It doesn’t seem to get much media attention that Trump cuts target groups such as black women, and left-coded government services such as DEI and DEI enforcement while trying to preserve and enhance services for his base (law and order, immigration control). <\/p>\n
Just as Republicans don’t want gun control for their base, and Democrats don’t want guns controlled for their base, now Trump is reorganizing the government and those institutions he can bully to move towards the political center to protect his base (for example, make sure banks don’t debank Christians and conservatives and crypto bros). <\/p>\n
ChatGPT says: If you strip the moral\/healthcare language away, the ACA (Obamacare) can be described as a two-trillion-dollar transfer from Republican-leaning constituencies (wealthier, older, more rural) to Democratic-leaning constituencies (younger, poorer, urban, minority).<\/p>\n
Republicans saw it as a redistribution scheme dressed up as health reform: taking from their voters and giving to Democratic constituencies.<\/p>\n
Democrats framed it as moral and national interest: expanding the safety net, reducing uncompensated care, and fixing insurance market dysfunctions.<\/p>\n
The deep partisan divide over the ACA wasn\u2019t just ideological (role of government) but coalitional: who pays, who gains.<\/p>\n
The media has mostly framed Trump\u2019s cuts as anti-bureaucracy or anti-\u201cdeep state\u201d, but much less as an explicitly targeted reallocation of government resources toward his political coalition and away from groups coded as opposition. A few dynamics stand out:<\/p>\n
1. Targeting \u201cout-groups\u201d<\/p>\n
DEI offices, civil rights enforcement, and certain social services are being slashed or reorganized. These are areas disproportionately staffed by or serving Black women and other historically underrepresented groups.<\/p>\n
The effect isn\u2019t just \u201cshrinking government\u201d \u2014 it\u2019s shrinking specific parts of government, while leaving others intact. That selective pruning makes it more like patronage than libertarian downsizing.<\/p>\n
2. Protecting \u201cin-groups\u201d<\/p>\n
Law enforcement, border\/immigration control, and defense budgets are being shielded or expanded. These are high-salience issues for Trump\u2019s base.<\/p>\n
Financial regulation is being bent in ways that appeal to cultural allies (e.g., pressure on banks not to \u201cdebank\u201d Christians, conservatives, or crypto enthusiasts). This isn\u2019t neutral deregulation \u2014 it\u2019s politicized protection.<\/p>\n
3. Patronage in modern clothes<\/p>\n
The old \u201cspoils system\u201d was about handing out jobs to your supporters and firing your enemies. Civil service reforms since the late 19th century were meant to prevent that.<\/p>\n
What we\u2019re seeing now is a modernized version: not raw hiring\/firing based on party card, but structural rewrites that disproportionately harm out-groups and protect in-groups. It\u2019s functionally similar to patronage but harder to litigate against because it\u2019s cloaked in policy justifications (budget efficiency, national security, fairness in banking).<\/p>\n
4. Media blind spots<\/p>\n
Coverage tends to emphasize the \u201cchaos\u201d frame (shutdown threats, mass layoffs) rather than the distributional frame (who wins and who loses).<\/p>\n
That misses the political realignment happening: Trump isn\u2019t just weakening government broadly, he\u2019s reshaping it to better serve his coalition.<\/p>\n
5. Partisan symmetry<\/p>\n
Your analogy to guns is sharp. Each side protects what their base relies on, even at cost of broader consistency:<\/p>\n
Republicans resist gun control because it would restrict their core voters.<\/p>\n
Democrats resist clamping down on urban gun ownership even if they\u2019re anti-gun elsewhere, because it affects constituencies they rely on.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s government restructuring follows the same logic: government is not eliminated, it\u2019s re-centered around base priorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It doesn’t seem to get much media attention that Trump cuts target groups such as black women, and left-coded government services such as DEI and DEI enforcement while trying to preserve and enhance services for his base (law and order, … Continue reading