[consumer451]

Well, yes, but that someone else doesn’t need to be a foreign adversary.

There is a certain type of mentality that just doesn’t believe that government should do anything, and that private enterprise will always have the solution.

Those people appear to be in control of all levers of power in the United States.

[jmull]

It's simpler than ideology about government vs. private enterprise. These are purely transactional people, looking out for what can benefit themselves. It's just about grabbing things for personal gain.

[IG_Semmelweiss]

Real world evidence doesn't seem to validate this position.

For example - The ratio of government employees (including contractors) to US population is at an all time high[1], and the ratio of GDP to government expense is at an all time high[2].

It should be obvious if you have a profilgate printer priting dollars left and right, and the printer's controllers livelyhood depends on the printer working, workers will eventually lease printing to anyone willing to pay the controllers.

Thus, doesn't seem like a problem of wealthy people to me. You are always going to have wealthy people in any society. But it seems the fault is at having a printer, and letting people who aren't your neighbor, to control it.

I'm open minded in this being a "Chicken or egg" Problem. But I'd need to hear a compelling argument for it.

[1] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-true-size-of-governme...

[2] https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA

[miltonlost]

ze/l,dcg;klsd;fmg'sex WHATD. you need to learn how monetary policy works. there's nothing in your response worth correcting it's so wrong.

And completely ignores who is President and his explicit words.

[AnthonyMouse]

The current President is a big fat liar and everybody knows it. But where's your counter for the argument? Government spending is now at a higher percentage of GDP than it was during the height of WWII, which had been the all-time high for 200+ years. That is inherently inconsistent with the incumbent "just doesn’t believe that government should do anything" -- the current government is doing a lot of something.

[nullocator]

Why would you write it like it's a mystery. Government spending is for the most part public. Most of it going to two massive buckets military and social support programs (medicare, snap, et al). Now you can argue about how much we should be spending on each, but don't act like it's a big secret where the money is going. The elected representatives (all parties) of this country have voted to increase military spending year over year and most of the population is fine with this.

Separately but equally damaging in terms of spending is one party is consistently doing everything in their power to fuck over the most vulnerable, provide tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy, and generally make life miserable for anyone who isn't a wealthy (soon white) dude.

This means the other party being the only sane choice for people with morals, but also being subject to various types of capture corporate or otherwise, gets to spend their time in power bumbling around trying to undo the damage and make sure the wheels don't completely fall off, so the "welfare" state expands by necessity since the only thing the two parties can agree on at this point is that all problems should be solved by throwing absurd amount of money at them and nothing else.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Most of it going to two massive buckets military and social support programs (medicare, snap, et al).

SNAP is peanuts. About a trillion dollars out of the seven trillion goes to the military and by far the largest amount goes to retirees.

> The elected representatives (all parties) of this country have voted to increase military spending year over year and most of the population is fine with this.

How can you tell if they're fine with it if all of their alternatives lead to the same result?

> Separately but equally damaging in terms of spending is one party is consistently doing everything in their power to fuck over the most vulnerable, provide tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy, and generally make life miserable for anyone who isn't a wealthy (soon white) dude.

The party that set up Social Security so that it has an income cap on the tax, makes larger payouts to people who had higher incomes up to the cap and max payouts to people who hit the income cap, and pays out more to white people in aggregate even proportional to their income because they live longer, was the party of FDR. The party that has been obstructing housing construction in San Francisco and other major cities for decades to the detriment of renters, young prospective home buyers and the homeless is the party with the majority in those cities, and you can't even pin that one on the filibuster.

You don't get to blame the other party for the things they screwed up and the things you screwed up.

[ben_w]

While I would not describe Trump's regime as one which "just doesn’t believe that government should do anything"*, I would point out that they did attempt DOGE and kept finding out they were firing load-bearing parts of the system.

IMO even the stuff that they boast about was load bearing stuff that they simply didn't understand, not as they claimed "waste", but perception is key here: they did what they themselves would describe in this way.

* I think "elected king" is a better description of Trump's goals; he seems to want the justice department to be his personal legal team, the armed forces (all armed forces, including police) to be his personal forces, etc.

[relaxing]

You think they truly believe private enterprise is going to defend the country from cyberattacks?

[consumer451]

I personally find the mentality truly not sane. So, why not? Absolutists appear to not think through a lot of things.

On top of that, there is the whole accelerationist ideology factor, which is also deeply insane to me.

[relaxing]

Sure, but under that assumption there’s no reason to rule out any of the other theories, either.

[consumer451]

Agreed. I guess my point in OP was about my own realization that crazy stuff need not be at the behest of a foreign adversary.

[_DeadFred_]

That is basically the Republicans' entire existence at this point. They would rather blow it up/make it disfunction/burn in down than have a working government. They have proven so with actions/policy like their willingness to pile destructive levels of debt onto the nation in order leverage the damage to their political goal of destroying government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast

[pavlov]

But they seem to also believe in heavy-handed government intervention to prop up failing businesses. For example Trump's recent announcement that he'll require the military to buy coal power on long-term contracts:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/02/trumps-latest-plan-t...

So on the one hand they're saying government shouldn't do anything, but on the other hand they love having the government put its finger on the scales of the market.

[coldpie]

The common thread that resolves this apparent conflict is, of course, billionaires. 100% of Republicans and ~60% of Democrats are in office primarily to serve at the whims of billionaires. They will pursue whatever policies will give more power to billionaires, consistency and hypocrisy are irrelevant.

[deaux]

> ~60% of Democrats

I think you can make that ~80%, but maybe you've done the calculations more diligently than I have.

[felineflock]

No, it is more like Reps 75% and Dems 90%, ±5%.

[nullocator]

How could you possibly come to this conclusion? Which party literally just voted for tax breaks on the wealthy and corporations, twice in one decade?!

In before "No clearly the party that helps the billionaires the most and is mostly comprised of billionaires and is backed by all the tech billionaires are the good guys, they are the true party of the people"

[felineflock]

So you think only one party did that??? Only one party protects billionaires??? Wow that's funny!

[sheikhnbake]

"So on the one hand they're saying government shouldn't do anything, but on the other hand they love having the government put its finger on the scales of the market."

Rather: They don't want the government to impede capitalist interests (greed), so they're using the government to further their corruption and greed

[donkeybeer]

No these aren't no government types otherwise they'd be jan 6'ing every capitol when tariffs were imposed. These people are just trumpbots, there is no philosophy or consistency you will be able to find. They are not smart enough leastways to even in theory hold any philosophical position.