Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures as his son Eric Trump applauds next to him during his Iowa caucus-night watch party in Des Moines, Iowa, Jan. 15, 2024. The former president's campaign did better organizing in Iowa this year than in past cycles, some say.

In the end, the Iowa caucuses were basically over before they began.

Not only did the results play out according to script, based on lead-up polling, but it was also true in a more literal sense.

Iowa, which held the first contest for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, was called for Donald Trump by the Associated Press less than an hour after the caucusing had started, and before some voters had even cast their ballots. The speed of the call, which drew complaints from other campaigns, reflected the sheer dominance of former President Trump’s performance here – and underscored the challenge his rivals face, with a narrowing window to try to shake up the race.  

It wasn’t just Monday night’s temperatures, which fell to negative double digits in some areas, that broke records. Mr. Trump won 51% of the vote, taking all 99 counties save one (Johnson County, which went to former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley by one vote). The former president smashed the late Sen. Bob Dole’s record-winning Iowa margin of 12.8%, beating Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by 30 points. 

Mr. DeSantis’s second-place finish ensures that he will stay in the race for now, continuing to split the non-Trump vote with Ms. Haley, who finished a close third, but who is polling in second place – and much closer to Mr. Trump – in New Hampshire.  In two West Des Moines hotel ballrooms some 3 miles apart on Monday night, both Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley blared “Eye of the Tiger” and declared that the caucus results had given them one of the “two tickets” out of Iowa. 

Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, who held more campaign events here than all the other candidates combined, dropped out of the race after coming in fourth place. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson also dropped out after winning fewer than 200 votes.

Caucus night in Urbandale

The steep hurdles for Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley could be seen at Urbandale Middle School, in the type of wealthy suburb where the two Trump rivals should have run up the score Monday night. Voters on gym risers listened to pitches from supporters of Ms. Haley, Mr. DeSantis, and Mr. Ramaswamy, before casting paper ballots into mini trash cans with campaign stickers. No one even spoke on behalf of Mr. Trump.

Story Hinckley/The Christian Science Monitor

Alex Johnson poses at the Urbandale, Iowa, caucus site, where he spoke on behalf of presidential candidate Nikki Haley. “There’s got to be a narrowing of the field” for a rival like Ms. Haley to challenge Donald Trump, Mr. Johnson says. “It needs to become a two-person race.”

But it turned out they didn’t need to: Caucusgoers cast 37 votes for the former president, and 30 each for Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley.

Some anti-Trump Republicans felt encouraged by those totals. “We proved that there are more non-Trump voters in our party,” a man wearing a DeSantis sticker told a Haley supporter, who nodded in agreement.

Others fretted that it was reminiscent of 2016, when a fractured Trump opposition enabled his ascent. “There’s got to be a narrowing of the field,” Alex Johnson, who passed out Haley stickers and spoke on her behalf, told the Monitor. “It needs to become a two-person race.” 

Republican strategist David Kochel predicts that 2024 will not be like 2016 – because the non-Trump campaigns may not remain viable for much longer. Mr. Trump’s hold on the party is so much stronger than it was eight years ago, he says. This year, “the split field won’t last into Super Tuesday.”

Fewer than 111,000 Iowans participated in this year’s caucuses – a dramatic drop from 2016, when a record-setting 187,000 turned out. The weather was clearly a factor, with candidates forced to cancel events in recent days due to more than a foot of snow and blinding winds. At the few campaign events that did take place, reporters sometimes outnumbered voters. 

But there was also a noticeable sense of malaise, even among those who participated.

“I’m just exhausted by politics taking over my life,” says Mr. Johnson. He had previously voted for Mr. Trump twice, but on Monday urged his fellow voters to back Ms. Haley as the best way for the party – and the country – to move on. 

Icy roads ahead for Trump rivals

In the final days of the campaign, the weather seemed like a physical iteration of the political dynamic, with pundits making “frozen field” analogies as the candidates made what felt like a slow march toward the inevitable. 

Story Hinckley/The Christian Science Monitor

Lisa Bourne and her husband, Chris, both caucus captains for former President Donald Trump in Madison County, Iowa, wait in double-digit negative temperatures to see Mr. Trump in Indianola, Jan. 14, 2024.

After passing through icicle-studded doors at Mr. DeSantis’s Never Back Down headquarters in West Des Moines on Saturday, Cyndee Davis, a retired psychologist and DeSantis caucus captain, predicted that her candidate would exceed expectations. On Tuesday morning, Ms. Davis insisted she was still hopeful – while expressing an incredulity at the idea that her party might once again nominate Mr. Trump. 

“I’m putting Trump out of the picture. I’m not even picturing him as the nominee. In my mind, the race is between DeSantis and Haley, because Trump isn’t going to make it through these 91 charges,” says Ms. Davis, referring to the criminal counts faced by the former president, whom she has voted for in the past.

But it’s hard not to see Monday’s results as disappointing for Mr. DeSantis, who staked much of his once-hyped candidacy on winning the Hawkeye State. The Florida governor’s super PAC reportedly knocked on over a million doors, and he completed the “full Grassley,” visiting all 99 counties. He earned two of the state’s most coveted endorsements, from Gov. Kim Reynolds and evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats. 

The DeSantis campaign had hoped that Mr. Vander Plaats – who backed the past three GOP caucus winners – could help deliver the state’s evangelical electorate, which makes up over 60% of Republican caucusgoers, to the Catholic governor.

But Mr. Trump’s support among Evangelicals now, eight years after he lost them in Iowa to Ted Cruz, appears rock-solid. The former president, whose conservative Supreme Court appointees helped overturn the nationwide right to an abortion, dominated in the state’s evangelical-heavy northwest quadrant. 

Ms. Haley may still have a path – albeit an increasingly narrow one – for success in the upcoming electoral calendar. Next Tuesday is New Hampshire’s primary, where polling puts her only slightly behind the former president, thanks to an electorate that’s heavy on higher-educated and independent voters. That’s followed by South Carolina in late February, her home state – though the demographics there seem to favor Mr. Trump, and a loss at home might be hard to survive.

Perhaps the biggest sign of Mr. Trump’s strength was that he declined to repeat recent attacks on his rivals during his victory speech at a convention center in downtown Des Moines. Instead, he urged party unity.

“We want to come together,” the former president said.

Some triumphant Trump supporters were already looking ahead to what they hope will be a return to the White House. “I feel charged after what happened last night,” says Lisa Bourne, who was a caucus captain for Mr. Trump in Madison County. “Those numbers were historic.”

Gary Leffler, a Trump caucus captain from West Des Moines, says the Trump campaign was far better organized this year than in past cycles. One hint: Mr. Leffler says his precinct had more voter registrations last night than on any other caucus night he’s run in at least four cycles. Mr. Trump personally “is maybe as popular [as in 2016]. But they’ve got their campaign savvy going. They know now what the game is.”

But in a campaign that remains unprecedented in so many ways, strategists caution that twists could still be in store.

After his speech, Mr. Trump left for New York, where he would appear at his trial in Manhattan, before headlining a rally in New Hampshire later in the day.

“In a week, we will see if New Hampshire can create the surprise that eluded Iowa,” says Mr. Kochel. 

Louise Delmotte/AP

Democratic Progressive Party candidate Lai Ching-te celebrates with supporters in New Taipei City, Taiwan, Jan. 13, 2024. The ruling-party candidate has emerged victorious in Taiwan's presidential election, despite China's campaign to pressure Taiwan’s voters to choose a president who endorses the concept of “one China."

Unswayed by China’s warnings about war, Taiwan’s voters on Saturday again awarded the presidency to the political party – shunned by Beijing – that considers the self-governing island of 23 million people to be de facto independent.

By giving the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) an unprecedented third consecutive presidential win with the election of Lai Ching-te, voters signaled confidence that Dr. Lai can navigate Taiwan’s delicate relationship with China and maintain the peaceful, if uneasy, status quo.

“Taiwan has achieved a victory for the community of democracies,” Dr. Lai said in a speech on Saturday night, flanked by his running mate for vice president, former U.S. envoy Hsiao Bi-khim. “The Taiwanese people have successfully resisted efforts from external forces to influence this election.”

Dr. Lai, a former doctor who is currently serving as Taiwan’s vice president, won 40% of the vote. China’s preferred candidate, Hou Yu-ih of the Kuomintang (KMT) or Nationalist Party, came in second with 33.5%, and last was Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) with 26.5%.

The election marks a setback for China’s campaign to pressure Taiwan’s voters – through military maneuvers, misinformation, and economic coercion – to choose a president who endorses the concept of “one China,” as does the KMT. China claims Taiwan as its territory and says unification is inevitable, by force if necessary.

Experts say China is likely to react with punitive measures to underscore its displeasure with both the DPP, which it has called “despicable,” and Dr. Lai, a veteran DPP politician whom Beijing has labeled a separatist and traitor.

Beijing will “do something to indicate their hard line against the DPP in a Lai administration,” says Kharis Templeman, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he serves as program manager of the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific. “I don’t think there will be a honeymoon period for Lai.”

But while the election could well lead to ongoing frictions between China, Taiwan, and Taipei’s strongest ally – the United States – the message sent by Taiwan’s voters could also have more nuanced impacts, as Beijing, Taipei, and Washington each adjust to the outcome.

“Beijing has learned from past mistakes” in its efforts to influence Taiwan, says Dr. Templeman, who was in Taipei observing the elections.

Dr. Lai’s agenda

For Dr. Lai and the DPP, the election win was tempered by the party’s loss of the majority in Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan, or parliament. No party now holds an absolute majority in the 113-member body. The DPP won 51 seats, a loss of 10 from the last election in 2020. The KMT won 52 seats and the TPP eight, both gains.

In terms of raw votes, Dr. Lai also received less than incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen, who won in a landslide in 2020.

“We did not work hard enough,” Dr. Lai acknowledged in his speech. He pledged to incorporate policies of his opponents and draw talent from different political parties into his administration.

The upshot is that Dr. Lai is likely to stay the course established by President Tsai, but will be limited in making bold new initiatives, experts say. “He ran on a promise to continue Tsai Ing-wen’s policies, domestically and internationally, so he has a fairly strong mandate to not do anything radically new,” says Nathan Batto, research fellow at the Election Study Center, National Chengchi University in Taiwan.

A key issue is how Dr. Lai will stabilize Taiwan-China relations. On Saturday, he pledged to pursue exchanges, dialogue, and cooperation with China “under the principles of dignity and parity.” 

China’s subdued reaction

For its part, Beijing will be watching closely what Dr. Lai says in his inauguration speech in May.

So far, China’s reaction to the election has been relatively muted. Its official statements suggest that Beijing may take some consolation from the DPP’s mixed performance. 

“The results of the two elections in Taiwan this time show that the Democratic Progressive Party cannot represent the mainstream public opinion on the island,” said Chen Binhua, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, China’s Cabinet, in a statement released Saturday.

On Sunday, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi called the pursuit of Taiwan independence a “dead-end” road and said that “China will eventually achieve complete reunification.”

Indeed, China seemed to moderate its pressure tactics during Taiwan’s election, experts say. “China ... didn’t shoot missiles at Taiwan” or warn voters “in a scary way,” says Dr. Batto. “So maybe they’ll take away the lesson that high pressure is counterproductive and low pressure actually works better.”

Less is more?

In part, Taiwan’s public has gotten used to China’s coercion, reducing its impact, says Chong Ja Ian, associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore. As a result, Beijing’s approach “has been more calibrated,” says Dr. Chong.

Zheng Yongnian, director of the Institute for International Affairs at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, suggested that Beijing should avoid economic sanctions and step up softer tactics such as using social media to “change the identity of young people in Taiwan,” as cited Monday in the blog Sinification.

Indeed, Beijing seeks to “sow polarization in Taiwan [and] sow doubt the U.S. would come to Taiwan’s aid,” says Bonnie Glaser, managing director at the Indo-Pacific Program German Marshall Fund of the United States. “They want to instill ... despair ... so people will ultimately conclude that the only bright future for them is one in which they become part of China.”

China, like the U.S., wants to avoid conflict over Taiwan. But Beijing wants to deter Dr. Lai from any action that could threaten its claim to sovereignty over the island, explains Ms. Glaser, co-author of “U.S.-Taiwan Relations: Will China’s Challenge Lead to a Crisis?”

Washington’s reaction to the election was also tempered, with President Joe Biden underscoring that the U.S. does “not support independence” for Taiwan.

Following Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s meeting with Mr. Biden in San Francisco in November, both sides want to preserve “a fragile stability” between the two superpowers, says Ms. Glaser. “If the Chinese make very dangerous moves on Taiwan, that stability is likely to unravel.”

Jacob Turcotte/Staff

One Colorado mayor rang in the new year checking off a resolution from 2023.

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston announced that his team had moved 1,000 unsheltered people indoors by Dec. 31, fulfilling a pledge from his first days in office last year. He had initiated a state of emergency on homelessness that surged city resources, spending some $45 million last year on this House1000 plan.

Some critics contend the plan doesn’t always prioritize the most vulnerable people for shelter. The arrival of over 37,000 migrants to his city over the past year – many ineligible for work permits, at least initially – has also strained Denver’s bandwidth. Still, supporters of House1000 see seeds of progress on tackling homelessness that other cities can consider.

“I have been really impressed with Mayor Johnston’s focus and urgency,” says Jeff Olivet, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. Sustaining this work, he adds, will mean curbing the pipeline into homelessness.

A three-pronged approach, says Mr. Olivet, should involve prevention, the scaling up of stable housing and services, and ongoing street-level crisis response for those who are unsheltered. Denver officials, meanwhile, say they’re committed to expanding House1000 in 2024.

Hotels and a micro-community 

Homelessness is a persistent and growing problem in Denver as in many metro areas across the United States.

The Denver County annual point-in-time count – a one-night snapshot replicated across the country – reported 5,818 people experiencing homelessness last January. Of that group, 1,423 were unsheltered. Experts say those figures are likely less than reliable, subject to factors like inclement weather and missed “shelters’’ like hospitals and jails. The Metro Denver Homeless Initiative reports that around 28,000 people in the metro area accessed homelessness-related services between July 2021 and June 2022. A new report is expected this month. 

David Zalubowski/AP

A person collects items from a tent as Denver Parks and Recreation rangers string police tape during a city-sponsored closure of an encampment, Nov. 1, 2023, in Denver.

For House1000, the Denver mayor’s team targeted large street encampments to close first. Of around 1,150 people served so far, most were sheltered in converted hotels and micro-community units. The city says wraparound services like mental health and substance-use support are provided, along with employment assistance. 

The point was to move “people to housing, rather than just sweeping them from block to block,’’ says Mr. Johnston. “We can then close those encampments and keep them closed.’’ Moving groups en masse “helped us recognize how people that are unhoused build community,” he adds. “That encampment of folks you’re living with is a real source of support.”

Denver’s efforts were partly inspired by Houston, whose encampment decommission model coordinates the entry of unsheltered people into housing. 

Limited affordable housing is considered a key barrier to reducing homelessness nationwide. The Mile High City, home to some 700,000 people, isn’t an exception. By one analysis, rent in Denver rose by 82% between 2009 and 2021 – double that for the national median.

Who benefits?

Christine Marie Oviedo says she’s getting used to four walls and a roof after living in a Denver street tent, homeless for about six years. 

Difficulty with securing disability benefits and a maze of casework have been barriers to stable housing, says Ms. Oviedo. In mid-December, outreach workers helped her move from an encampment into a hotel off a highway. With her bundle of blankets and clothes, she gained access to one of hundreds of units that the city has converted into transitional housing for House1000. 

The hotel isn’t perfect; Ms. Oviedo, who uses a walker, says it’s hard to access the shower. But after some adjustment to her temporary room, six hours of sleep at night is now possible, she says. 

On the street, she says, “I was freezing to death.” 

Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor

A new micro-community for people experiencing homelessness is shown in Denver, Jan. 11, 2024. Mayor Mike Johnston plans to open more micro-communities in 2024.

Other people have moved into one of the city’s emerging micro-communities, where one-room units share communal bathrooms and laundry. Yet who gets to shelter in these spaces is a point of contention.

“All along we were telling [the mayor] we wanted to prioritize the most vulnerable people, not the most visible people,” says Terese Howard, an organizer with Housekeys Action Network Denver. She’s called for more consideration of unhoused people with severe health conditions, not just people in large encampments. 

Other observers question the cost of homelessness efforts. Colorado has spent nearly $2 billion on these initiatives concentrated in metro Denver over the past three years, according to a report by the Common Sense Institute, a Colorado think tank. “Leaders should implement a new system of accountability and transparency to address the crisis,” the report concludes. 

And a spokesperson for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless calls for more information about the city’s plan to move people into long-term housing. 

The initial goal, says the mayor, was to scale up transitional housing “quickly and affordably.” Now, his administration aims to add 3,000 permanent housing units this year, but their source remains unclear. 

Mr. Johnston also cites the challenge of managing incoming migrants from the southern border. Without immediate access to federal work permits, many are housing-insecure.

Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor

The interior of a new micro-community for people experiencing homelessness is toured in Denver, Jan. 11, 2024.

Migrants seek shelter, too  

For thousands of migrants who’ve arrived in Denver since late 2022, sometimes bused in overnight from Texas, the city has offered temporary, time-limited shelter and travel tickets elsewhere. The mayor is asking municipal agencies to find ways to trim spending, Denverite reports, to avoid the migrant response swallowing a tenth of the city’s annual general fund budget. 

That’s on the mind of unhoused locals on a recent chilly afternoon downtown. Bundled in an olive-green coat, one woman waits in line to enter a homeless shelter for the night.

“We stand out here every day,” says the woman, who declined to give her name. “The migrants coming in, they get housing first. ... It doesn’t make any sense.”

That morning, across town, the city began to shut down a large migrant tent encampment. Many individuals have been placed into congregate shelter and offered help with rental assistance. 

Desireet Mujica, from Venezuela, regards the street of newly abandoned migrant tents beside her teenage son. Their 37 days at a migrant shelter ends early next month.

“I want to work as soon as possible,” she says in Spanish. “I don’t want my stay at the shelter to expire and not have a place to live.”

Thousands of Guatemalans filled the capital’s central plaza on Sunday to watch the inauguration of President Bernardo Arévalo on giant screens and to celebrate a democratic milestone.

Inauguration weekends don’t typically garner this much attention, but this election – and its aftermath – was far from typical, mobilizing citizens to defend their democracy.

The live viewing party for the anti-corruption politician was meant to start at 2 p.m. Sunday, but it wasn’t until just after midnight that Mr. Arévalo was finally permitted to take the oath of office. It was a tense, perhaps fitting, end to months of political crisis and attempts by Guatemala’s political and economic elite to hold on to power.

Guatemala has been on a democratic roller coaster since August, with multiple legal maneuvers by the public prosecutor’s office and Congress to keep Mr. Arévalo and his Movimiento Semilla (“Seed Movement”) party out of office. On Sunday, the ruling party and allies of outgoing President Alejandro Giammattei attempted a final effort to prevent the transfer of power, with the outgoing Congress delaying the swearing-in of the new body of legislators, who are legally charged with inaugurating the nation’s new president.

Despite the stress and concern that has overwhelmed many citizens and activists, this period of uncertainty has also served as an opportunity: More Guatemalans are engaging with their political system and getting involved in the fight to preserve democracy.

“People saw that the coup attempt was real and that there was a real risk that democracy would be taken away from us,” says Gustavo Marroquín, a history professor at Rafael Landívar University. He’s encouraged by what he sees as more Guatemalans interested in, participating in, understanding, and speaking out about the country’s politics.

“Many demands”

As inauguration day dragged on, people like Eduardo Mansilla, an industrial psychologist in his 20s, gravitated toward the capital’s central plaza.

Cristina Chiquin/Reuters

People react during a speech by Guatemala's newly inaugurated President Bernardo Arévalo in Guatemala City's central plaza, Jan. 15, 2024.

He’d started over lunch with friends at home, following along on television with what they expected to be an afternoon inauguration. Instead, the Semilla party deputies were fighting to convince members of Congress to give them the votes necessary to preside over the chamber’s leadership committee. It was the first of many battles of the day.

A short time later, incoming Semilla members of Congress denounced an attempt by outgoing members to delay – or prevent – the presidential inauguration. For more than 10 hours, Semilla dodged political maneuvers they categorized as attempted “coups.”

By 9 p.m., Mr. Mansilla decided he needed to get to the central plaza. “We didn’t know what was going to happen; there was a lot of anguish,” he says.

Finally, around midnight, the path was cleared for Mr. Arévalo and his Vice President Karin Herrera to assume power.

Mr. Mansilla screamed and cried in the plaza, alongside thousands of equally emotional compatriots.

Jennifer de la Cruz was full of excitement, too. The young law student had never followed politics before Mr. Arévalo’s candidacy. But his anti-corruption platform motivated her to learn more about Guatemala’s political situation – and educate her peers. “I’d always found out what was happening from my grandfather and my father,” she says, today host to some 25,000 followers on TikTok where she has spent the past year creating content about Guatemalan politics.

“We can leave a mark with our participation; our voices must be taken into account. We have many demands,” she says of Guatemalan youth.

The party for a political awakening?

When Mr. Arévalo entered the presidential race last year, he was not considered a favorite to win. His campaign wasn’t well financed, and his platform focused on the fight against corruption, a stance many Guatemalans have become disillusioned with over the past decade.

Cristina Chiquin/Reuters

Indigenous people march in support of Guatemala's President Bernardo Arévalo Jan. 14, 2024, in the lead-up to his late-night inauguration.

But when he scored a surprise second-place finish in the first-round vote, his calls for eradicating corruption raised alarms among Guatemalan elite, long accustomed to playing by their own rules. He faced attempts by the public ministry and the ruling party in Congress to annul the results, alleging fraud. And then he won the runoff.

Thousands of Guatemalans came out in support of his victory – and their vote – blocking main roads nationwide. Indigenous groups settled in front of the attorney general’s office for 106 days straight.

Movimiento Semilla’s victory “was a political earthquake for the dominant and corrupt elites,” says Marco Fonseca, professor of International Studies at the University of York, in Toronto. He describes the reaction to Mr. Arévalo’s win as “aggressive.”

“It is a political miracle that we have reached this point with so many attempts to stop the government transition,” Dr. Fonseca says. “People, especially young people, acquired unprecedented political awareness.”

The political awakening is fitting: Movimiento Semilla was born of public protest.

In 2015, the president and vice president were forced to resign after a series of massive, peaceful protests that were sparked by a government kickback scheme. They were sent to prison, while citizens made global headlines for removing their government without a drop of blood spilled or bullet fired.

Movimiento Semilla first emerged as a group analyzing politics and inequality and later became a political party.

“These elections reactivated” public unity and desire for a transparent democracy that first emerged almost a decade ago, says Dr. Fonseca.

“It was like watching the final of a soccer game, where there are the good guys and the bad guys,” says Javier Nuñez, part of Proyecto Poporopo, a restaurant and cultural center that organized an inauguration watch party over the weekend. After months of anguish, the swearing-in came as a rush of relief.

In his inauguration speech, President Arévalo thanked his supporters for their “strength to resist” and dedication to changing “the political panorama in Guatemala.”

But Dr. Marroquín, the historian, warns that the political awakening is a “double-edged sword.”

“People who now feel hope may become [disillusioned] if Semilla is unable to take quick action,” he says. Semilla doesn’t hold a majority in Congress and will have to navigate political agreements with opposition lawmakers.

“The coup plotters aren’t going to stop,” says Dr. Marroquín. “But, now the government will have legal measures to protect itself and not simply be on the defensive.”

Editor's note: The article has been updated to correct the spelling of Eduardo Mansilla's surname.

REUTERS

Belgium's King Philippe and Queen Mathilde sit with Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic as they listen during a session of the 54th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 16.

Nearly 3,000 leaders in politics and big business are meeting once again this week in the Swiss alpine village of Davos for the World Economic Forum. The official theme is “Rebuilding Trust” – although networking really drives this wintry assemblage. The theme is hardly a new one to the Davos elite. According to global surveys, trust in major institutions or industries has been in steady decline except for one notable example – business.   

In 21 countries, trust in business has risen from 48% in 2012 to 61%, according to a 2023 survey by the marketing firm Edelman. Polls in the United States paint an even finer picture. Sixty-five percent of Americans put “quite a lot of confidence” in small business – more trust than in the military, police, medical system, or organized religion, according to Gallup. Overall, public confidence in key institutions has fallen by nearly half since 1979, from 48% to 26% last year.

Among the more than 33 million small businesses in the U.S., many have learned that values such as credibility, transparency, and accountability are critical to maintaining customers and suppliers. “When you are consistent and stay true to these values, it fosters understanding and empathy with your customers,” wrote software entrepreneur René Lacerte in Fast Company magazine last year. “In turn, this strengthens the bonds of trust between you and your customer.”

While trust in small business has long been high, customer reviews on social media have helped keep owners in line. “A business’s reputation is like a delicate Jenga tower, where one wrong move can send it toppling,” wrote entrepreneur Jack Trent in AllBusiness.com. 

An incentive for positive feedback online seems to be working. Applications for new small businesses in the U.S. surged last year, setting a record of 5.5 million. That would not have happened without the prospect of shared moral behavior between startups and those they serve.

Such news about American startups may be an important lesson for the elite leaders at Davos and elsewhere. “The truth is, we don’t know how people learn and transmit social trust at the micro-level,” wrote Kevin Vallier, a philosophy professor at Bowling Green State University, in the digital magazine Psyche.

The author of the 2020 book “Trust in a Polarized Age,” Dr. Vallier suggests that trust first be defined as that between individuals – or the kind found in small businesses. Then trust can then be scaled up “in generalized others,” or the institutions of society. Perhaps the Davos attendees keep returning to trust as a theme simply because the informality of the gathering itself seems so, well, entrepreneurial.