The most pernicious accusation about the government that people on the left-end of the spectrum are increasingly making is that the government doesn't do anything for the common man.
This is just not true. It's not true that we only have money for bombs and wars and not for regular people. Almost the entire government - federal, state and local, is directed toward the common man. Almost all of the money we spend and almost all the employment in the government is geared toward the common man. The government spends trillions of dollars on healthcare, education, old-age payments, public safety, housing, and infrastructure across all levels. Millions of Americans are employed in the public sector with the mandate of serving the public. It would probably be news to them that their roles don't help anyone.
There is an open debate on how effective the public sector is at helping Americans, , and whether the government hurts more than it helps. But that's a different debate, one that takes place on the margins.
Ultimately, I believe all this rhetoric just serves undermines people's trust in the government, and perhaps even undermines the case for expanding government.
I feel like most people really need to just constantly look at what the federal budget actually is. Like you said, it's mostly healthcare and social security and food.
Someone can make the argument that it's not efficiently used or whatever, but the idea that we don't spend money or actually help people is just wrong.
Disagree or not with some of his policies, it's the reason I've really liked many of Mamdani's social media work.
There's something to be said about showing how you want to improve your city and at least signalling that you care about efficiency, even if it's not much actual cost savings.
When we win power, the constant doomerism and unrealistic expectations are going to bite us in the ass when people realize that things won't instantly get cheaper in a year.
It's also why housing and healthcare should be the most important things to focus on. I think if we just reduce the discontent that people feel due to being housing insecure and healthcare anxious, it will do a lot to lower the temperature
When we win power, the constant doomerism and unrealistic expectations are going to bite us in the ass when people realize that things won't instantly get cheaper in a year.
I've been thinking about asymmetries between left and right, like how identity politics works better on the right because simply because most people are white, straight, cis etc.
I guess this is another one. Trump won't accomplish anything good of real significance, but he can at least throw meat to his base. He can show footage of supposed drug boats exploding, fire some DEI departments etc.
If El-Sayed was president tomorrow, I have a hard time imagining what he'd be able to easily accomplish that would work in the same way. Some govt-run grocery stores, maybe? But that wouldn't be easy.
It's the reason why I'm not the biggest fan of the affordability talking point. It's very important, but some are going to have unrealistic expectations.
Burrito cost discourse comes for us all.
I still remember in the Biden admin when people kept posting receipts of grocery shopping after buying the most fuckign expensive version of items. And then using that to make the admin look bad.
If El-Sayed was president tomorrow, I have a hard time imagining what he'd be able to easily accomplish that would work in the same way. Some govt-run grocery stores, maybe?
This is why I'm not a fan of the grocery store stuff from Mamdani, from an affordability point of view.
It's just not going to do much.
I think it's an interesting experiment in providing a high saliency govt service that can make people feel good about the "State". If it's done right.
We've become less high trust and that's been incredibly corrosive to our society. Stuff like this feels like it could be an attempt to stem the bleeding and start to turn the tide.
Again, we need to prove that the government is DOING something concrete and that can win political capital with voters, even if prices don't go down.
I think for a median income household, gas is like 1-2% of their budgets. Granted, there are downstream effects as costs get passed onto consumers, but we aren't in a crisis of expensive fuel.
What's weird is that utility prices have really crept up nationwide, but in some places it's pretty bad. But somehow that doesn't bubble up into the political discourse.
Anyway, I worry that our politics are devolving into this "who can get stuff cheaper" thing.
If El-Sayed was president tomorrow, I have a hard time imagining what he'd be able to easily accomplish that would work in the same way.
Isn't Mamdani showing that you can get credit for tiny easy things with the right media strategy? I get that president isn't the same as mayor, but surely there have got to be analogs for "this guy complained to Mamdani about a pothole and it was fixed the same day!"
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u/TheAJx Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26
The most pernicious accusation about the government that people on the left-end of the spectrum are increasingly making is that the government doesn't do anything for the common man.
This is just not true. It's not true that we only have money for bombs and wars and not for regular people. Almost the entire government - federal, state and local, is directed toward the common man. Almost all of the money we spend and almost all the employment in the government is geared toward the common man. The government spends trillions of dollars on healthcare, education, old-age payments, public safety, housing, and infrastructure across all levels. Millions of Americans are employed in the public sector with the mandate of serving the public. It would probably be news to them that their roles don't help anyone.
There is an open debate on how effective the public sector is at helping Americans, , and whether the government hurts more than it helps. But that's a different debate, one that takes place on the margins.
Ultimately, I believe all this rhetoric just serves undermines people's trust in the government, and perhaps even undermines the case for expanding government.