It’s commonly said in America that “government is the problem” and many people across the political spectrum believe any or almost any government action is bad or wrong by default. Politicians run on cutting regulations, without specifying which ones they’re talking about. They run cutting taxes, without specifying what tax rates they actually want. They run on states rights but don’t specify what rights they’re talking about.
This means that any sort of dialogue about these policies can easily be shut down. How are you supposed to have a discussion on if a particular regulation is helpful or not when you enter into it with the assumption that all regulations are bad? How do we have a discussion on how a federal state should be structured if the default response is that the federal government is always bad? We can’t, because there’s nothing to discuss, we’ve left the realm of practical politics so evidence doesn’t matter. I could provide you with all the evidence in the world that a law will save money, improve the lives of every citizen, and be a more efficient way of running things but that won’t change your mind if you think laws are inherently bad.
Furthermore, this rhetoric makes it easy for politicians to be corrupt because no one cares as long as regulations are being cut. Who cares that those regulations were only in industries the politicians buddies have companies in, or that a law was stopping bribery from happening, it’s cutting tape so it’s fine! And then when surprise surprise these policies make public services worse and the government more corrupt, the politician can turn around and blame the government in general rather than their own policies. Nothing is ever their fault and so nothing will ever be done to fix their mistakes. It also means that important bureaucracy meant to check government power can be cut as well under the guise of “removing red tape” but all that does is make the government more authoritarian with more power.
This sort of rhetoric also gives people the perception that the government as an institution is separate from them and has a will of its own when this is not the case. Governments do what the people running them want them to do, and in the US those people are elected by us. We decide how the government functions even in this corrupt age. The government is a tool, whether it’s helpful or harmful depends entirely on how those in power use it.
I’m totally fine with having a conversation about what powers should belong to the federal vs state governments or how directly democratic institutions should be or the role of the government in society. But our complex modern world cannot function without some amount of government action and pursuing some libertarian utopia that will never happen is silly and stops you from thinking critically about policy. No one thinks any and all government action is good because that would be stupid, and the opposite belief is just as silly yet millions believe it.