We aren't there yet. These people are not anti-regulation, they are anti-regulation that prevents them from making the most money so for the time being they will gut the environment and other safety regulations. We haven't gotten to the mass regulatory capture part that shuts out competitors yet.
The goal isn’t to reduce government power, but to rip out the current structures that maintain the status quo (and obey the constitution, comply with the law, annoying priorities like that) and replace them with structures that will swear fealty to the king.
Steve Bannon explains this very well. It's called "flooding the zone." Because people can only focus on 1 thing at a time, fascists do 5 things at a time. The media focuses on one thing while they make progress on the other 4. The culture war nonsense has proven to be delicious bait for the media and now so has DEI.
Using culture wars to attack foreign aid is a decades-old strategy of the GOP.
Entirely eliminating foreign aid would not meaningfully reduce the scope & power of the federal government in the U.S. (although obviously it harms our soft power abroad and there are millions of people who will be directly and indirectly impacted).
I agree deregulation is a focus of the current admin but there is also control. See pam bondi threatening to prosecute private companies with DEI programs. If you consider healthcare to be industry it would be one of our largest and he has implemented anti trans control there as well.
I expect overall deregulation regarding safety and environment etc will continue but alongside it there will be strict directives that comport with the right wing social and ideological agendas.
>See pam bondi threatening to prosecute private companies with DEI programs
And previously private companies were being threatened with lawsuits due to disparate impact in hiring, which lead to the creation of said DEI programs
If you consider the current situation control and a precursor towards fascism, you have to consider the past situation in the same light
But who threatened? If you fail to see the difference between legal actions from private entities and threats by a government that shows it doesn't feel bounded by laws (see illegal actions from the memecoin department) then you should probably refrain from giving your opinion…