The Anti-Government Campaign
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Scapegoating government also has the advantage of not requiring a great deal of analysis to formulate solutions to our complex societal problems. All we have to do is reduce government. If big government is the cause of our problems, then obviously small government is the solution. Saves a lot of time.
Using the government as a scapegoat also appeals to many conservatives because it allows them to ignore the real – and more disturbing – causes of some of our problems. For example, die-hard government bashers have strained to blame the disastrous mortgage crisis and financial meltdown of 2008-2009 on bad government policies. This means they don’t have to acknowledge the numerous failures of the banking and financial sectors that actually precipitated this crisis, and they can thus maintain their cherished illusion that unregulated markets are always good for society. (For more on how and why conservatives scapegoat government, see “Why Government Becomes the Scapegoat.”)
Government-Hating as Political Glue
Disdain for government also serves as much of the ideological glue that holds the Republican electoral coalition together. The groups that make up this coalition are actually quite diverse – well-off suburbanites, gun owners, libertarians, fundamentalist Christians, the wealthy, small farmers, business interests, fiscal conservatives, and anti-tax activists – and they often have very different political priorities. Such a coalition is always in danger of falling apart. Much of what holds them together is their common dislike for government. So while they are all promoting somewhat different issues – the NRA wants the freedom to own guns, business wants less regulation, fundamentalists want prayer in school – what they do share is a common conviction that government often works against their interests and that they would be better off with less of it. As Grover Norquist has explained, this resentment is what binds these different groups into what he has called the “Leave Us Alone Coalition.” “The issue that brings people to politics is what they want from government. All our people want to be left alone by government. To be in this coalition, you only need to have your foot in the circle on this one issue."8
Government Bashing as a Political Smokescreen
The anti-government crusade is also popular among some parts of the right-wing coalition because it provides them with a smokescreen that they can use to obscure their real political goals. Many anti-government activists – especially Libertarians – are sincere in their belief that a minimal state would be good for all of us. But others simply invoke anti-government rhetoric as way of promoting their own self-interest. For example, drug companies and the health insurance industry have constantly exploited people’s misgivings about big government as a way to promote their own economic self-interest. In debates about health care reform, these businesses and their conservative allies have constantly raised the specter of “government bureaucrats controlling your health care decisions” as a way of scaring people away from reform plans that might cut into their corporate profits.
Similarly, when businesses want to reduce regulatory protections for workers, they argue that they are only trying to reduce the government red-tape and bureaucracy. They are not putting their workers at risk; they are simply “opposing unreasonable intrusions of big government into the private sector” and “getting government off the back of businesses.” Who could complain about that? Similarly, conservative consultant Frank Luntz has told business lobbyists and Republican lawmakers that when they are trying to weaken environmental protections, they should describe their activities as “streamlining” and “modernizing” government. They can thus seem to be attacking “excess government,” not the environment.
Anti-government rhetoric also allowed Republicans to avoid the accusation that their policies are a form of “class warfare.” Clearly, most of the benefits of the Republican tax cuts during the Bush administration fell to the rich and to corporations, and the costs of cuts in social programs fell disproportionately on working people, minorities, and the poor – the very definition of class warfare. But such criticisms were blunted by Republican claims that they were only waging war on government. President Bush claimed that his numerous tax cuts were simply an effort to reduce the onerous burden of government taxes – and everyone knows taxes are bad. And cuts in social programs were portrayed as simply “reining in out of control government spending” and “reducing big government.”
This anti-government spin on conservative policies works to obscure the fact that an attack on government is often an attack on those Americans who are least well-off. In reality, reducing government takes away power away from those in society who most need the government to protect their interests – those who are most vulnerable to job layoffs, those who need to protect themselves from workplace discrimination and dangers on the job, or those who need government to ensure equal educational opportunity or a fair minimum wage. As Max Neiman explained in his book, Defending Government, shrinking government not only eliminates programs that aid the less well-off, it also reduces their political power as well.
The attack on government has involved … a focused effort to make it more difficult for the less privileged of society to have access to governing authority. If the assault on public programs and the capacity to produce them is permanently and broadly successful, then making life fairer and better for the least advantaged and less politically connected members of society will be more difficult.9
The basic point is this: the deeply disturbing nature of many conservative policies is being hidden behind a political smokescreen – an effort to portray these policies as mere attempts to reduce government and the “bad effects” it is having on society. The whole anti-government campaign has become a very handy way for some groups to disguise the true intentions of their policies and to deflect likely public opposition.
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Who exactly makes up this anti-government political coalition? And who is funneling billions of dollars into its activities? For answers, see the next article: “The Anti-Government Coalition.”
What are the specific – and disturbing – policy goals of this anti-government movement? For more on its political agenda, see “The Anti-Government Movement’s Radical Agenda.”
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Notes
1. Quoted in Robert Dreyfuss, “Grover Norquist: 'Field Marshal' of the Bush Plan,” The Nation, April 26, 2001.
2. http://www.tfn.org/site/DocServer/GOP_-Final_2008_Platform.pdf?docID=582
3. For a summary of Libertarian philosophy and policy positions, see the Libertarian Party’s website, http://www.lp.org/issues/issues.shtml.
4. Dick Armey, The Freedom Revolution (New York: Regnery Publishers, 1995) p. 304.
5. Urban Institute, “Bush Tax Cuts,” January 16, 2008. http://www.urban.org/decisionpoints08/archive/01bushtaxcuts.cfm
6. Daniel Schoor, “Bush’s Social Security Plan Carries Ideological Underpinnings,” All Things Considered, March 7, 2005.
7. Paul Krugman, “Spearing the Beast,” The New York Times, February 8, 2005, p. A25.
8. William Greider, “Rolling Back the 20th Century,” The Nation, April 4, 2003. www.thenation.com/doc/20030512/greider/3.
9. Max Neiman, Defending Government: Why Big Government Works (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2000) p. 2.