ABSTRACT
Two aspects of lack of trust affect the relationship between the governing bodies and their subjects: mistrust and distrust. The leaders' ability to adapt to, address, and satisfy some specific needs and requirements of the people dictated the level of trust or mistrust that they happened to generate and that sustained or eroded the relationship between the government and its subjects. It is plausible, though, that a widespread growing condition of profound mistrust in the value of the rulers set the catastrophe in motion. Multiculturalism has been another factor to complicate the condition of trust or distrust within nations, and has added to the effects generated by corruption and wealth inequality in forging the present state of profound and widespread mistrust in the democratic institutions. Distrust within a national system, of the type that separates political parties, is an inevitable aspect of a democracy, and it may have a significant positive value for the society.
