Hacker News Reader

Comment by dkarl | Hacker News Reader

Mainstream conservatives/Republicans swung hard in the direction of supporting domestic spying and surveillance in the early 2000s and have never swung back. They hate the government but (with some justification) assume that law enforcement is on their side.

View on HN

> They hate the government

Judging by their positions and actions, they don't hate government at all. They love government. They just hate it when government doesn't enthusiastically support what they want.

It would be nice if the Democrats would tear this down, but they seem happy having the opportunity to spy domestically now that it's in place.

Given how much distrust there is of DHS/FBI among Trump supporters/GOP base, I’m not sure this is true; especially with many neocons returning to the Democratic Party they came from originally.

Elected GOP officials are a completely different beast from much of their own base.

I'm making a generalization that doesn't include every single element of the right, but these days the rhetoric against federal law enforcement has no chance of getting turned into policy. Distrust of government is an integral part of conservative rhetoric, and incidents like Waco and Ruby Ridge remain a cherished part of their mythology, but there's a big difference between the 1990s, when they were demanding investigations and limitations on the FBI's power to surveil and act against American citizens, and anytime since 9/11, when they have wanted the FBI to have more power to surveil and act against American citizens, even under Democratic administrations.

You wouldn't be able to get Republican support for reducing the power of federal law enforcement even if Joe Biden died and Kamala Harris became president. Maybe their paranoia would get sufficiently revived if they were facing a President-Elect AOC in 2024... but I'd rather not think about how they would behave under those circumstances.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com