I’m not sure if this is even worth pointing out, but Medicaid recipients are not all the sort of stereotypical poor people one might expect. I was on Medicaid during law school because I didn’t have any taxable income as a student. Caregivers are frequently on Medicaid - are we seriously viewing them as lazy and entitled? I hate the reflexive denigration of government welfare services in this country. Heaven forbid we look out for our fellow citizens in need. And this doesn’t even get into the economic arguments that support welfare policies. If you want a productive workforce, you need a healthy population!
YOU MUST REMEMBER: If Trump denies he knows something then he knows everything about it. Like the Epstein pedophilia. "I know nothing" (truth: I was up to my armpits in those girls).
I know everything about hurricanes. (truth: he knows shit). I know more about taxes than anyone even the IRS. (truth: he knows how to commit fraud and anyone else would be in prison for 20 years). So just remember. Mr. Good is a political activist and ran over the agent. (truth: she is mother of 3; never had a ticket; and did not run over an agent). You will learn.
Can you think of any countries that provide social services like daycare to their people successfully and without rampant fraud? How do they do it? Who runs the daycare centers? I think over the years there’s been a push, especially amongst republicans, to privatize government services. When you have a lot of small contractors performing the services for something like daycare who provides the oversight? The social services departments would have to provide oversight over a patchwork of individual providers who get licensed to operate day care centers, perhaps in their homes. What happens when there are cuts to the budgets of social services departments because people don’t want their taxes to increase? Do they cut back on oversight? If so, do you think the inspectors will end up with higher caseloads? How do other countries manage to provide free or affordable daycare? Do they have all these problems with fraud?
Reagan was in many ways just a more polite, less corrupt version of Trump. Sure he said nice things about immigration and had the whole sunny outlook going for him.
Reagan also had a very tenuous hold on truth and science. He had a few cabinet members who would've fit in very nicely in Trump 2.0. He jumpstarted a mistrust of government, the one that he led. And he foisted voodoo economics upon generations of Americans, many of which are still waiting for the trickle to trickle-down.
The real story here is a superannuated President slipping into his dotage and losing any semblance of self-control. Not good for a guy who may control the nuclear launch codes. The presumed racism of his first term is now blatantly overt, and his followers have taken the armbands out of the closet. He targets Minnesota's Somali diaspora, which turns out to consist 57% of American born citizens, with the remainder being 87% naturalized citizens. When it turns out to be not a very target-rich environment, he orders 1000 more ICE goons to Minnesota, where they now outnumber the Minneapolis police by at least 5-to-1. It's not about immigration, it's about intimidation and de-sensitization. It's the Elvis Costello song, "Goon Squad". We've had ICE for a long time now, and they went about their jobs quietly and professionally -- not the Gestapo nonsense we're seeing now. Mark my words, come November, Trump will deploy ICE to "guard" polling places, especially in purple districts. It's why he hates mail-in ballots: no chance for physical intimidation. Resist now, folks, or we'll be in REAL trouble later this year.
Sorry, but it is not as sophisticated as all that. Once again, I must point out that all this is a desperate attempt to distract the media and us from EPSTEIN. The dumpster fire president promised during the campaign that he would release the Epstein files. Congress has passed the law requiring him to do so. Yet his justice department continues to sit on its hands, as it must, to prevent disclosure of what is be becoming more and more painfully obvious: Trump was not merely a friend of Epstein, but he partook of Epstein‘s evil gifts. Why else would he be willing to go to such lengths to prevent disclosure of the files he once promised to release? Once again, tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are. This tangled analysis of all these diversions only helps him succeed in suppressing the truth. Any analysis of each of these diversions that does not tie it back to Epstein misses the point. Release the Epstein files!
Exactly. Reagan used Welfare Queens as the undeserving, then reinforced the Republican White Supremacy when he officially welcomed Jerry Falwell’s Silent Majority, Christians intro into real political power.
The Southern Strategy is being used by Trump against non white immigrants expanding the group size of undeserving Thems, reinvigorating the Confederacy and now, also, neoNazis.
Lots of good points in this piece but I am uneasy about parallels between Reagan's policies and Trump. Reagan was influenced by those whom he relied on at any given time. As governor of California, he was a moderate environmentalist. In 1980 he appointed firebrand regulatory reformers at EPA and Interior. But at no time did Reagan condone flouting law and democratic practice. Campaigns have always been times of exaggerated claims, but I can't recall Reagan promoting illegality and brutality by government agents.
There was a distance between Reagan's acts and his deeds. When he was California governor, he railed against campus protests. But he poured immense amounts of money into California's public universities to support them. Trump does not give in this way; he only takes from the common man.
For sure — and why I said nobody should put them on similar moral planes
Maybe “parallel” was quite the right word. I couldn’t think of a better one.
I did want to convey there was something similar in the way Somalis child care operator were becoming political symbols and the way black welfare receptors were symbols in the past.
Not equivalent, but not unrelated either
Anyway thank you for the comment - my favorite part about being here is getting to interact with all the different perspectives
Reforming overgrown government programs is a legitimate public policy goal. So is warning of the dangers of big government in general. Reagan was not the only political figure concerned about the growth of welfare as a federal entitlement. Indeed the entitlement was ended in 1996 by a Republican Congress and Democratic President Bill Clinton. Trump’s craziness cannot be an excuse to end all efforts to put some restrictions on our enormous welfare state.
Our “enormous welfare state”? Really? Compared to our peer nations in Europe and developed Asia? Surely not our notoriously inadequate health care system. Food stamps, perhaps, or school lunches? Social security? We have in fact far and away the thinnest safety net in the developed world. No system is fraud and waste free, which is why we have—no, had—inspectors overseeing government programs. Virtually no European would trade his social system for ours. Partly because of our gun culture and shocking tolerance for endless mass shootings. But partly because of our failure to provide the decent and inexpensive health care and education that the rest of the developed world takes for granted.
For decades, Americans and Canadians had the same life expectancies. Then Canada enacted a goods and services tax, and provided universal healthcare. Today, Canadians outlive Americans by 3 years on average. Hmm, makes you wonder . . .
Social welfare spending has grown impressively over the years even if in your eyes we are pikers compared to Sweden. When Trump’s insanity is over, we will have to deal with a 2 trillion yearly deficit. Taxing billionaires won’t do the job. Whoever is in power will have to look at moderating non defense outlays.
Do you think there’s no waste in the war department? But let’s not even look under that rock. I agree we have to get our finances in order. We pay far too much to service our debt. We could start by rolling back the Trump tax cuts for the rich. We could fund social security by ditching the income cap for paying into the program. Raising rates on high earners is definitely on the table. Taxes are the price of civilization as it is understood not just in Scandinavia but also in the UK and its former dominions, the EU, Switzerland, Japan and South Korea. Are we such a piss-poor people that we can’t achieve the standard of living these countries enjoy? When did America become the land of “no can do”?
And we certainly have much more waste and fraud at the other end of the financial spectrum. Citizen's United? Shocked that you would say hidden money is corrupt! K Street has long existed, Congress seems to use insider trading as a primary investment strategy, etc.
330 million Americans -- sorry, "small government" as some Conservatives and Libertarians posit it, will never be adequate to the task. Yes, be efficient, but be realistic. Can't speak to State and local governments, but Feds generally work hard and work smart.
It's a different world than it was in 1980. Years of conservative primacy have stripped out the middle class, leaving more and more Americans depending on government programs of various stripes. The anti-government movement now is motivated more by the sense that government policies have benefited the rich at the expense of the rest of us. A profound shift is on the horizon.
It's a reality of life that all conspiracy theories have some semblance of truth from which ideologues expand them as Reaganites did in the 80s and Trump's folks today.
The viciousness we're seeing seems to be exceeding anything brought up by Jim Crow in the South. Mainly because at least at this point, the people supposed to be protecting citizens are doing just the opposite; which facilitates the comparison to dictatorships/banana republics/Russia and China etc/ we're now seeing.
Over decades in California & national politics, I have noticed how easy it is to take easy shots at the other side. Not a lot of thought here, but it allows time to solicit votes & contributions.
Any time public assistance is available in the form of cash payments/checks (or "free stuff" as many GOP voters like to wail about) you will find conditions ripe for fraud of several kinds. COVID is a perfect example. I personally know of small businesses that were saved as a result of government assistance during shutdown. But most readers here know that fraudsters ripped off billions in illegal monies. It was inevitable. I'm not sure how to stop illegal behavior like this except through tighter eligibility requirements and better oversight.
At the same time, I'm not willing to end state and federal programs that provide assistance to those Americans with legitimate needs, especially when we are providing huge unneeded tax breaks to the wealthiest 1% and corporations that turn these tax breaks into stock buybacks and large bonuses for top-tier management officers.
very good piece on a subject I consider frequently. I often wonder how many of the people who feign indignation over welfare recipients aren’t just plain jealous. I mean if they could cheat the system do know work have nice cars they would. No I am not saying all of them, but a substantial minority.
Just a tremendous piece, a must-read to understand the historical parallels of the GOP tying race baiting to its policy objectives. As a former Republican there is no president I've downgraded more over the years than Reagan for a lot the reasons Cohn outlines (along with Reaganomics ushering in an era of income inequality that persists). The irony tying Reagan and Trump is that it was Reagan who initially used "make America great again" as a campaign slogan, something that to my knowledge Trump has never given attribution to.
My opinion of Reagan dropped from low to abysmal when I learned he gave a campaign speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi on the topic of keeping the federal government out of local business. Philadelphia, Mississippi is the town in which three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964 (see the movie, Mississippi Burning). There were certainly people in that audience in 1980 who had been there in 1964 and were happy to have their preference for local control validated. Reagan may not have been a racist, but he was willing to pander to racists to get elected.
I’m not sure if this is even worth pointing out, but Medicaid recipients are not all the sort of stereotypical poor people one might expect. I was on Medicaid during law school because I didn’t have any taxable income as a student. Caregivers are frequently on Medicaid - are we seriously viewing them as lazy and entitled? I hate the reflexive denigration of government welfare services in this country. Heaven forbid we look out for our fellow citizens in need. And this doesn’t even get into the economic arguments that support welfare policies. If you want a productive workforce, you need a healthy population!
YOU MUST REMEMBER: If Trump denies he knows something then he knows everything about it. Like the Epstein pedophilia. "I know nothing" (truth: I was up to my armpits in those girls).
I know everything about hurricanes. (truth: he knows shit). I know more about taxes than anyone even the IRS. (truth: he knows how to commit fraud and anyone else would be in prison for 20 years). So just remember. Mr. Good is a political activist and ran over the agent. (truth: she is mother of 3; never had a ticket; and did not run over an agent). You will learn.
Can you think of any countries that provide social services like daycare to their people successfully and without rampant fraud? How do they do it? Who runs the daycare centers? I think over the years there’s been a push, especially amongst republicans, to privatize government services. When you have a lot of small contractors performing the services for something like daycare who provides the oversight? The social services departments would have to provide oversight over a patchwork of individual providers who get licensed to operate day care centers, perhaps in their homes. What happens when there are cuts to the budgets of social services departments because people don’t want their taxes to increase? Do they cut back on oversight? If so, do you think the inspectors will end up with higher caseloads? How do other countries manage to provide free or affordable daycare? Do they have all these problems with fraud?
Many of them don’t have these problems because they are actually run by the government, and it’s easier to have oversight of government-run programs.
But because we insist on using private companies to run the programs here, we are more likely to end up with fraud.
Reagan was in many ways just a more polite, less corrupt version of Trump. Sure he said nice things about immigration and had the whole sunny outlook going for him.
Reagan also had a very tenuous hold on truth and science. He had a few cabinet members who would've fit in very nicely in Trump 2.0. He jumpstarted a mistrust of government, the one that he led. And he foisted voodoo economics upon generations of Americans, many of which are still waiting for the trickle to trickle-down.
The real story here is a superannuated President slipping into his dotage and losing any semblance of self-control. Not good for a guy who may control the nuclear launch codes. The presumed racism of his first term is now blatantly overt, and his followers have taken the armbands out of the closet. He targets Minnesota's Somali diaspora, which turns out to consist 57% of American born citizens, with the remainder being 87% naturalized citizens. When it turns out to be not a very target-rich environment, he orders 1000 more ICE goons to Minnesota, where they now outnumber the Minneapolis police by at least 5-to-1. It's not about immigration, it's about intimidation and de-sensitization. It's the Elvis Costello song, "Goon Squad". We've had ICE for a long time now, and they went about their jobs quietly and professionally -- not the Gestapo nonsense we're seeing now. Mark my words, come November, Trump will deploy ICE to "guard" polling places, especially in purple districts. It's why he hates mail-in ballots: no chance for physical intimidation. Resist now, folks, or we'll be in REAL trouble later this year.
Sorry, but it is not as sophisticated as all that. Once again, I must point out that all this is a desperate attempt to distract the media and us from EPSTEIN. The dumpster fire president promised during the campaign that he would release the Epstein files. Congress has passed the law requiring him to do so. Yet his justice department continues to sit on its hands, as it must, to prevent disclosure of what is be becoming more and more painfully obvious: Trump was not merely a friend of Epstein, but he partook of Epstein‘s evil gifts. Why else would he be willing to go to such lengths to prevent disclosure of the files he once promised to release? Once again, tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are. This tangled analysis of all these diversions only helps him succeed in suppressing the truth. Any analysis of each of these diversions that does not tie it back to Epstein misses the point. Release the Epstein files!
No argument here on Epstein files
Exactly. Reagan used Welfare Queens as the undeserving, then reinforced the Republican White Supremacy when he officially welcomed Jerry Falwell’s Silent Majority, Christians intro into real political power.
The Southern Strategy is being used by Trump against non white immigrants expanding the group size of undeserving Thems, reinvigorating the Confederacy and now, also, neoNazis.
Lots of good points in this piece but I am uneasy about parallels between Reagan's policies and Trump. Reagan was influenced by those whom he relied on at any given time. As governor of California, he was a moderate environmentalist. In 1980 he appointed firebrand regulatory reformers at EPA and Interior. But at no time did Reagan condone flouting law and democratic practice. Campaigns have always been times of exaggerated claims, but I can't recall Reagan promoting illegality and brutality by government agents.
There was a distance between Reagan's acts and his deeds. When he was California governor, he railed against campus protests. But he poured immense amounts of money into California's public universities to support them. Trump does not give in this way; he only takes from the common man.
For sure — and why I said nobody should put them on similar moral planes
Maybe “parallel” was quite the right word. I couldn’t think of a better one.
I did want to convey there was something similar in the way Somalis child care operator were becoming political symbols and the way black welfare receptors were symbols in the past.
Not equivalent, but not unrelated either
Anyway thank you for the comment - my favorite part about being here is getting to interact with all the different perspectives
Reforming overgrown government programs is a legitimate public policy goal. So is warning of the dangers of big government in general. Reagan was not the only political figure concerned about the growth of welfare as a federal entitlement. Indeed the entitlement was ended in 1996 by a Republican Congress and Democratic President Bill Clinton. Trump’s craziness cannot be an excuse to end all efforts to put some restrictions on our enormous welfare state.
Our “enormous welfare state”? Really? Compared to our peer nations in Europe and developed Asia? Surely not our notoriously inadequate health care system. Food stamps, perhaps, or school lunches? Social security? We have in fact far and away the thinnest safety net in the developed world. No system is fraud and waste free, which is why we have—no, had—inspectors overseeing government programs. Virtually no European would trade his social system for ours. Partly because of our gun culture and shocking tolerance for endless mass shootings. But partly because of our failure to provide the decent and inexpensive health care and education that the rest of the developed world takes for granted.
For decades, Americans and Canadians had the same life expectancies. Then Canada enacted a goods and services tax, and provided universal healthcare. Today, Canadians outlive Americans by 3 years on average. Hmm, makes you wonder . . .
Social welfare spending has grown impressively over the years even if in your eyes we are pikers compared to Sweden. When Trump’s insanity is over, we will have to deal with a 2 trillion yearly deficit. Taxing billionaires won’t do the job. Whoever is in power will have to look at moderating non defense outlays.
Do you think there’s no waste in the war department? But let’s not even look under that rock. I agree we have to get our finances in order. We pay far too much to service our debt. We could start by rolling back the Trump tax cuts for the rich. We could fund social security by ditching the income cap for paying into the program. Raising rates on high earners is definitely on the table. Taxes are the price of civilization as it is understood not just in Scandinavia but also in the UK and its former dominions, the EU, Switzerland, Japan and South Korea. Are we such a piss-poor people that we can’t achieve the standard of living these countries enjoy? When did America become the land of “no can do”?
don't forget to add lack of parental leave and child care support to that list of social safety net inadequacies
And we certainly have much more waste and fraud at the other end of the financial spectrum. Citizen's United? Shocked that you would say hidden money is corrupt! K Street has long existed, Congress seems to use insider trading as a primary investment strategy, etc.
If your point is that it’s reasonable and legitimate to argue for a smaller welfare state, you’ll get no argument from me
(Even if, end of the day, I’d probably prefer a bigger one)
330 million Americans -- sorry, "small government" as some Conservatives and Libertarians posit it, will never be adequate to the task. Yes, be efficient, but be realistic. Can't speak to State and local governments, but Feds generally work hard and work smart.
Also I forgot - thank you for reading and subscribing
It's a different world than it was in 1980. Years of conservative primacy have stripped out the middle class, leaving more and more Americans depending on government programs of various stripes. The anti-government movement now is motivated more by the sense that government policies have benefited the rich at the expense of the rest of us. A profound shift is on the horizon.
It's a reality of life that all conspiracy theories have some semblance of truth from which ideologues expand them as Reaganites did in the 80s and Trump's folks today.
The viciousness we're seeing seems to be exceeding anything brought up by Jim Crow in the South. Mainly because at least at this point, the people supposed to be protecting citizens are doing just the opposite; which facilitates the comparison to dictatorships/banana republics/Russia and China etc/ we're now seeing.
Powder keg in the making
This is one of the reasons many of us say Reagan is one of the folks who led the way to where we are today.
If anyone wants a (very unpleasant) reality check on T's current level of support - esp. if you have any fantasies about the racism and cruelty negatively affecting his base - read this article in The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/01/maga-trump-base-schism-exaggerated/685598/?gift=6ICK1NhO1tuSUNO7V_Ru-mou62q2eAC8wWIkfjtw1OI&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share.
Over decades in California & national politics, I have noticed how easy it is to take easy shots at the other side. Not a lot of thought here, but it allows time to solicit votes & contributions.
Any time public assistance is available in the form of cash payments/checks (or "free stuff" as many GOP voters like to wail about) you will find conditions ripe for fraud of several kinds. COVID is a perfect example. I personally know of small businesses that were saved as a result of government assistance during shutdown. But most readers here know that fraudsters ripped off billions in illegal monies. It was inevitable. I'm not sure how to stop illegal behavior like this except through tighter eligibility requirements and better oversight.
At the same time, I'm not willing to end state and federal programs that provide assistance to those Americans with legitimate needs, especially when we are providing huge unneeded tax breaks to the wealthiest 1% and corporations that turn these tax breaks into stock buybacks and large bonuses for top-tier management officers.
Thanks for this comment
I think this is frequently true in public policy
Ie you can’t get balance just right
Either you overshoot or undershoot
And good case in COVID - given circumstances- for prioritizing quick distribution
very good piece on a subject I consider frequently. I often wonder how many of the people who feign indignation over welfare recipients aren’t just plain jealous. I mean if they could cheat the system do know work have nice cars they would. No I am not saying all of them, but a substantial minority.
Just a tremendous piece, a must-read to understand the historical parallels of the GOP tying race baiting to its policy objectives. As a former Republican there is no president I've downgraded more over the years than Reagan for a lot the reasons Cohn outlines (along with Reaganomics ushering in an era of income inequality that persists). The irony tying Reagan and Trump is that it was Reagan who initially used "make America great again" as a campaign slogan, something that to my knowledge Trump has never given attribution to.
My opinion of Reagan dropped from low to abysmal when I learned he gave a campaign speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi on the topic of keeping the federal government out of local business. Philadelphia, Mississippi is the town in which three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964 (see the movie, Mississippi Burning). There were certainly people in that audience in 1980 who had been there in 1964 and were happy to have their preference for local control validated. Reagan may not have been a racist, but he was willing to pander to racists to get elected.
It boggles the mind that Republicans still think we are stupid enough to believe that Reagan's famous "trickle down economics" actually works.