Last Thursday night, President Donald Trump used a primetime address to announce the declassification of records concerning American elections. Most of the commentary since has focused on whether the material proves what he says it proves. That argument will take months, as it should. Meanwhile, the question that matters most to the people responsible for keeping this country safe is going unasked.

The question is: What happens to a free society when a large share of its citizens stop believing that the institutions responsible for telling them the truth are telling them the truth? Erosion of that belief is not a cultural complaint. It is a security condition, and our adversaries read it far more carefully than we do.