But Here's a Rat's Ass

A former co-worker, a lovely person in many ways but nonetheless a fascist, shared this meme on Facebook today.

That's odd. Social Security, Medicare, public education, police (when they're doing their job), the fire department, the military (in principle -- and my friend is another one of those "Support Our Troops" people anyway), all kinds of public health service, disaster relief, public roads, public libraries -- do I need to go on? These are all government protecting and caring for us, giving a shit. It doesn't really matter whether a given politician cares or not, it's the government's job to protect and care for us -- "to promote the general Welfare," as it says in the preamble to the Constitution -- and it does that, quite a lot.

It could do more, I suppose, and do better what it already does. But Republicans and a lot of voters don't want it to. They want to get rid of government so that everyone who isn't rich can die. They expect the government to take care of them, but the GOP voters are surprised when it turns out that the guys they voted for don't give a shit about them, but only about the rich. They're deathly afraid that someone else - someone black, someone brown, someone slightly poorer than they are, an immigrant, a (gasp) undocumented immigrant -- might get something from the government, and in order to deny others they're perfectly willing to give up those benefits themselves. Archie Bunker was a perfect example of this mentality. Now he and his kind are reaping the whirlwind. But go on, Archie, support Donald Trump; do you think he gives a shit about you?