Comment by goku12
9 hours ago
I absolutely agree about the billionaires. Not just because they're out of touch with reality, those government agencies are big hurdles to their pursuit of unlimited wealth by any means necessary. This was splendidly evident in the way Musk targeted the agencies that were either regulating or investigating his companies.
But what perplexes me is the hostility against government bureaucrats shown by ordinary people who are getting impoverished. I see them routinely complaining online that government workers are lazy parasites who live off their tax money. Some people take it further, saying that these workers are part of the 'deep state' out to enslave them.
Sure! Any bureaucracy will have some bad apples and corruption. But how do they miss the part that the government bureaucracy is the last line of defense blocking their all out exploitation? Like others point out, most government workers are too qualified and work too hard for what they are paid. They often take a pay cut to work on their passion and help everyone in the process. You can see this in the numerous bureaucrats who strongly resisted illegal and/or anti constitutional orders from the regime. Why are the people so oblivious to these?
Abstraction. They can't see how a functioning government benefits them. The only people who need a functioning government, in their mind, are the leeches and welfare queens, not the hard working rugged individuals like them who have never taken a penny in government aid (again abstraction. Tax policy that subsidizes mortgage holders, for example, does not occur to them as a handout. Or social security. It's not a handout because "I paid into it", not considering that they get back more than they contributed).
Makes sense. But why is that? Are they not educated enough to realize it? Or don't they bother to apply their common sense to such topics? Also, where do they get these weird alternative explanations from?
PS: I'm not from the US. What I know is from both mainstream and social media. I'm curious about the fundamental reasons on the ground too.
>where do they get these weird alternative explanations from?
Surely you're aware of cable news in the US, like Fox News, etc. but before that, for about 40 years now[0], AM talk radio has played a huge part in developing this messaging. I grew up with this as my main channel for awareness of current events, hearing about everything that happens through this lens.
I'm not sure if this [1] is accessible outside the US, but give a listen between 3 and 9 pm EST (GMT-5) though certainly not limited to these hours. You'll learn a lot about the American right wing mindset, and how the working and middle class is effectively messaged to. Talk radio is a lot more free form and ephemeral, so you'll hear a lot more improvised and extreme ideas than you would in a TV broadcast. It's quite a spectacle.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_doctrine
[1]https://710wor.iheart.com/
Oh they will absolutely notice when they have to wait an entire day at the DMV for an extension of their driver's license.
No, that's just going to reinforce that government doesn't work, which justifies starving the beast further. I don't know how one party has so successfully created this feedback loop, where the more they lose, the more they win. I guess its simply that destruction is easier than creation