Trump's Big CON: He's a Big Government Republi-CON

"As they found out when they tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Americans actually love big government. They might respond to all the vague rhetoric about self-reliance and getting government off their backs, but when it comes to the things government actually does, they want even more of it. They don’t want Medicaid slashed and tens of millions of people to lose their health coverage. When they got a look at the cruel free-market future for health care Republicans were offering, they recoiled in horror.

And then came these hurricanes, which reminded everybody that when your house floods or blows down, it’s the federal government you look to for help. There are no libertarians in the aftermath of a natural disaster. Even the Texas GOP, which has complete control of the state and loves nothing more than to shake its fist at gu’mint interference from Washington and tell those dastardly bureaucrats to get their noses out of the Lone Star State’s business, is now begging the federal government for a bailout. Gov. Greg Abbott, who’s so conservative he makes his predecessor Rick Perry look like Bernie Sanders, says he expects the American taxpayer to give his state between $150 and $180 billion. Not so self-reliant now, are we? . .

[A]t a fundamental level, it’s becoming clear the Trump years will not bring the transformation Republicans dreamed of when they imagined having complete control of the government. Americans aren’t clamoring for tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy (although that might not be enough to stop Republicans from passing them). They don’t want the safety net cut to ribbons. They don’t want banks freed to do whatever they want. They actually like big government.

Republicans are always terrified that Democratic rule will end up validating and entrenching activist government, that given the chance . . . But now it appears that through a combination of incompetence, circumstance and the essential unpopularity of their agenda, it’ll be Republican rule that shows us all that big government is here to stay."

Read the Washington Post, The Republicans aren’t just losing. Big government is winning.