Fascism, corruption, fraud along with all msnner of crimes is what small government gets you

Ok but why does the one guy have to be a deranged idiot?

It's some fine print level shenanigans "SMALLER *obstacles to power in* GOVERNMENT" and convinced enough people "They'd" be the ones getting the power of the people restored.

They are the ones that always spend more and shover the government more into peoples lives.

They want a certain guy with a certain mustache. Not the good one.

Could've definitely chosen a more fitting Chaplin gif, considering The Great Dictator exists n' all.

Didn't want to confuse.

Wrong one girl

turns out they thought "small government" was literal, too

Well, one guy and millions of his militia friends. Paid by us.

And for that one guy to legalize molesting children, apparently

I mean, technically the government is now small enough to drown in a bathtub (Dear Secret Service, that’s a well known saying about the size of government conservatives want. You can’t arrest me for that)

The ones that scream smaller government are really saying "get rid of parts we can't control" but they are happy to be hypocrites and use the government to overreach to force control

One Big Beautiful Small Guy!

Ya Know...That is a Government small enough to Drown. 🤔🤔🤔

I've been wondering if they understand that a Dictator or Monarch still has bureaucracy under them... I've been watching The Tudors and thinking about all delegation of duties. 😅

Same people who say stupid stuff like, "you can't legislate morality". Proceed to make 100000 laws in line with THEIR beliefs exclusively. @atrupar.com

Nooooo we’re not!!!

No. No one is saying this. We do NOT want a dictator. Not at all.

Exactly, the ‘small government’ crowd never meant less control, just control by their guy. Hypocrisy at its finest: freedom for them, restrictions for everyone else.

An incompetent mean spirited idiot at that. Who knew the bar was on the floor. On second thought, there were signs.

and none of them know how our government actually operates and it still bobbles my mind their vote is as valuable if not more valuable as mine (a whole other problem we need to address)

Reminded me of this sentiment. bsky.app/profile/theg...

Yep, as long as it was their guy in power. This has always been the goal of American conservatism.

They want what he tells them to want. Way easier than actually thinking.

but what a guy! amirite?

Yep

Kinda seems like it

Isn't that Fascism?

I mean we're a long way from Toqueville

💯

Please run for office!

www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/america-ti...

Been calling that out for over 20 years, and for over 20 years, I've been called an alarmist over it. Now it's happening because they've been building toward it for decades, and I understand how Cassandra felt.

They also wanted it so small, it fits in a woman's uterus.

........ well that is just not what the USA is, was or will be; anticipate a fight.

If the people being oppressed are Black, those small government folk are just fine with it.

The "we hate communism" crowd suddenly silent as the government gradually takes control of large corporations and their leader attempts to dictate interest rates as he sees fit.

What's wild is that they refuse to admit they are secret subs and act like they'll be the big daddy dom at the top.

They all think they'll be that one guy. J.D. Vance? He thinks he'll be that guy. Curtis Yarvin? Definitely thinks he'll be that guy. Peter Thiel? Google him and "seasteading" to see his supervillain plot to be that guy on the ocean.

But why did they have to pick such an evil, treasonous, nepo-baby dullard? Why???

The only smaller government is zero guys, just an AI. Which would, I think, be somehow even worse.

I think that most people who advocate for small government that aren't in politics don't actually know what that means.

Yeah, but the guy is pretty big, right?

The weird thing about American conservatives is that there aren’t any

1 is a pretty small number

What they wanted was monarchy all along..

Giving one guy the complete and total ability to wield the power of the entire government apparatus ironically creates a bigger government presence in both state and federal jurisdictions.

They wanted "small Government," rather than "Small government."

How much smaller can you get?

Hand sized.

That is v v v v small government. Not sure that's what was wanted.

Jonathan cleaned up and then he heard a sound…Pretty well sums up my career in the public service.

We know he's small...and their thought processes are shortened for simplicity's sake. Smooth the brain wrinkles so the bullshit can flow in. #Epstein

Gods below, I am so fucking tired of posts like this. Yeah, we know. We knew a decade ago. If just talking about this or making fun of it was going to do a lick of good it would’ve done it already. Still think it’s a good coping mechanism in term 2? Think it’ll cover term 3+? I don’t.

Gee, it’s all so efficient this way. You just let the flesh eating worms eat everyone’s flesh and spend billions on camps for people! No muss, no fuss.

Honey I Shrunk the Bill of Rights

Pretty strong Palpy vibes, eh?

A tiny and fragile government for tiny and fragile hands.

Can it get any smaller?

The govt ‘being one guy’ does not actually make the govt smaller. Because, fascism.

The small part is his penis.

A very small guy, even.

And all the 2A proponents don’t seem to recognize a tyrannical government when they have one.

People today want a King like they done when King Saul was chosen by the Jews people

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But also, the party that doesn’t want a “nanny state” sure cares an awful lot about what we read, how we express ourselves, how we identify ourselves, who we sleep with, and whether or not we want children.

Well. It don't get smaller than that!

“Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.”

One guy with control of every woman’s body.

*That they agree with

Hmmmm

Especially that “one guy”.

Having grown up around those people, It's what they always meant.

That’s…too…small

Also turns out they didn’t want to keep their guns to stop a tyrannical government.

Then they should all pack up and go live where there's a dictator like in China. Maybe they'll be happy there

Bigly

small [minded] government

Yes. But they had no idea all the things that government does. So, there's that.

“Maybe it’s time we need a dictator” my MAGA sister told me about a month before the election. My sweet and beautiful sister … I should be happy that she got what she voted for, but the fallout for me is so sad. Lost a country and a sister.

When libertarians talk about "freedom" they mean their 'freedom' to oppress and exploit others.

And partial ownership of publicly traded corporations

And not one of these small govt cheerleaders has the intelligence or patience to bother to understand how the govt functions or what it even does for them until that service is taken away. (For example all the farmers crying about hating biden then upset when trump takes away their IR act help.)

The magas want a dicktator.

Only if the one guy is an old, rich, white guy who terrorizes all the people who would compete with them. Anybody else, and they start gaslighting about unity and diversity.

and thousands of masked enforcers

What's more "small government" than handing it over to one guy?

For what it's worth, I'm a former libertarian who is disgusted by this dictator worship. So I appreciate the "some" qualifier, but its an astoundingly large group.

But not just any guy. A 34 count convicted felon. bsky.app/profile/hank...

I have to ask one of them HOW IT FEELS TO WANT; we ARE NOT DOING THIS !!! He is dismantling our country before our very EYES!! WAKE THE FUCK UP AMERICA!!!!!!

One guy government is small.

“Small government” was always “I don’t like how the government forced my grandparents to attend school with non-white people, and how they’re impeding my ammunition stockpile for the imminent race war.”

Bernie would have won

They all watched his inane UN-reality show too much and believed he fired everyone on the show. He never fired anyone. It was all scripted. But they believed him and they wanted him to go fire members of Congress. Thats what they thought he’d do. Yes they were that stupid. And many still are.

They're happy for the government to be arbitrarily large as long as it's beating up the right people

People who want smaller government want less impedance to totalitarians acting out their human rights violations.

And they picked the worst guy imaginable.

well, hard to get a government any smaller than one where one small man makes all decisions big and small.... and nobody else dares to oppose him. 🙄

You have posted a lot of insightful stuff over the years but this might be your best. This is it, exactly.

Until it negatively effects them.

And you don't get much smaller than he is.

One guy who is creating far more "red tape" than any is his predecessors. I'm not sure if that counts as ironic or just infuriatingly telling.

then they need to pick an outstanding "one guy"...

They want it to be them. Tiny little micro countries where no one can be in charge but the mediocre white dudes.

This is the exact reason I left the Republican party when I saw Ted Cruz have his spine ripped out in front of him and used to mock his wife.

with a militia of thugs looking to terrorize anyone and everyone

Too bad they picked a guy who doesn't fit into a bathtub.

Oh, so THAT’S what they meant!!

"Atomic Government" No longer divisible, smallest possible unit.

and the doctors keeping him alive

Too small 😔🤏

But don't worry, it'll be mostly just us. Poor people that die. Not you rich people. You'll all be okay

Turns out all of the small government people just want it all to be run by one guy and we're all stuck with that fucking decision now

One guy with a big police force.

tame impala is just one guy

It really is the logical conclusion of the whole conservative mindset.

The "drown in a bathtub" phrase takes on a slightly different meaning in that case.

God, Norquist. That mouthy little prick should have been flung by trebuchet into the Atlantic.

The ocean or the newspaper?

First one, then the other.

Almost seems quaint to think about the time when HE was the biggest threat to the functioning of our government.

Since the days of Reagan, and probably earlier, these Republicans want small government meaning that they want their side of the government and they want to get rid of any competition because they can't win without cheating when they have to compete

…and yet it’s bigger and more invasive than ever with $80,000 salaries per individual who joins the new ICE paramilitary apparatus, and every citizen’s personal data being shared anywhere with no oversight 🤯

Ugh

Pretty much. They wouldn't judge the judiciary rule on election being rigged. Wouldn't trust congress to correct it. They wouldn't trust any FBI or DOJ investigations They wouldn't trust any government branch. Only Trump and Trump alone. They want a dictator.

I don't know why you hedged. A bunch of them wanted it to be one person

I mean considering we had royalists in the founding fathers who thought Washington should just be king....this has always be an issue.

Really small.

📌

turns out they were just referring to the one guy's height :/

...but only if he's their bestie (or they believe he is).

And a crazed bully

Can we drown it in the bathtub???!

What’s smaller than a government of one?

can't get any smaller than that

Rules for thee, not for me

US Conservatives want a government that is too small to stop a lynching.

Hey libertarians, how’s this working out for you?

They aren't really into small government though. They just allocate more to arms and hands to use them, then they do to services, science, or education. It's like the myth that they're all about the budget and economy. Clearly not, as demonstrated now, in 2020, and in 2006/07.

Well put.. and the GOPieces of Shit elected to serve, also prefer not to have a responsibilities.. but rest assured they will be held accountable

And that guy is, apparently, Stephen Miller. That’s not okay on any scale of “Hey, that’s okay.” History tells us what happens when the fish head finally kicks off.

A guy who is very likely being paid to destroy the united states.

Well, he does have a very small brain...

The people who screamed about no kings sure love having a king.

Even a king may discuss matters with the rest of the ruling family But a dictator? quite the lonely mf

I guess that’s small? 🤡😶

Well surely they could have found a smaller guy.

Asarrrggghhh!!!

Me, the people.

I really hope we don't get one guyed long-term.

I've thought it was a bad idea to give the feds control of things like healthcare because in times like this, they would take healthcare away from people they didn't like, lgbt, veterans, minorities, kids, sick people. But as it turns out they will do that even if we don't have socialized medicine.

Small government, smaller hands. Trump 2025.

look, I'm sure if the founding fathers had just met Trump they would have been like yep, that's our guy. we don't need any of the rest of this constitution bullshit /s

Every Republican is now a bootlicking authoritarian Nazi, complicit in America’s collapse. Not one has the guts to resist. We’ve become a third-world nightmare in months, and it’s about to get far, far worse.

Cliffs's Notes version of government

With small… appendages

To be fair, I guess that is small?

One guy who's a moron. Good idea.

Good one !!! 🤣🤣

"Government small enough to fit in a woman's uterus" takes on extra meaning with Trump as dictator.

that's as small as it gets!

Ha! Oohh...

They kind of don’t know what they want but believed Reagan’s BS from 30 years ago.

There'd be a lot less rules to keep track of if everything were forbidden unless explicitly allowed.

Wait I think there's a word for that.

Hank i hope you go on hasans stream and also the majority report some day. I think y'all would have done really cool discussions on there. Ooooh imagined if you invited Hasan or Sam or Emma onto complexity? That'd be cool as hell.

Also going to your original post, i don't think there's a level of bad faith that the right wing cannot reach. I'm including most of the "centrist, flaccid Dems" in this too.

Id highly recommend: youtube.com/playlist?lis...

"King Trump"

Der Pedo-Führer

They want small government because a small underpowered democratic government is easily steamrolled by the aristocrat class. Edmund Burke (father of modern conservative thought) talked about this at length.

Size queens are greedy pigs. It’s not the size that matters, honey, it’s how effective it is that matters. Size queens are mostly old farts anyway. What do they know?

*Hurried, nervous noises from the right* Random bubba in a stupid red hat: Shit! They’re on to us! Scatter!

They meant his hands.

😂😂😂 not laughing …. But thank god for humor

Germans thought the same, it took over 7 million dead for them to realize their folly and 60 years to regain prosperity

At least that's what one guy wants; the rest are just too frightened of him to speak up. I would suggest that when he finally is pried from office, they'll start to speak up. To quote Omar El Akkad, "One day, everyone will have always been against this."

And the billionaires sit back and roll in their money.....

Was going to watch Everything Everywhere All at Once but decided against it as I thought it was a Trump documentary.

I'm glad they have guns in the picture.

Took me a second to notice.

📌

Ah, I see I am not the only one who has noticed this.

I mean Project 2025 is basically just "hey let's make the government one guy"

Nope, definitely not! I've NEVER understood the small government stuff. It makes no logical sense to be both democratic and "small government". They are antithetical. A democratic government is a government which everyone is a part of in some way!

Smaller executive, larger legislative. The government would do less, but have more people (and a more representative set of people) deciding what to do.

A smaller executive has less checks and balances on executive actions, which includes the military and enacting laws they decide to enact. So careful what you wish for.

In the past I'd skip voting cuz i believe in representative governing but no politician ever represents me. Even if I ran for office and won I'd be one voice in a chaotic chorus. The only small govt that would work for me is if I were king. Then everyone else would get mad. 🙄 WE NEED A NEW PARADIGM.

"Small government" was code for "no blacks in my school". Only not with "blacks".

I always thought the small government stuff was limiting the amount of gov services and agencies, not the actual legislators? Am I wrong on that?

Yes, you're wrong on this.

When classical liberals/libertarians say 'small government,' we mean limited power and scope—not less democratic representation. Do you really not see that distinction? MAGA Republicans aren’t for small government in that sense.

While libertarians of old have mostly folded into maga fascism, this relic of the past is still entertaining as fuck. youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Republicans basically will say anything in order to get more power. And then Dems will do anything to avoid challenging power. Because ultimately they're there to serve the capital class.

So we can’t have representative democracy because everyone’s in the government “in a way” and there can’t be multiple ways of looking at it?

That's not what I said... currently, everyone IS in the government "in SOME way" because everyone votes. That's why I said "in SOME way". Your vote and your representation is you taking part in gov. And yes, this is a good thing, because then it means every person limits the power of any one person.

How you twisted what I said into "we can't have representative democracy" is literally WILD when I was arguing for representative democracy in the first place. And it was quite obvious; I didn't say everyone took part in government directly, I said everyone took part in gov in SOME way.

@paulfuller.bsky.social Look, I just have to call this out for what it is. There's a reason I said "part of" instead of "in" and there's a reason I said "in some way". If you can't understand that, then you need to take a step back and learn to read more critically.

And no, I DON'T believe there's any other way of looking at this. I'm not going to validate anybody's opinions when I think they are ridiculous. Democracy limits the power of any one person. That's essential. The diff. forms of democracy are one of the only ways of doing this.

Nope, hell no!

Ok so, this slightly conspiracy flavored. Settle down for a long post. 1/? It goes back to industrial revolution and changes to the labor it brought about, and thus the birth of the labor movement. "May day", commie/true labor day, is in honor of US general strike from 1886.

2/? The labor fought literal battles against owners and private police forces like Pinkertons(now Securitas). Guns, cannons, aerial bombardment etc. The pressure was working somewhat and socialist parties were slowly but steadily growing in power. Then came Great Depression and FDR.

3/? "Found out" phase after fucking around of capital holding elite. Worldwide ripples, contributing to countries turning socialist or fascist. US got FDR, who, while not socialist, threw labor some big bones and started cleaning up the mess created by robber barons and introducing more regulation.

Just Around The Corner: A Highly Selective History of the Thirties is an excellent book written by someone who was there. This is the beginning of chapter 3. FDR saved the rich from “the French solution,” and they’ve never forgiven him.

We will need to elect a President to clean up the mess left by Trump and his robber barons.

4/? Robber barons did not like that and planned a fascist coup known as Business Plot. Smedley Butler, general they have approached instantly reported them to the government. Nobody got prosecuted. We could've gotten rid of Bush clan back then. Business elite class learned to become more subtle.

Spoken like a Hitler follower.

5/? Then came WW2 and weakening of labor under war conditions. And then came Cold War where communism/socialism became the enemy. And also steady undoing of FDR legacy. And this is where we actually come to "small government". Modern 4th of July has been invented promoting freedom from government.

6/? "E pluribus unum (Out of many, one)" was deemed too commie and got replaced with "In god we trust" in 1956. "Under god" thing got added to pledge of allegiance. Churches, where socialist thought was not uncommon for obvious reasons, got funded towards prosperity gospel.

E pluribus unum was an unofficial motto of the US. It wasn’t replaced as such, and us still on some of our money. Instead, it was superseded when “In god we trust” was adopted as the official motto after religious groups lobbied Congress.

7/? The "think tank" system used by the government to get educated opinions from specialists in fields got co-opted by financial interests. NRA got taken over and a new interpretation of 2A got lobbied through. And then there were all of the civil rights movements... Vietnam... all of the backlash

I actually discuss the Prosperity Gospel stuff quite a bit, because it's so entwined in the religious conservatism that drove Reagan, Heritage Foundation, and current Republicanism. Here's one of the posts where I point this out: bsky.app/profile/clse...

Pullman Riots.

Just so we're clear, I'm not arguing for any particular form of democracy over another, and voting is one way of being "part of" government in "some" way. Checks and balances and voting are there to limit the power of any one person over another. That is the essential component in democracy.

Conservatives want the law to protect but not bind the in-group and bind but not protect the out-group.

I always wondered why those guys love the autoritarian power of kings and such

How's that weather in Canada?

@uncapthehouse.bsky.social #hr4125 ✌🏻😎🇺🇸

And they weren’t really afraid of a tyrannical govt, as long as it’s right-wing tyranny. They still point their weapons at the same people.

Hey we never said we didn’t want an oppressive government, we just want a SMALL oppressive government”

Yeah AND take a stake in private companies

Small government for others, luxury socialism for us.

Well he is a pedophile so there’s that too.

Would be nicer if it were just one guy, it would be way easier to overthrow the government and replace it with something that worked for the people. Instead it's one guy and a bunch of people in important positions ignoring the constitution.

The "small government" people only wanted to cut the programs they didn't like. They definitely weren't talking about the military.

Well he’s certainly giving himself enough jobs to do.

Not even a smart guy. Just a dumb dying guy.

Representative government.

Thank goodness. Imagine the mess we'd be in if he had another 20+ years in him

You have JD waiting in the pipeline

He has the unfortunate problem of not being a sociopath. Given the ultimate power, I don't think he'd be capable of the same as his predecessor. He would need to thread a very small needle being conservative enough to win the Republican primary and yet tack to the center for the general election.

Small government as in the size of the one guy's hands

A crackpot no less

I think there’s a name for that 🤔

One guy with a very fragile ego, enabled by a bunch of other equally fragile men

Also, the 2A "we need military grade hardware to resist a tyrannical government" types apparently define 'tyranny' as: -black people having more economic equity -LGBTQ people having more basic human rights -Hispanic people existing

Always was

This, basically

Loyalists have been around since 1776 and Americans just 🤷🏼‍♂️ Politics is not just a difference of opinion.

1 guy and endless henchmen.

One guy is much easier to remove with…methods. The problem is that there are still more than enough sycophants ready to take his place that hope they can carry the movement forward.

Can't have smaller than that. 😊