During the pandemic, there was a lot of discussion about the use of "trusted voices" to persuade people to get vaccinated against COVID-19. This is apparently a well-known concept in the field of public health because it's often difficult to get people to change behaviors or accept unfamiliar interventions. You'll recall that it was often advised that people speak to their family doctors if they had questions since surveys show that people trust them to tell the truth. Health care organizations also advised outreach to faith leaders, particularly in communities of color, since many "will only trust voices, leaders, and organizations that have consistently served them, and many of those voices are found in their places of worship." Farmers were recruited in rural areas because they know about vaccinations and "herd immunity."
This makes sense. There is a lot of information floating around and it's logical to seek out someone you deem to be credible to help you understand the situation. Unfortunately, there is so little respect for people in public life these days that they have to work very hard to persuade the citizenry that they can be trusted at all. Pew Research did polling on this issue back in 2019 and elected officials were are the very bottom of the list of leadership groups, below business leaders and (gasp) journalists. At that time, pre-pandemic, scientists were at the top of the list but I suspect they have slipped quite a bit since then. In fact, the entire list, which included the military, police, public school principals, religious leaders and college professors, has probably declined since then. Trust is not in great supply in American society at the moment.
