The Twist

For nearly half a century, Americans have had to endure the phrase “Reaganomics,” which refers to a supposedly brilliant economic system that has the slight flaw of being a total disaster that never worked. Recently, people have been throwing around the term “Bidenomics,” which refers to a governmental philosophy that actually seems to be effective.

But conservatives aren’t happy about lower inflation and record employment, or a much better economy than anything a GOP president has presided over in decades. In fact, they are angry about it.

So Republicans tried doubling down (and tripling, quadrupling, etcetera) on the idea of limited government, which is an empty phrase that means, “Don’t tax rich people.” This approach is not terribly popular with most Americans. And with reason, because this philosophy has led to developments such as lax antitrust laws, which benefit big corporations but cost the typical American household more than $5,000 a year.

Of course, the GOP has never and will never care if their policies are hated. They are now implying, or straight-up insisting, that democracy should be severely limited or even abolished.

And if Republicans now hate democracy and the Constitution, anything is possible. For example, that whole limited-government thing has recently been revealed as the total sham it always was. 

In a massive shift, Republicans are no longer “committed to keeping the government weak to stay out of the way of business development.” Instead, they are now determined to create “a strong government that enforces Christian nationalism.” 

To do so, they must abandon their supposed core principles and embrace big government. You might think this would be hypocritical and anathema to conservatives. But it took very little to convince libertarian absolutists to change their “tune on the free market and state power to keep up with the 'New Right' ushered in by Trump and DeSantis.”

That “New Right,” which is a lot like the old right but louder, consists of theocrats who despise “the secular values of democracy—religious freedom, companies that respond to markets without interference by the state, academic freedom, public schools, free speech, equality before the law—[and] want to restore what they consider human virtue by using the state to enforce their values.” 

And that brings us back to Reaganomics, which was never really about the economy. You see, “Since the days of Reagan, Republicans have argued that people who believe that the government should regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, protect civil rights, and promote infrastructure are destroying the country by trying to redistribute wealth from hardworking White Americans to undeserving minorities and women.”

During the 1980s and 1990s, all this was said in code. That façade started crumbling in the 21^st century. And today, conservatives have dropped the bullshit and taken their argument “to its logical conclusion: the country has been destroyed by women, Black Americans, Indigenous people, and people of color, who have taken it over and are persecuting” White Americans.

At this point, the GOP is very much the party of big government. And unless you are a White, straight, conservative man, you will not like what that government will do to you.