“Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves.” City of Lies
Historically Republicans have been in favor of smaller and limited government while Democrats have supported a larger and more activist government. In recent years that framework has changed in response to “a strong populist thread and a robust role for the state” supported by both parties but from vastly different perspectives.
During the Reagan years Republicans flirted with a “starve the beast” strategy to reduce government spending. Lower taxes were reconciled with the standard Republican desire for a balanced budget and lower deficits using what George H.W. Bush called “voodoo economics” also known as “supply side economics” based in part on a bogus analysis called the Laffer Curve (an invention of one of my economic acquaintances at Stanford). Ultimately Republicans were forced to admit that the “starve the beast” strategy did not work as government spending was not constrained and the government deficit increased.
Based on President elect Donald Trump’s recent nominees to fill his cabinet and other important government positions it appears the MAGA Republicans (are there any non-MAGA Republicans left?) have a new strategy: dumb down and privatize. Consider how a recent article in the Guardian describes Trump’s nominees: “Certain common characteristics run through his cabinet of curiosities and horrors to mark them collectively unique among any cabinet of any president – alleged sexual misconduct and abuse, drug addiction, megalomania, authoritarianism, cultism, paranoia, white supremacy, antisemitism and grifting. Some nominees meet all these qualifications, others only two, three or four. For a few, it’s just plain and simple self-aggrandizing corruption.”
The idea seems to be to appoint the most incompetent or inept people to manage existing government departments that the MAGA folks want to destroy or eliminate (the IRS, the Department of Education, the CIA, etc) and to appoint his billionaire buddies to positions or special commissions to privatize those government agencies that the MAGA folks want to plunder (DOGE, AI and Crypto, Secretary of Interior, Energy, etc). “Elon Musk, whose net worth is more than $343 billion, joins more than a dozen billionaires and ultra-wealthy Wall Street characters joining Trump’s administration. Together, their net worth exceeds $360 billion — larger than the gross domestic product of more than 11 dozen countries.”
“In a nation that professes that those who work hard and play by the rules should be rewarded with social and economic upward mobility, these persistent disparities are a stark reminder that, as a society, we have not achieved this goal.”
The rise and enrichment of the oligarch billionaires within the government occurs at a time when income and wealth inequality is already at historically high levels. The last time inequality was as high as it is today was in the 1920s. Does that mean another 1929 Crash followed by a Great Depressions is lurking ahead? No one knows for sure. Will Trump’s signature policies of tariffs and deportation of undocumented immigrants benefit or further disadvantage the disgruntled voters who elected him? That remains to be seen. If not we may be in for trouble ahead.