Government being trustworthy matters more than the public trusting it.

Evidence

More generally, if trust in government is conceptually and epistemologically impossible for most citizens in large modern societies, it simply cannot be true that modern governments are unable to work without such trust. Whatever might be the importance of citizens’ trust for the functioning government, it is surely more important that government be trustworthy than that it be trusted. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 702

Categorization

• APHORISMS: A genuine piece of practical wisdom about where to direct civic concern: trustworthiness of institutions, not trust in them—applies far beyond politics.
• XREF: connects to: Mistrust of government is a healthy, intended feature of democratic design. — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 84