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Time For Liberals To Start Making Lemonade

 

Been doing some doom scrolling on the Bluesky platform lately and reading the sour responses among progressives reacting to Trump’s first weeks in office. Always an optimist, I do believe Trump’s victory is an opportunity for liberals to craft a sweet response.

One of the biggest concerns right now on the political left is that conservatives are going to dramatically shrink the size of government and take a machete to government programs. Cheered on by business leaders like Elon Musk and others, Trump’s victory showed how far the electorate has moved to the right, now lacking trust and support for big government.

The speed of this change away from the Big State has been shocking, but not necessarily surprising after the government spending and control reached its apex during the pandemic. The lockdown and print money response disproportionately hurt the most economically vulnerable. Many relied upon government programs were shut down and the crippling inflation that followed left many scarred. I believe this has been a key driver for why the working poor have lost faith in government and abandoned a progressive, activist government movement they normally support.

Another cause to the shift toward smaller government I believe is about service - or lack thereof. Many experienced people left the workforce during the pandemic and didn’t return. Many sectors including the public service have faced labour shortages and have scrambled to fill positions. Many of the newbies are not surprisingly, not that great at their jobs to start and have had few experienced, competent vets to learn the ropes from. Add to this a narcissistic culture and the calling to serve others as a public servant has become a whisper. It didn’t take long for people to see that it wasn’t just at the grocery store where they were paying more, but getting less. The value equation post pandemic was out of whack. Most people are okay paying higher prices or taxes, but they better get bang for their buck. Without this fair return, people have begun pushing back and will want tax cuts to match their lower expectations. The era of big government is over for now and might be for a while.

Unless progressives figure out that you can’t put your need to fight climate change above growing the economy or that just throwing more government money at systemic problems doesn’t work, they are going to be in the political wilderness for sometime. This means that many of the government initiatives and programs that liberals hold dear are going to be starved of cash or cut outright.

So what to do? Well crying in your echo chamber that the government is no longer covering gender affirming surgery may feel cathartic, but it's not going to bring tax dollars your way. Liberals will have to stop looking for government to solve their problems and start doing what conservatives have always done and look to fund and solve problems themselves. In a world that is becoming even more polarizing, gaining consensus of where precious tax dollars should be spent has become much more contentious. The concepts of universality and the common good are essential for big government buy-in, but even among progressives, the power of the individual reins supreme. With the will of convincing others to fund specialty programs evaporating, a push to the private sector is warranted.

Important issues like mental health or homelessness need attention, but have been ignored by governments of all stripes who have had enough trouble properly running core services. We can continue to moan about this problem, or private citizens can organize and raise money to fight these problems privately. To borrow loosely from JFK, stop asking what your government can do — ask what are you doing? 

   

In many cases citizens don’t have to start from scratch. There are countless causes, charities and church organizations out there in desperate need of support. Take a break from political action and join a cause that drives real action.

The shift right has caught many liberals off guard, but sulking about the latest trumped up government reform isn’t going to fix things anytime soon. Just like Canada must finally grow up and end its dependence on the U.S., progressives must stop relying and looking to the government to solve problems.

Seeing the era of small government returning might make you sour, but it's up to you to take this opportunity and make it sweet.

Written By Gregory Cawsey - Human


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