The U.S. government is really, really, really big. It has been for decades, and the growth has been one of the few truly bipartisan efforts during that time.
But I don’t want to focus on the size of the administrative state or the seriousness of the claims against it today. (Though it might be worth asking what a smaller, less regulatory government would do about Big Tech, given how little the current government has been able to govern.)
Instead, I want to ask when was the last time you were able to not think about government.
Somehow, we’ve ended up in the perverse paradox of being under-governed and over-governmented: after five years of practice, we still can’t wrest our attention away from the first shitposting presidency.
Dominating every waking moment of our attention (and a chunk of our sleeping ones, too) is an encroachment of a whole other degree and magnitude.
So, yes: we need to be more engaged, and we ought to demand and receive better services. But, first, let’s insist on a government that allows us to think about something else from time to time.
Colin Steele 