Santorum’s campaign, like that of all the other Republican presidential candidates, is predicated on a radical mistrust of government, along with the other authoritative institutions Americans used to trust in the 1950s: science, the courts, the medical profession, schools and academia, unions, and of course the media—pretty much everything apart from business, churches, and the military. This is a certain kind of conservatism, one that plays on Americans’ fears and divisions and exacerbates the decline of our social capital and mutual trust.