Conservatives hate government—but not when it benefits them
For once, a conservative is being honest about his hatred for the government and support for its destruction—so long as it doesn’t impact him.
“There are government programs that I’d like to see discontinued or cut back, especially those that don’t affect me,” but don’t touch the programs he personally depends on: “But the ones like the Postal Service, yes, we count on them,” Rick Wallace, a retired firefighter in rural Nebraska, told the Nebraska Examiner.
Of course they do. He lives in the kind of place where, if efficiency or cost savings become the standard, he’s completely screwed.
Wallace’s local mail carrier, Roger McDonald, drives nearly 150 miles every day to hit 334 delivery points. That kind of route bleeds money, and the long distance and sparse population density are part of why the U.S. Postal Service experiences annual losses. It’s also exactly the kind of thing that would vanish under President Donald Trump’s proposed privatization scheme, where unprofitable routes would inevitably be slashed, regardless of who’s left behind.
But the government isn’t supposed to be profitable. It’s supposed to serve the common good, even when that good is a tiny outpost in the middle of nowhere.
Liberals have long understood that. We’ve been fine subsidizing rural America—its roads, its phone lines, its mail service, and its hospitals—because that’s what a shared society does.
But in return, rural conservatives have demonized the very government that sustains their communities. Worse, they’ve vilified the people—us—who’ve supported those subsidies. And now they admit that they only want to fund what affects them.
Well, rural broadband doesn’t affect me. I have fast internet—screw everyone else. The expensive rural postal network? Doesn’t affect me, why should I pay for it? All that costly telephone infrastructure? Let it rot. The Department of Agriculture? I’m not a farmer, cut it all. Medicaid funding for rural hospitals? I’ve got 5 hospitals within 15 minutes. Rural road maintenance? Let them crumble. Black lung benefits for coal miners? Sucks to be them. Meth epidemic in rural towns? Let them bootstrap their way out. None of it affects me, right?
It’s fucking gross, isn’t it?
That’s the difference between the right and left. Conservatives get off on the suffering of people who aren’t like them—that’s why they voted for Trump. But liberals? We’d be horrified if someone earnestly made the argument I just laid out. We believe in a basic social obligation to each other—even when it costs us something. Especially when it costs us something.
Wallace doesn’t give a damn about programs that don’t directly benefit him. But we’re supposed to spend whatever it takes to keep his mail coming 6 days a week? That’s not how this works.
The social contract isn’t a vending machine for personal convenience; it’s a mutual agreement that binds a nation of people together, one that says we all pitch in so that no one—no matter where they live—falls through the cracks. It’s a recognition that the government is the tool we use to express collective values, not individual preferences.
When conservatives start picking and choosing what parts of society are worth funding based solely on their own needs, they’re not just being selfish. They’re breaking the very foundation that holds this country together.