance to be rebuilt. Yale psychologist Tom Tyler has demonstrated that people accept even unfavorable outcomes when they believe the process was fair and transparent, while political scientist Francis Fukuyama identifies accountability as one of the core pillars of healthy institutions, without which corruption and distrust grow unchecked.
The question, then, is whether America’s institutions can earn trust again — and whether citizens will be willing to extend it. That will require more than slogans or appeals to civility. It will require institutions that prove worthy of confidence, leaders who act with integrity and citizens willing to resist the lure of total disbelief.