The scariest thing in the world … is the lie Republicans have been telling for 45 years

When America plunged into the Great Depression, FDR’s New Deal helped turn things around. It didn’t restore the economy — that took the massive government spending of WW II — but it did give lots of people a lifeline, and hope. And launched many projects that even if they didn’t fix things immediately, paid off in the decades that followed: Social Security, bank-deposit insurance, the right to unionize. It wasn’t perfect but it was good.

While many of the rich and powerful hated Roosevelt as a “class traitor,” Republicans were generally on-board with those changes. Eisenhower bragged that under his presidency, Social Security was getting more generous. Then came civil rights and as Kevin M. Kruse documents in White Flight, everything changed. The idea that Those People were getting benefits from Our Tax Dollars, that white people had to share public buildings and spaces with POC, was unacceptable. Better to gut the government than see Them happy (Randall Bulmer’s book makes the same point).

Which meant the right wing was fertile ground for Reagan’s lie that “the scariest thing is to hear someone say ‘I’m from the government and I’m hear to help.'” I doubt Reagan believed it himself: Rick Perlstein points out he spent the 1970s ranting against Evil Government Bureaucrats while defending J. Edgar Hoover (a government bureaucrat) over his illegal activities and the CIA leadership likewise (they spied illegal on Americans, among other things). Almost instantly it became Republican orthodoxy.

As the recent Texas floods showed, having government help choked off is often much scarier. Ditto losing government support for healthcare and sensible medicine. Obama negotiated an agreement with Iran not to develop nukes. FOTUS tore it up and now we have to worry about what happens next. We can’t get any sort of gun regulation passed because Republicans would sooner have an Uvalde every week than piss off the gun lobby.

Which leads to the obvious point that yes, having Republicans “help” is almost always bad. They don’t want to help us. They don’t want us to think there’s anything they can do. I’ve read arguments (no links handy) that part of the reason they want to gut the ACA is that once it rolled out, having affordable health insurance proved massively popular. If people realize government can make their lives better … well they might think that should be normal. That would be a problem for Republicans, who want to move in the opposite direction:

Making it more expensive for prisoners to take and receive phone calls.

Defunding AIDS prevention in Africa.

Under Biden the FTC adopted a “click to cancel” rule — it should be as easy to drop a service as to sign up. Not any more.

California tries to limit the suffering of egg-laying hens. The DOJ says no.

The scariest thing in the world is … Republicans.