The Republican Party is not for “smaller government” or “less government.”
That mischaracterization is an oft-repeated yarn Republicans spin, one of the many platitudes they have heaped upon their party and themselves over the years.
Republican lawmakers and voters love to shower themselves with meaningless words and phrases, hoping a few stick to camouflage the stink of a rotten political ideology and moral compass. Make America Great Again. Compassionate Conservatism. The fundamentals of the economy are strong.
Republicans are not the party of smaller or less government.
The Republican Party leverages and abuses government and political power to create policy and outcomes that benefit a small number of people.
The same policies that the GOP uses to benefit the richest people and corporations in the history of the world burden the rest of us.
Benefits and burdens.
In their seminal book Policy Design For Democracy, Anne Larason Schneider and Helen Ingram in part describe the analysis of policy in which the benefits and burdens of a specific policy can be analyzed as conveying each intentionally and unintentionally upon “target populations.”
Democrats have ceded the small/big government argument for too long. Letting Republicans claim that they are for smaller government allowed Republicans to run against government in 2016 while holding 2/3 of the Federal Government and trifecta control in 25 states.
The GOP is not for smaller or better government. Republicans create and strategically develop government disfunction, then point and say “look at the disfunction in government.”
Republicans too often successfully hide the true intentions of their policies because they have been allowed to own the small government descriptor - by voters, by the press and by The Left.
Schneider and Ingram provide us with a ready-made attack model.
We can analyze Republican attacks on healthcare. Or tax “reform.” Or environmental protections. We describe the burdens the policy will bring to 99% of Americans and how the policy benefits the richest in our country, and boom, we have an easily digestible and cohesive message across any policy Republicans push on our country.