Krugman offers up the argument that we are "no longer a serious country" as we embrace the idiocy of Trump's manic policy making. Richardson begins her piece by noting Joni Ernst's sociopathic response to Medicaid cuts being irrelevant because we all die anyway.
It is tempting to place the cascading disasters of Trump's policies at his feet alone. He is, after all, that toxic combination of moron and narcissist. But it wasn't Trump's idea that tax cuts will lead to so much growth that they would pay for themselves. It wasn't Trump's idea that cutting people off from government health insurance would make them lazy. It wasn't Trump's idea that America just needed to return to "Biblical principles."
A lot goes back to Reagan, but you can back further to the Birchers and McCarthy, to Calvin Coolidge and Andrew Mellon.
America has never felt respect for bureaucrats, perhaps because our original bureaucracy was staffed by the spoils system (a system Trump is trying to resurrect). Other countries feel that their government is a tool to help the most people that it can; it is an instrument of the common good. We don't feel that way, and a large strain of us have never felt that way.
I understand why even center left commentators and especially bothsides types would not want to stare this fact in the face, but America has always been unserious. We have thrived, because democracy allows us to self-correct.
Let's hope we still have democracy by 2028.
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