> When was the last time anyone actually trusted a government?

My feeling is that people trust the government to the extent it does things their perceived enemies dislike. It's not about evaluating what's good for yourself or others; just knowing that your enemy dislikes it is a good enough signal that it's the right thing to do. Also, if your perceived enemy likes something that happens, that means it was automatically a wrong thing to do.

The government is just a cudgel each side uses against the other. And each side adds nails to the cudgel each time they possess it, even though they know its possession is likely to return to the enemy.