Somewhere today on a Chicago street, some gamer has found a "mark," taken in by a confidence-building pitch that his luck is about to change. On that same Chicago street, a crowd, with a knowing look, will gather to watch another sucker get conned out of his money.

President Obama hails from Chicago and knows something about such games. In a recent Saturday address, he proclaimed, "We need to restore the American people’s confidence in their government – that it is on their side, spending their money wisely, to meet their families’ needs." Other members of the ruling class have echoed the President. Indeed, the hundreds of Tea Parties throughout the country on April 15 showing the people’s discontent may have heightened their concern. Great angst over "confidence in government" is in the air.

Gary North of RealityCheck.com writes, "Every society and every institution rests heavily on trust." He divides trust into four stages: (1) active trust, or "trust, but verify;" (2) default trust, or "trust, and assume that someone else has verified;" (3) blind trust, or "trust, because there is nothing else worth trusting;" and (4) tooth fairy trust, or "trust, despite all evidence to the contrary."

It is not clear which of these stages of trust President Obama wishes to restore, but sustainable trust can only be earned. It cannot be forced. The Founders grasped this verity. "Brutus," writing in the New York Journal, says that "those who are [to represent the people], should possess their sentiments and feelings, and be governed by their interests, or, in other words, should bear the strongest resemblance of those in whose room they are substituted." Otherwise, the "natural aristocracy of the country will be elected." "Wealth," Brutus contends, "always creates influence." He predicts that representation of the people under the Constitution will include few merchants and no farmers or artisans, "so that in reality there will be no part of the people represented, but the rich, even in that branch of the legislature, which is called the democratic." Wealthy representatives, Brutus warns, "will be ignorant of the sentiments of the middling class of citizens, strangers to their ability, wants, and difficulties, and void of sympathy…."

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, thirty-nine percent of House members are millionaires, while only 1 percent of all American adults can be considered millionaires. Brutus would find this fact disturbing, for he foresees that, if only the rich govern, "the majority of the legislature [will be] entirely at the devotion of the executive – and [this country] will soon be under the absolute domination of one, or a few, with the fallacious appearance of being governed by men of their own election." The nonsensical celebration over President Obama’s first 100 days in office and the ease by which his proposals become law suggest a majority of lawmakers have a certain devotion to the executive that would have been foreign to the Founders.

Alexander Hamilton, debating in New York’s Ratification Convention, found a different source for confidence in government. "The confidence of the people will easily be gained by a good administration. This is the true touchstone … the public attachment is more strongly secured by a train of prosperous events, which are the result of wise deliberation and vigorous execution…."

President Obama’s top priority on behalf of the ruling class, then, is to reassure the middling class that good administration is on its way. And, as Gary North observes, "most people are trusting souls. They may say they do not trust politicians, but they do." President Obama knows this. That is why, like the gamer showing his mark the cards, President Obama is "doing something" to build up confidence. He has shown his $787 billion "economic recovery" card. He has shown his unprecedented $3.6 trillion annual budget card. He has fired the chief executive of a private company. He proposes to regulate the auto, investment banking, credit card, energy, and sundry other industries as they have never been regulated before.

"Trust in me" is President Obama’s motto. "I will restore the American dream." Gary North reminds the President that "the American dream, as with any dream, is based on trust. But trust, to be maintained, must eventually be confirmed by reality." The American people would be wise to practice stage one active trust and wait for Hamilton’s "train of prosperous events" before attaching their confidence to this President’s administration.

The wiser among us are asking themselves now, "Am I the mark in the President’s confidence game?"

Jeff Turner is a Dallas lawyer and a fellow in constitutional studies at the College of St. Thomas More in Fort Worth.