Michael Gruber
Sartell
We have a trust crisis in this country. As Robert Putnam masterfully articulated in his breakthrough work “Bowling Alone,” trust in America’s civic institutions has been deteriorating since the 1960s. What is the root of this crisis? One reason is because often, our elected leaders are unwilling to take responsibility for unpopular decisions.
One prominent example of this occurred at a national level just last week. The director of the Secret Service, Kim Cheatle, appeared before Congress to answer questions related to the assassination attempt on President Donald Trump in Butler, Penn. Despite saying she took “full responsibility” for the events that transpired, the hearing turned into a fiasco, with the director appearing unable or unwilling to answer even basic questions about the event. How did the shooter Crooks obtain access to the roof? How many rounds did he fire? Did he work alone? Why was the roof left unsupervised? Cheatle declined to answer these questions. By the end of the hearing, even lawmakers who were ostensibly more “friendly” to Cheatle had become hostile and frustrated. She resigned less than 24 hours later amidst bipartisan calls for her resignation.
It is curious to see a similar pattern unfold at the municipal level. The School Board of ISD 748, for example, voted to continue masking students through February 2022, and supported a widely unpopular “Equity Audit.” I believe both of these decisions have lead to a nearly 5 percent enrollment decline in Sartell-St. Stephen’s K-12 student census. Holdingford, the district to our immediate west, has suffered virtually no student attrition since 2020.
Why can’t these mistakes be acknowledged? Why is it difficult to simply say, “we made a decision based on the facts we had at the time, but it appears that in retrospect, we were incorrect?” It does not suffice for public leaders to simply refuse to answer questions about unpopular decisions. Acknowledging mistakes is a part of what good leadership is. We should demand that of our elected officials. If we don’t, trust will continue to atrophy.