Trust had eroded almost everywhere. Organized religion, the courts, labor unions, and public schools all saw their standing fall.

Distrust is the theme that animates Donald Trump, a man who spent his thirties in 1970s New York. Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio wrote that, “Although many felt unmoored by the events of the seventies, young Donald Trump would consider Watergate and the lies told to justify the Vietnam War evidence of the world as it was—dangerous, corrupt, and full of intrigue.”

As a presidential candidate, Trump railed against “the swamp” of Washington and the broken Republican establishment. He warned of “rigged” elections that undermined democracy and a “fake” news industry that would never cover the real story. He has continued to urge his followers to be suspicious of what they read in the newspapers or see on the television screen. Just a few days ago, in response to the revelation that Sinclair Broadcast Group required its local-news anchors to read from a shared script, he tweeted: “The Fake News Networks, those that knowingly have a sick and biased AGENDA, are worried about the competition and quality of Sinclair Broadcast. The ‘Fakers’ at CNN, NBC, ABC, & CBS have done so much dishonest reporting that they should only be allowed to get awards for fiction!”

The same distrust is at the core of his blasts against intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, where Trump keeps tapping into the ghosts of the Church and Pike Committees, but for his own political ends. He has argued repeatedly that these agencies have spread false information to serve the political biases of their agents and leaders. He has gone so far as to imply the FBI has attempted to essentially overthrow his administration. “The Mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime,” he tweeted. “It was based on fraudulent activities and a Fake Dossier paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC, an improperly used in FISA COURT for surveillance of my campaign. WITCH HUNT!”

Ironically, the businessman-turned-president has railed against the free market as an institution that can’t be totally trusted—even as he deregulates Obama-era rules at a ravenous rate. His embrace of tariffs, and dismissal of free-trade agreements, hinges on the idea that markets can’t be trusted to do their own magic. This has been an essential part of his appeal.

After so many years, when the 1970s was the uninteresting decade that was sandwiched in between the Age of Aquarius and the Age of Reagan, America now has a president who understands why they mattered. Americans learned to distrust everything, and in Trump’s mind, that is a good thing. Trump has taken the message of distrusting institutions to heart, stripped away all the messages that coupled skepticism with the need for institutional reform, and promoted a brand of political nihilism that polarizes the nation.

The biggest question right now is whether at some point, his own most passionate supporters can see through the fog and finally reach the conclusion that it is Trump who should not be trusted. Until then, America will keep living in the seventies.