Well no. Actually we aren’t supposed to trust the government. That’s why we have (in theory) a system of checks and balances.

That’s a conflation of two separate things. The checks and balances are for the different branches of government against each other and not we the people against the government.

This idea that the population should have a general and perpetual distrust of their government no matter what is conspiracy theory logic.

We should base trust and distrust on evidence.