The Basket Case for Smaller Government: New at Reason

Limiting government shouldn’t just be important when the other side is in power.

A. Barton Hinkle writes:

Although there is no hard evidence to support the notion, some voters who plan to vote for Trump might be telling pollsters otherwise, simply because Trump elicits so much hostility. And if there is such a Trump effect, then Clinton’s comments could make it worse. Who wants to be thought of—even by a pollster—as a deplorable racist?

It would not take much (one more health scare, for example) for Trump to pull ahead and stay there. That increases the probability of a Trump administration from non-zero to significant.

The prospect of President Trump wielding the levers of power should strike fear into even the stoutest heart. But it also should lead liberals and progressives to question their zeal for a government of unlimited power.

Once upon a time, they did. During the George W. Bush administration liberals routinely bewailed the manner in which the executive branch stomped past the boundaries imposed by the Constitution. In those days you were nothing if your Prius did not sport a sticker comparing Bush to Hitler or asking, “Is it fascism yet?”

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