The Powell Memorandum (1971) explicitly building the case for business takeover of democracy (by in many ways undermining/sabotaging the public's belief in the United States as a government), for the record, was a decade old when Reagan was in office (1981).
The Powell Memorandum is famous for being incredible explicit, for the scope & scale of how and where it would seek to dominate and control the media and abuse courts, for example. But no, even 1971 was not the first business plot to takeover the government, to foment dissent to try to rip the nation apart & assert a capitalist / oligarchical government on/against these United States.
I agree the government has the obligation to maintain the trust of it's people. But my heavens, it is deeply woefully & sad that there is such a loud angry butter popular political party whose axis is revanchist hatred of the state. It's not grounded, it's not trying for better, it's not honest: it's a constant attack on the USA at all levels, and the party exists only because that is the only message most rich people will fund: the Powell Memorandum style plot to get rid of as much government as possible.
Reagan's words against the government are indeed old ideas. Part of a long scary tradition against the state.
There is no smoke filled room. The government lost public trust by sucking. It turned itself into a bureaucratic hellscape for rent seeking lawyers (of which the number has gone up 3x since 1970). to feed on. Its model of restricting supply of necessary commodities like housing and then subsidizing them has reached its limit. They lost public trust because they don't deserve it.
There's people who want a government, want to do good, want governance.
But if they also have to win the hearts and minds, ongoingly, against an advanced persistent threat of disinformation networks and the most well funded US citizens, working for a Powell Memorandum revolt of the elites, well...
It sure seems like doing governance is much much much harder than it used to be. The enemies of the state are making it much most costly, creating a vast unrest that saps constant energy and attention.
I can't 100% disagree with you. But there's been 50 years of well spoken plot to overburden the government and topple the state's ability to act. Whatever people are feeling today has certainly been deeply shaped by the centuries of the rich & their opposition to democracy & governance. That seems more clear and present than ever, seems so clear that people have been lead so strongly to dissent. We don't have any control groups to assess this by. But pleading that it's all genuine, none of this is manufactured, that it's all objectively deserved: I cannot imagine polarizing yourself so hard as to deny the air we breath, the information environment we've drowned in with Hastert Rule democracy, tiny little Tea Party shenanigans ruling the airwaves (vs vastly bigger No Kings getting barely mentions), and the Grok-goverened brave new X world. The propaganda of dissent and obstruction has been working, and it has fed and shaped and sharpened the crusade against the United States as a competent capable governing entity.
> There's people who want a government, want to do good, want governance.
It makes absolutely no difference what people want to do if they are not effective at it. I just look at the evidence here and the government is much more dysfunctional in Democrat run areas. Here's a Democrat voting economist admitting it: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/blue-states-dont-build-red-sta...
How can you blame the problem on republicans if it is worse where they have the least control? The current governance problems in the US are 100% a self-own.
The Powell Memorandum is famous for being incredible explicit, for the scope & scale of how and where it would seek to dominate and control the media and abuse courts, for example. But no, even 1971 was not the first business plot to takeover the government, to foment dissent to try to rip the nation apart & assert a capitalist / oligarchical government on/against these United States.
I agree the government has the obligation to maintain the trust of it's people. But my heavens, it is deeply woefully & sad that there is such a loud angry butter popular political party whose axis is revanchist hatred of the state. It's not grounded, it's not trying for better, it's not honest: it's a constant attack on the USA at all levels, and the party exists only because that is the only message most rich people will fund: the Powell Memorandum style plot to get rid of as much government as possible.
Reagan's words against the government are indeed old ideas. Part of a long scary tradition against the state.