♪ >> middle and high school students participated in c-span's studentcam competition, telling us what issues congress should address this year. all month, our grand prize we are presenting the winners. winner is theo poulin, a ninth grader at williamsville south high school in williamsville, new york, where c-span is available through spectrum. the winning entries called "trust fall."

>> usa. usa. usa. >> americans don't trust their government. let's back up. in december 2019, the first news broke of a novel coronavirus, covid-19. originally, the virus was contained to wuhan, china. but as you will know, the virus -- well know, the virus spread and it spread like wildfire, going to the point of a pandemic by the middle of march. governments took action and mandated that citizens wear masks. and in most cases, go into lockdown. here in america, countless people were upset by this. many people went as far as to not wear masks or social distance. but why? government officials and doctors said this was dangerous. this defiance was actually a symptom of a far, far larger issue in america. >> [beep] you. >> usa. usa.

narrator: americans don't trust their government. american trust in government has declined significantly over the past several decades. trust has fallen so much that less than 20% of americans say that they trust the government on most or all topics. but to understand what those numbers mean, you need to understand what trust is on a psychological level. >> trust is a willingness to accept the potential for harm, rooted in the actions of the other thing >> a good way to understand this is the exercise of the trust fall. >> if you see two people in a trust fall, it's not difficult to identify with which one is trusting, and which one is being trusted. and the reason for that is because one of those people is at a potential for injury and the other person controls that injury. so when we talk about trust, we are talking about a situation where the trustor is recognizing that something could go wrong for them, and that someone else

or something else controls that. in the context of government, we as the public are recognizing that there are decisions and actions that governments engage in could hurt us. and when we trust them, we are ok with that. trust is the feeling of being willing to accept it. narrator: trust is risky, so makes sense to have a certain amount of skepticism in government. >> we should be skeptical of anybody in power, because they need to earn their authority and they need to show they are acting fairly and honestly, particularly government. >> a certain amount of skepticism is ok. when i was younger, i can remember bumper stickers and t-shirts that said question authority. narrator: and to a certain degree, government has really earned our distrust. ♪ >> over the past 50 years, we have been shown time and time again that government and its members choose to do the wrong thing over and over again.

they lie to the american people whether we are talk about things , like lyndon johnson lying about the gulf of tonkin resolution, richard nixon during watergate, george w. bush used faulty intelligence, barack obama, who out of recent presidents has the highest approval rating, but when edward snowden revealed certain aspects of the american intelligence services, obama had been lying about that. donald trump is merely the latest in a long line of presidents who have really hurt trust and confidence in government. ♪ narrator: but is some distrust clearly reasonable? too much is self-destructive. >> one of the side effects of people not trusting government is that they don't talk to us and they don't engage. and share their opinions or input on things that would , really be better if there was more engagement. narrator when we trust our : government, there is more open communication which is better

, for everyone. and to have that, we need to be careful not to fall prey to cynicism. >> having cynicism towards government, that cynicism can become really corrosive. because once you start going there, it becomes more and more, you don't trust anything, you don't trust anybody. i say yes to healthy skepticism, but we also need to reign in -- rein in the cynicism because , that doesn't get us where we need to go. narrator: so where can we go from here? america is deeply divided and mistrusting. >> i believe we are living in a time of extreme political polarization. it has been that way for a long time but i think it's gotten , really extreme. narrator: officials openly call states electoral systems -- >> so badly flawed that this renders their decisions untrustworthy and unworthy of acceptance.

narrator: president biden and the new congress need to acknowledge that the government has earned our distrust. we need to commit to be more honest, open and transparent with the american people. we have a right to expect that honesty in all the problems our new government is trying to solve, and actually, it depends on our willingness to trust. the american experiment is based on acceptance and failures in order to get out of this pandemic, to achieve racial justice, to try to reunite a fractured nation, we need to hear the truth even when, especially when the path ahead is long and full of struggle. once we come to expect the truth, even hard truth, we the people can place our trust in a better future -- our american future. >> all the winning entries are available online at studentcam.org. >> acting u.s. capitol police