What about the times in which there was plenty of such data, only for it to be false in the end, say, typical conspiracy turned true like MKULTRA or NSA?
Bear with me, not every country has as many people doubting their government, the bottom line in my opinion is that public trust in the government has been eroded so much that this happens and these people are aware that the government is capable of spinning lies that seem completely true, so why believe them at all?
Implicit in this argument is that Americans ever did trust their government. Has that actually ever been the case? I mean the whole country is founded on distrust of government as one of the principles.
Bear with me, not every country has as many people doubting their government, the bottom line in my opinion is that public trust in the government has been eroded so much that this happens and these people are aware that the government is capable of spinning lies that seem completely true, so why believe them at all?