Heather Wilhelm explains at National Review Online how President-elect Donald Trump has offered the nation at least one Christmas present.
[A]ll wild-eyed holiday enthusiasm aside, there is an actual gift hidden within Trump’s election: Suddenly, left-leaning partisans — many of whom have never met a government program they didn’t like, a boatload of money they didn’t want to spend on a study determining the proper gender roles of wombats, or an “incorrect” opinion they didn’t yearn to squash in the name of “free speech” — are learning to harbor a healthy distrust of big government.
Lo and behold! Merry Christmas!
Witness Ana Marie Cox, a popular progressive writer with gigs at MTV and the New York Times. “So who else has been researching basic disaster prep stuff?” she polled her Twitter audience on Wednesday. “Bc—congrats, right wingers—I do not trust the government to help anymore!” Her next tweet extended the holiday merriment to our nation’s Second Amendment enthusiasts: “Getting my rifle out of storage this week.” …
… [T]he era of left-wing panic is here, it’s real, and it’s growing like a brand-new bureaucracy with an unlimited budget staffed by hundreds of enthusiastic Millennials paralyzed by college debt. The difference between people like me and many suddenly panicked progressives, of course, is that I’ve never really trusted big, expansive, in-your-face government, no matter who the president might be. This isn’t a stance based on paranoia of the kind that makes you put tinfoil hats on all 17 of your cats. It’s a rational conclusion based on familiarity with sound economics, historical evidence, and comparative politics.