Why do people hate the government so much?

[Takket]

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/public-trust-in-government-1958-2024/

See the graphs for yourself.

Almost everyone hates the government. Other than a blip after the 9/11 attacks, less than half of the country has trusted the government to "do what is right just about always/most of the time" since right around the time of Watergate. and that number has been in the 20%s or less for the last 17 years.

I guess I have a more optimistic view although it is highly dependent, obviously, on which party is in power.

It's no wonder that drumpf is able to build a presidency on the concept of destroying the government. That sounds pretty appealing when 80% don't like the government. My dislike is mostly centered on the worst actors. I break down my opinions to individuals and don't broad brush the entire government because if it. Government is great when we put the right people in charge of it. They are the referee in the game of America.

when it is dysfunctional (rethugs in control) I want them voted out, but i don't want our institutions torn apart.

I don't think most people feel that way. I think most believe all politicians are the same, just trying to swindle us. Also that government is completely useless. it is just a big black hole that their tax dollars goes in, and nothing useful ever comes out. And that's why so many are happy to vote for someone who will destroy it. When we point out how drumpf's cabinet is filled with NO ONE who will know how to manage these departments, a lot of people WANT it that way. "Fire everyone! Get rid of the red tape! get rid of the bureaucracy! Get rid of it all!"

Plenty of people that voted for drumpf don't like him, but they like "government" even less, and if he can destroy, they think their lives will improve.

A whole lot of people are about to find out the hard way that that is not how this is going to go down.

When the ecoli outbreak happens, and no one from the CDC is there to ID the source and issue a recall, 100 people are going to die instead of 5.

When measles starts ripping through your child's middle school and you realize it is too late to get the vaccine now.

When our military is challenged by our enemies because we've weakened our fighting force by banning women and firing our generals.

When that infrastructure job you were working on vanishes because the funding got pulled.

When inflation roars back to life because farmers can't find workers to pick their crops.

When tariffs put the cost of a car out of reach.

When DOJ goes after all the "deep state" people only to find they have no evidence to indict anyone with

Maybe then people will finally understand government is fine, it is the right wing people you elect to that make it dysfunctional.

But I doubt it.

[kacekwl]

1. They love them some

Gomernt when it helps them directly but don't want them helping anyone else. Half the time they don't know who or how they are getting help.

[meadowlander]

9. Yep. Everyone loves and insists on the regulations that apply to their neighbours

and hates the ones that apply to them.

[Dem4life1234]

10. This!

They are a selfish bunch of pricks.

They love government when it is for them, when they get their little Medicare, Social Security checks, etc.

[elleng]

2. 'Hates?' More like isn't aware of what 'government' does,

that is, IGNORANCE.

Got roads? Bridges?

[Solly Mack]

3. I agree. A lot of people are ignorant of what government is and isn't. Does and doesn't do.

[ForgedCrank]

26. Yes, and a large

portion of government consists of those same people.

[Solly Mack]

41. True. Many of the uniformed have been elected.

[Elessar Zappa]

4. Two words, one asshole: Ronald Reagan.

[GoCubsGo]

46. Yep, he's Ground Zero for much of

what is currently wrong with this country.

[dlk]

5. Rightwing propaganda works

When people hear something often enough, they begin to believe it and they never seem to notice the hypocrisy of the Republican politicians who can't wait to get their hands on government dollars.

[DJ Synikus Makisimus]

50. It works especially well when there is no effective counter-propaganda.

Liberals rely on commercial media to "get the message out." It's cheaper than paying for one, to be sure. But commercial media is there to make money, not to help anyone and especially not to save anyone. They promote SPECTACLE to sell advertising space, and that's the all of it. 40 years on from Reaganite deregulation, and 30 years out from Newt Gingrich, you'd think someone would have figured that out. But no.

[dgauss]

51. I give credit to the right wing for understanding that. I despise them for making use of it.

[stillcool]

6. I wonder what percentage of people who

vote in Presidential elections, vote in their local elections, and know who represents them. When the funds from the fed go elsewhere, it's going to be a rude awakening.

[Mike 03]

7. When you ask Americans point by point if they'd like

government to do this or that, they mostly love the things government does.

My theory is that there is a massive propaganda campaign by corporate types to condition low-information, aggrieved citizens to believe that government (and immigrants, LGBT, Blacks, Latinos, etc.) is to blame for their failures in life. The corporate elite need people to believe this so that they vote for politicians who will deregulate everything (especially markets), destroy our agencies. appoint conservative pro-business judges and give enormous tax breaks to the wealthy, and get rid of the social safety net

[MomInTheCrowd]

19. In chaos they will steal.

[Initech]

8. They were brainwashed by Reagan, repeated the lie 24 hours a day for 50+ years.

[ShazzieB]

24. Yes!

Remember this (in)famous quote?

"I think you all know that I've always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help." -- Ronald Reagan

That was the first time that I can personally recall hearing someone who was the actual head of the government saying, in effect, "Government BAD!" so loudly and clearly. At the time, I thought it was a nonsensical statement, but an awful lot of people obviously agreed with it and still do.

Reagan did not invent this anti-government mindset, but he did a lot, with his "gee golly gosh" phony folksiness, to popularize and set in cement the view that 1) all the government was good for was wasting money, and 2) anything the government did or wanted to do was, by definition, a waste of money.

During his 8 years in office, he also was big on cutting funding to social safety net programs of any kind. Among other things, the number of unhoused people in this country shot up during his administration and has continues to be a serious problem all themse years later.

I blame Reagan for a lot of things, many of them stemming from his eagerness to convince voters that the government should NOT be spending money on things that might actually help people improve their daily lives.

[SupportSanity]

35. I remember the quote and.....

"I think you all know that I've always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help." -- Ronald Reagan

He was the head of the government when he said that.

So we are quoting him telling us how bad he was for everybody ....

because when he said that,

HE WAS THE HEAD OF THE GOVERNMENT!

[Scalded Nun]

11. I see 4 things, but that is just me...

1. 60+ year war on education
2. Ronald Reagan
3. Disinformation
4. Fear

All 4 of those things honed over decades and brought to you by the GOP.

[ancianita]

16. AMEN. nt

[SickOfTheOnePct]

12. My only issue with the government

and I say this as a federal employee, is the amount of pure waste that happens every single day. And very few people ever question it, so it continues.

[haele]

17. There's waste because of (necessary) redundancy and obsolescence

Also, Congress creates a lot of waste on departments many times by focusing on the wrong projects .
Insufficient support, lack of funding for technology upgrades,requirements for records management, and archives, reports that seem really mundane are what causes a lot of perceived waste. However, the first two items cause delays, and the last two items are safeguards to ensure an action or decision by the government can be clearly be reconstructed, adjudicated, or assessed at a later date.

Speaking as a federal employee, there's a lot more waste in Congress. By not funding the necessary technology and support infrastructure to implement and downsize projects that they should, but prioritizing bling and political payback to a functioning government.


Haele

[SickOfTheOnePct]

32. You're welcome

to your opinion, as I am to mine.

[slightlv]

40. Funding of technology was always a nightmare

when I was DoD Civ. Not only the hardware, but also the software. We had 30 year old programs, written in-house, that needed to be updated and rewritten. But no one could make enough sense of the program as it was currently written to upgrade it. And, rather than bid it out they just kept running the same program. Which meant we had really old hardware and O/S which is all that could handle those old programs.

The other thing that really got me was the money wasted on buying software, itself. I had a couple of pieces of software that I used constantly in creating the Distance Learning courses online. I'd spent a lot of time testing software and comparing it for pricing, etc. What I recommended I'd already used for 5 years on my own projects. But even after it was okayed as safe, they still fought me on buying it. $39 vs $499. That's a huge difference for a piece of software that actually worked *better* than the more expensive one.

I will say I was rather happy with the hardware change outs. And they were on the spot when it came to upgrading certain items, like multiple monitors, etc. BUT one little glitch, and their answer was always to reimage the system, rather than fixing the glitch. Which, of course, meant a whole lot more work for us. Put a lot more emphasis on keeping backups current!

[dpibel]

54. That's pretty nonspecific

What is included in this amount of pure waste that happens every single day?

You are clearly aware of it, what with your credential as a federal employee.

But for those of us on the outside some specific examples would really help us understand your insight.

Thanks!

[IbogaProject]

13. There is always too much money for Weapons

In contrast there is always hemming and hawing anytime we try to help a lot of Americans. And our tax system isn't progressive. The tax burden falls too heavily upon the lower rungs of the economic ladder which also fuels this resentment.

[ancianita]

14. Pew puts good numbers to good questions. Thanks!

[uponit7771]

15. Lost of these same people **LOVE** the government when disaster hits

[Deep State Witch]

18. When There's A Major Disaster

And FEMA isn't there handing out checks, the red states might start loving government a bit more.

[slightlv]

42. I've already been thinking that, in light of this years

hurricanes. Next year is likely to be worse as climate change races through its changes for another year. Let Florida and the rest of the South experience the Cat4-5 hurricanes like they've had for the last couple of years, and they'll have a new appreciation of FEMA. T won't be there offering millions or billions of dollar in rebuilding aid. That's a waste of money as far as he's concerned. Of course, it might be different if just one of those hurricanes could take out Mar a Lago!

[MLWR]

20. Why do people hate the government so much?

Apparently, most people (54%) read at a sixth grade level or below. My guess is that they are mentally unable to connect the dots. 54%! Think of that! Of course that group doesn't have any working critical thinking skills. In sixth grade one is 11 or 12 years old.

[MomInTheCrowd]

21. One guy digging, two leaning on shovels...

The oldest meme I know.

The second one is the hatred of politicians. Professional politicians who are good are worth their weight in gold.

People don’t realize they _are_ the government yet they don’t want to participate. Most city council meetings have no citizens in the gallery.

[slightlv]

43. We've gone generations without a true American Statesman as Prez.

One could, and should, make the argument for Biden as our last Statesman. But because T took all the wind out of the sails for anyone, his accomplishments were manifest behind the scenes. People like JFK, LBJ (although he's a hard one to call a true statesman!), and others haven't been duplicated for generations. Some of us Boomers have forgotten these types of people; but there are generations born now who have no idea who I'm talking about, let alone what it takes to make a good statesman. Here, again, one can fault the curriculum in schools... not enough government and civics classes, and most not as in-depth as they should be. I remember taking separate Geography, Government, American Problems, and Civics classes in high school. They were good classes, but even then I didn't think they delved into each subject as deep as they could. Too much emphasis when I was in school on dates in History, rather than the political, cultural, and societal events happening around any scandal, disaster, or war. But all in all, while there are a lot more electives offered to students today, I believe the core education we got "way back when" was better than students are given today.

[surfered]

22. It's the repeated lie. Even back when Reagan said,

“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

[Xavier Breath]

23. The nation should have paid attention to the ten scariest words.

I'm Ronald Reagan and I'd like to be your president.

[ForgedCrank]

25. I'll likely

be an outcast here for my position, but there is little to like about government. It is 10% useful and necessary, and 90% corrupt and bloated assholes getting elected to gain favors and wealth through connections and influence. There is no politician I would dare call friend. They are generally not good people, and their motivations are almost all fueled by their thirst for wealth and power, or both.
It is bloated, and they overspend like they are on a drunken bender with no regard for those from whom they extracted the money. It doesn't matter to them that I can barely afford groceries or gas. And they are almost all the same, even a good portion of the ones in my own party. We are only on their list of priorities when it comes time to vote, after that it seems like they forget who they work for, who sent them there, and why. There aren't more than a few dozen of them deserving of a reluctant handhshake.

[rubbersole]

27. They hate government because Rupert told them to.

Delivered by leggy blondes. Win-win.

[applegrove]

28. Because the GOP conned Democrats into neoliberalism

and people lost good jobs and lost great lives.

[slightlv]

44. Oh, how I agree!

Democrats lost their way with neo-liberalism, and cast off voters from the moment they switched over to it. It's going to take a long, hard "come to jesus moment" to get back to where we were prior to neo-liberalism. No matter what you call it, people can recognize republican-light government when they see it. And the infiltration of our democratic party by scores of republicans made the party drift ever more to the right. To the point where they almost proved their propaganda - left wing politics is extremism. Of course, they throw that old adage out for any democrat or democratic initiative being proffered. We're going to have to come up with our own propaganda to hit the dolts over the head with time after time after time, until it begins to sink in. Both positive for us, and negative on the R's. After what's coming at us quickly with T and his minions, the latter shouldn't be hard scripts to come up with.

[WalkerinSC]

29. I think it is more politicians

that are truly hated. And the ultimate boogeyman, the' Deep State Bureaucrat'. Of course, their local representative is fine, it's those other slimy reps. It also doesn't help when they go in with average to low wealth and come out as multi-millionaires.

[Raven123]

30. Easy target. Don't need to get specific just point out there.

“The government” is a a pretty amorphous entity. I hear more “why doesn’t the government do something?” from people who claim they hate the government. These folks can’t make up their minds.

[GreenWave]

31. I believe Ronald Ray Gun started this with "The government is the problem."

[

[Conjuay]

49. And then big mouth Limbaugh took it and ran with it.

[In It to Win It]

33. How many of them sent back their stimulus checks from the government?

[Jit423]

34. MAGA only hates government that tries to help and protect people not like them. nt

[Pas-de-Calais]

36. Retired Federal worker with 38 years of IT

Some days were slow
Some weeks moved so fast nothing seemed to get done
Satisfied customers were appreciative of our work

I had a Congressional aide call on a customer complaint. You’re not providing support for your system. Threatening to personally sue me. I calmly provided info on what and where the information can be found

Finally got the name of the accuser. Find out they were always a no show on meetings. Never returned phone calls from us. Oh yeah, I had records for backup.

I was being called sir by the end of the call. I then told them to just call me by my first name
Then I told the boss what happened and got chewed out for not telling him while it was happening
Some people have
NO IDEA HOW THE GOVERNMENT OPERATES
That’s where we’re at now

[slightlv]

45. I had one instructor come through our IT door,

huffing and puffing and doing all but screaming at me. He couldn't find his Instructor material, no matter how he logged in.

Took me a few minutes of grasping what exactly was happening, after I showed him exactly where his material was. The poor guy didn't know how to SCROLL down a page. Granted, this was about 30 years ago, but still... we weren't exactly in the infancy of computers any longer (LOL). After apologizing if it sounded like I was insulting his intelligence, I showed him how to scroll down to the bottom of the page to find his material. (SMDH) It was amazing the number of people who came roaring in like bulls, and walked out like sheep!

[qazplm135]

37. Because the world has problems

And the only entity you can blame for those problems is "the government."

And humans are primed psychological to see bad things. We are naturally pessimistic and You throw in low education and intelligence levels and you get a voting public that doesn't have much in collective values, they are just perpetually unhappy. So you go Obama to Trump to Biden back to Trump and odds are the next President will be a Democrat.

[Evolve Dammit]

38. Really great question. I personally have no squabbles. All in all, State, Federal and Local are doing pretty well IMHO

[usonian]

39. Don't overthink it. The GOP has deliberately broken government from doing anything but passing tax cuts for the rich.

It doesn't work because the GOP doesn't WANT it to work and have fought anything progressive for freaking ever.

You want a dam? Cut taxes for the rich.
You want an army base? Create 100 more loopholes that only billionaires can use.

BROKEN SO YOU CAN BITCH,
and elect more republicans to "fix" the logjam.

SMALL government cuts out the middleman, It's DOGE
like so:

BAD your taxes -> government -> defense and social programs
GOOD your taxes -> the wealthy

By not even letting progressive legislation out of committee,
And passing more tax cuts and welfare for the rich

A. Because IT'S GOOD FOR YOU, and
B. Because it assuages the pain you feel from, well, from THESE
Foreigners, Minorities, Women, Socialists, Gays and Liberals.

[Crunchy Frog]

47. People have been being brainwashed for decades

to believe what billionaires and corporate oligarchs want them to believe.

They hate government because they hate regulations that the rest of us depend on for survival. And they hate the idea that services for ordinary people exist and are funded, instead of the money going straight into their pockets.

We'll see how people feel about government when they haven't got it anymore.

[DiamondShark]

48. TLDR

Merrick Garland didn't prosecute trump. That is to say, I have zero trust in the US Government doing the right thing.

So, you tell me. Should I trust the US Government if they don't prosecute thieves of classified documents? It only takes one thing to mark, no faith.

[moondust]

52. Comyunizum!!!

Last edited Sat Nov 23, 2024, 12:11 AM - Edit history (1)

Hard core capitalists have been sounding the alarm about "big gubment" for a century since they found out that after the Russian revolution the commies nationalized private property. Then it spread to China. In the 60s there was the fear of the "domino effect" in Vietnam. Today I suspect it's largely greedy profiteers who want to basically do the opposite of what the commies did; i.e. they want to privatize government assets so they can make a ton of money off them.

2018: The Trump Administration Is Selling Your Public Lands on the Internet

2020: Public Citizen Report: Trump’s Land Privatization Was Decades in the Making By Right-Wing Groups, Corporations



ETA: I don't know if it has been mentioned that probably significant numbers of children in former Confederate states were raised to hate the damn "union" government that waged the "war of northern aggression" on them. Some of that hate likely endures to this day.

[WhiteTara]

53. Barry Goldwater and the Two Santas

People loved the government until they were sold on the idea that it "was their money" and government just wasted it. But they would fight to keep your money without saying it would gut public services.