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I've noticed a pattern where the party in power loves state power and the party out of power suddenly becomes freedom fighters.
The effect is stronger the longer the party is incumbent for. That's why in the 8 years of Obama the Democratic party suddenly became the party of trusting the experts.
I've noticed a pattern where the party in power loves state power and the party out of power suddenly becomes freedom fighters.
I've noticed the same thing, at all levels of all types of organization.
That's why in the 8 years of Obama the Democratic party suddenly became the party of trusting the experts.
Was that ever not the case? Not my bailiwick, but my perception was that the official Dem narrative has always been expert-friendly, and the official Rep narrative has always been something-something-business-and-god.
During the Bush years, at least, the Democrats preached a lot of skepticism of the intelligence agencies and corporate science.
That's pretty different from, say, the Covid era.
Yes, especially the Democrats' level of trust for what the FBI and the CIA says has entirely 180'd from the end of the Bush years to the start of the Trump years (and it's 180ing again)
Big Pharma was a bad guy for the left, too. I'm sure, as with other corporate interests, the politicians were always on the take, but lefties didn't used to knowingly parrot whatever pharma execs said.
Sort of. The Democrats never really act like they hate state power, though. They just whine about it being abused or wielded in inappropriate ways.
When Republicans are out of power they often adopt very anti-state rhetoric: i.e. abolishing departments, eliminating taxes, even abolishing the FBI.
True. They'll use different rhetoric, but it's all just post-hoc rationalization.
Of course, but the reason the right seems more reachable is that they at least stumble upon decent rationalizations sometimes.
Republicans love wielding state power. They don't like being on the receiving end.