If that was so, then it’s natural for folks employed by the government to vote to keep their own jobs. If one party thinks, we need fewer government employees, and one side thinks, we need more of them, you can see how incentives might line up.
That said, Republicans talk about limited government, but in my lifetime, I’ve seen very little difference in the expansion of governmental powers regardless of which party is in control.
It doesn't even have to be the "greedy self-serving" kind. Just thinking you want "to make the world a better place" is enough to justify funds, power and influence. It takes a very rare kind of restraint to not intervene.
> That said, Republicans talk about limited government, but in my lifetime, I’ve seen very little difference in the expansion of governmental powers regardless of which party is in control.
Sad but true.
Since what they say in order to get votes and/or keep up the facade of democracy, can be 180deg opposite of what they big biz "partners" and "campaign donors" what them to actually do. Govt does not serve people at this point, it merely claims it does and that is just one of their many lies (especially on the top, less so at the municipality level).
Tell me about how libertarianism and Christian nationalism come together to form a base that supports law enforcement (eg FBI), the military and CBP.
Frankly, I find the current version of the party most confusing, but especially the “small government” part.
It is true of course that "Deep Throat", the source who allegedly kept the journalistic investigation climbing through the Nixon Administration's ranks, is commonly held to have been Mark Felt[2], occupant of the number two job at the FBI at the time, so there is that.
What did for Nixon in the end, though, was mostly the taped evidence of his clumsy attempts to have the CIA, in the person of Richard Helms, warn the FBI off investigating his campaign's dubious money trail, or risk having "the whole Bay of Pigs thing" revealed if they didn't. (Whatever that might have been!)
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoff_Shepard
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Felt#%22Deep_Throat%22_in...
Why? I mean we need "dark budgets" to some extend (spy agencies, military). But do we need a "deep state", meaning: big biz and govt make the decisions behind closed doors and then merely project an image of democracy/voting/transparency?
Where was the public support for Iraq/Afghanistan/Unkrain and soon Taiwan? The deep state need no public support, they just need a "positive impact on the bottom line" (profit) of their "partners". Disgusting.
Yeah gonna need a source for that.
What I did find, and what I possibly confused it with, was that political spending of the respective government employee unions are overwhelmingly democrat:
"Of course, it’s not just teachers’ unions. In the 2020 election cycle alone, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) dedicated 99.1% of its political spending to Democrats. The American Federation of Government Employees gave 95.6% to Democrats." [0]
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20210416210710/https://www.balti...
https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2022/11/poll-federal-emplo...