Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump received widespread condemnation for his refusal to prematurely accept the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. Trump told moderator Chris Wallace at last Wednesday night’s final debate that he “Will look at it at the time. … I’ll keep you in suspense.”

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton warned Trump was “talking down our democracy” while The New York Times called it a blatant “contempt for democracy” and many others were infuriated that a presidential candidate would have the gall to publicly pronounce a distrust of government.

In fact, these divine appraisals of American governance couldn’t be further from the truth.

America’s Founding Fathers predicated the Constitution on the notion that citizens not trust its government and distrust of government is fundamentally enshrined in America’s governmental institutions and traditions — government being a necessary evil that needs to be suspect, supervised, curtailed and restrained.