Originally posted by boriscleto Norquist believes that the government should be the size it was in 1900. Does he also believe that the military should be the size it was in 1900? And that we should divest ourselves of the overseas bases we have established since the Spanish-American War? What does that do to the "War on Terrah" and the "War on Drugs"?
You know, I'm seriously scared of the idea that Grover really is smart and sees the fallacies of his politics... but he really doesn't care, he doesn't actually expect most of it to happen, nor would he really want most of it to (actually) happen. A nice big chunk, sure, but...
See, this is a marketing strategy, a brand name, a way to influence primary elections and therefore gain and retain power. There are good ego reasons right there, but there's also a ton of money to be made, by him and his industry - Conservative public opinion moulding - and as long as there's Big Government he's got that big paycheck. As long as he can throw money into the republican primaries to 'punish' bad thinking, he's got what he needs.
The less functions in Washington, the better off these brand marketeers are. We might say, in the same way that with controversial business issues the US Chamber of Commerce gets its paychecks. Or, while a disease is still a problem, the fundraisers to eradicate it make a living. We know the CoC can at times prolong a controversy in order to milk it some more... and we hope the disease people are in fact sincere about it, and hope to be out of a job as soon as possible...
And then, the thought occurs, maybe he really
does think it is feasible - somehow - to roll things back to 1900. That may be scarier.