The Biggest of Big Governments

When I was younger, I heard many times that I would become more conservative as I aged. That hasn’t happened.

But I don’t know if it’s because I have stuck to my progressive principles, or because conservatism has morphed into a toxic sludge of racism, ignorance, fear, hatred, and crippling insecurity that most rational, well-adjusted people recoil from.

It could be either.

In any case, one of the reasons that I would supposedly turn conservative was because liberals would alienate me by overdoing it with Big Government.

You remember Big Government, right?

That was the term conservatives used to demonize socialized medicine, an adequate social safety net, or any governmental program that got in the way of rich gluttons devouring ungodly amounts of money as fast as they could steal it.

In truth, so-called Big Government is the default setting in every other industrialized nation in the world. But they just call it government, without the unnecessary adjective.

Oh, I know. Those countries are not as “free” as we are, here in the land where small, absolutely miniscule, microscopic government is a cherished goal and unquestioned virtue.

What has never been explained, however, is exactly how the French government oppresses its citizens, or why Australians tolerate their supposedly despotic government, or why the Scandinavian countries have the highest standard of living in the world. 

For that matter, it’s never explained why American “freedom” consists of higher rates of illness, homelessness, and people going without health insurance. I guess those are just the side effects of all that liberty.

In any case, the whole debate over Big Government seems laughably quaint today, as the U.S. government has catapulted trillions — literally, trillions — of dollars at American companies in order to keep the economy, in the words of top financial experts, from going all bye bye gone now.

Oddly enough, during times of economic disaster, the answer always seems to be bigger government. Whenever there is a financial crisis, even hardcore conservatives don’t say, “let’s get all laissez-faire.” No, everybody agrees that we need Big Government to step in, and step in now, or we might face a scenario where industries go under, people lose their jobs, and — in a truly nightmarish development — bank executives don’t get their bonuses.

So if limited, tiny government is so amazing, why is it constantly kicked to the curb whenever the financial system gets a bit wobbly? Why can’t our glorious free market take care of itself? And why are conservatives abandoning “GOP orthodoxy to push for even greater intervention in the economy”?

Maybe it’s because Big Government is not a real thing.

It is a right-wing boogieman that the GOP created to scare voters. It is conservatives, of course, who want to regulate what a woman does with her body, and who you can legally marry. Those ideas certainly don’t envision a limited role for our government.

And in the Trump era, Republicans have created “stunning arguments envisioning almost unchallenged presidential power,” which implies that it is not Big Government if the president — or more specifically, Trump — does it.

These are the same people, of course, who champion “Trump's America First ideology — which is every bit as Big Government as socialism, but without any pretense of a higher purpose.”

What conservatives mean when they talk about Big Government is a system where workers should be happy to sacrifice their very lives, but where huge corporations that hit a speed bump can receive mountains of taxpayer cash with no strings attached. Those corporations’ leaders, by the way, often pause in their counting of all those billions just long enough to scream about excessive regulation and burdensome taxes and government oppression.

But those days may be numbered. And it’s not just because Covid-19 has overwhelmed and outmatched our supposedly first-class healthcare system (a for-profit patchwork that no other country in the world wants to adopt, by the way).

No, it’s also because this economic crisis — barely a decade after the last financial meltdown — has convinced many skeptics of Big Government that they must “see public services as investments rather than liabilities,” and realize that “governments will have to accept a more active role in the economy.”

You see, our current mode of capitalism has proven itself unable to improve the quality of life for its adherents (other than the top 1 percent). It also can’t withstand the slightest jolt without collapsing and dragging millions of people down with it. Twice in the last 12 years, our theoretically amazing economic system has had to be bailed out by its mortal enemy, Big Government. So maybe Small Government isn’t all that robust.

In the near future, many experts believe that economic redistribution “will again be on the agenda; the privileges of the wealthy in question.” Furthermore, conservatives will be shocked and appalled to learn that “policies until recently considered eccentric, such as basic income and wealth taxes, will have to be in the mix.”

After all, it was just 24 years ago when President Bill Clinton declared that “The era of Big Government is over.” Republicans cheered the president then, something they rarely did during the Clinton years. 

But clearly, there was nothing worth cheering that day. 

We’re Talking Here

As you can imagine, it has not been a great time for one’s productivity. 

For proof, check out my post-modern “poem” from last week that substituted for my regular post (it was actually kind of fun to create, so maybe I’ll revisit the idea and launch it as a regular series or bizarre radio show or something artsy like that).

In any case, I still made time this week to talk to my friend Hector Alamo for his podcast Remember the Show.

We spoke about Covid-19, of course. But we also touched upon the inevitable changes this pandemic will bring, the political games that Americans play to pretend that we live in a unified country, and the odds that the younger generation will have fewer Nazis in it (spoiler: the odds are good).

So go ahead and listen to our conversation.

In the meantime, stay safe and continue to look out for one another. 

Thanks

Fuck It, Here's a Poem

Apparently, half of our citizens are bored day-drinkers who are binge watching Tiger King and knitting DIY facemasks.

The other half consists of people working from home who have to do everything they always did, but now while homeschooling their kids.

I’m in that second half. As such, I have not written a new post this week. However, like nature, I abhor a vacuum. So I wrote a poem. 

The only problem is that I am not a poet. My solution was to get all post-modern on you and construct a “found” poem from existing sources. Here it is:

“Poem consisting of the headlines of IMDB user reviews, covering the last 10 movies I saw” 

Another romanticized, dysfunctional relationship.

A hypnotic fever dream of nightmarish intensity.

Traumatic, surreal, and bizarre.

The magic is gone.

A long journey… for nothing?

I really wanted to love it!

Just kept waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting.

Amazing… but the more I dwell on it the worse it becomes.

What does it mean to be strong?

Finding love amongst all the action, violence, blood, and Japanese gangsters.

[Here are the movies referenced (in order)]

Cold War

Mandy

Midsommer

John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum

Ash Is Purest White

It: Chapter 2

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Avengers: Endgame

The Art of Self-Defense

First Love

Rugged Individualism Will Not Save You

Throughout history, people have been willing to die for only a handful of ideals. These include the following: 

Family

Country

God

Freedom

To that list, we can now add “gross domestic product.”

Yes, our old friends in the GOP have clearly stated what they’ve only hinted at before, which is that nothing — not even human life —is as precious as money.

You see, the Republican lieutenant governor of Texas, Dan Patrick, recently implied that all this social distancing is absurd, because the economy is suffering. Patrick said Americans should be “willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren.”

Of course, “the America that all America loves” is a nation where people live from paycheck to paycheck, don’t have basic healthcare, and cower in fear of their rich overlords, who feel entitled to work them to death. But those are just details. The point is that we should all be honored to collapse in the streets if it means the Dow Jones goes into a bull market.

Now, you might think that literally killing yourself just to keep the unemployment rate low is not exactly a noble demise. That’s where you’re wrong.

Because our president, that most stable of geniuses, is shrieking that economic malaise will eat you and your grandma if we don’t get back to the office soon. Trump has declared that he “wants the nation ‘opened up and just raring to go by Easter’ -- a date just more than two weeks away that few health experts believe will be sufficient in containing the spread of coronavirus.”

Trump is making this demand — which is completely unenforceable, by the way — because he is concerned that if people stay at home much longer, the Great Depression II will explode and sink his odds of being reelected.

That would be strange, considering that the media insisted “economic anxiety” was the main reason poor white people voted for Trump in the first place. If that was true in 2016, they will be even happier to vote for him in 2020, when they will be even more economically anxious, right?

Right?

Ahem.

In any case, there is absolutely no evidence that ending the lockdowns and throwing open the doors of every store in America will actually prevent a recession. In fact, many experts believe that rushing back to our crowded, elbow-bumping lifestyles will only backfire and that “the fallout will be worse if the White House declares victory now, only to have the virus resurface in coming weeks or months.”

But hey, it’s worth a shot, isn’t it? After all, the only risk is driving up the death rate of Covid-19 until it reaches genocidal levels. And considering those extra victims will be mostly old people who aren’t contributing to the bottom line anyway, it’s obviously time to shout, “We’re back in business, baby!”

Hey, we might as well circle “an arbitrary date on the calendar and decide that, on that day, everything is going to be fine.”

Now, as powerful as the drive to post record profits is, there remains yet another reason why conservatives see no need to isolate ourselves when we could be out in public, shopping and drinking and coughing in each other’s faces.

And it is this:

We are exceptional.

I mean, we’ve certainly heard it enough over the past few decades. Americans are the best, the greatest, the smartest, the strongest, the purest, the biggest, the baddest, and in general, the most likely to crush adversity in our giant, super-patriotic hands. This is American exceptionalism.

But there is one tiny issue with this viewpoint, which is that “American exceptionalism — like its machismo requires that we believe, even against the testimony of experts and the evidence of our own eyes, that the ‘greatness’ of America is eternal and invulnerable.”

We believe our standard of living is the best, when every statistic shows that it is not. We believe our kids are the brightest, even though the other industrialized nations kick our ass in education. And we believe that we have the “greatest healthcare system in the world,” which has never been remotely true, and is all the more glaring in its absurdity now that our hospitals are buckling under the strain of the coronavirus.

Despite these clear facts, we insist that our nation is the best (whatever that means) and “that the chief contribution citizens can make to American greatness is to act as if nothing is wrong.”

It is in our national character to bellow, in defiance of all proof, that we are blessed. Our default setting is to think that we are so favored by God, so intrinsically virtuous, and so insanely powerful that the only way we will catch Covid-19 is if we grab a fistful of viruses and lick them for ten minutes straight. Also, if you get sick, you probably didn’t work hard enough or pray the right way.

However, we should remember something before we dismiss all scientific and medical advice, and rush out into the world to show how tough we are.

You see, the virus “isn’t watching the bar-going hordes and thinking, ‘Wow, I really misjudged these brave Americans; I’m not sure I’m up to this.’”

Covid-19 isn’t intimidated by our resilience or courage or tenacity or whatever pretty adjective we use to describe reckless disregard for our fellow citizens. The virus is not impressed.

And the truth is that there is nothing exceptional about dropping dead.

A Slight Reordering of Priorities

Crying won't help you
Praying won't do you no good
Now crying won't help you
Praying won't do you no good
When the levee breaks
Mama you got to move
Going down
Going down now

“When the Levee Breaks”

— Led Zeppelin (& Memphis Minnie)

During this time of crisis, it might be nice to have someone in charge who is not a doddering sociopath who has no experience dealing with crises, can’t grasp details, insists he knows more than experts in any given field, ignores facts he doesn’t like, lies out of instinct, surrounds himself with incompetent yes men, has a history of bankruptcy and failure, and possesses complete disdain for anyone who isn’t related to him and/or can make him money. Plus, it would be beneficial if he knew how basic science works.

But maybe that’s just me.

Yes, the theoretical main motivation for Trump voters — i.e., to elect someone who will “shake things up” — appears even more spectacularly pathetic now than it did in 2016. 

The coronavirus — or as the GOP refers to it, the Chinese Yellow Peril Death Plot — has ended any talk among conservatives of enacting more of their reactionary agenda.

I mean, remember when Trump insisted that he would build a wall on our Southern border, and that Mexico would pay for it? Really, do any Americans — even the racists — give one-quarter of a fuck about that idea now? The sad hucksterism of “Build the Wall” has been revealed. But of course, people barely remember that bizarre goal (or the millions of dollars wasted on it).

They are too busy denying that the COVID-19 is real, or if it is real, that it is Soros-funded plot. Or that Trump has it all under control even though it’s perfectly clear that a blind orangutan thrust into the Oval Office could do a better job.

Those of us who accept the science behind this catastrophe know that older Americans are most at risk. And in a darkly twisted bit of irony, senior citizens constitute a key demographic of Trump’s support. During the last election, many seniors wanted a return to their childhoods of the 1950s (i.e., no blacks or Latinos living next door), and admired a guy who talked tough, with none of that PC bullshit.

However, it’s becoming clear that insulting ethnic minorities doesn’t facilitate an effective government response to a pandemic. And a virus doesn’t care how tough you talk. So those qualifications are, to say the least, unhelpful during this accelerating crisis.

No, the savior of baby boomers doesn’t appear to be saving them. In fact, he apparently thought so little of their well-being that he prioritized his re-election campaign ahead of their safety. That is, of course, a dereliction of duty and a violation of the president’s oath to defend the country, which in turn, is arguably an impeachable offense. But hey, we played that game already, and the GOP assured us that it was in the nation’s best interests to keep their easily distracted ball of rage in the White House.

I wonder if they have changed their minds, considering that the person they so strenuously defended mere months ago has now committed the worst mistake in presidential history (all while denying any responsibility for his own incompetence).

In truth, “the coronavirus is quite likely to be the Trump presidency’s inflection point, when everything changed, when the bluster and ignorance and shallowness of America’s 45th president became undeniable, an empirical reality, as indisputable as the laws of science or a mathematical equation.”

And all that bullshit about shaking things up, or making America great, or keeping the world safe for elderly white people? 

Yeah, that was all just talk. Nobody believes that nonsense anymore.