The numbers behind the proven experience that government protection of ordinary people is good for economic growth got the blessing of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Monday, when it awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences to Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, both of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and to James Robinson of the University of Chicago. Their research explains why “[s]ocieties with a poor rule of law and institutions that exploit the population do not generate growth or change for the better,” while democracies do.
Although democracy has been delivering for Americans, Donald Trump and MAGAs rose to power by convincing those left behind by 40 years of supply-side economics that their problem was not the people in charge of the government, but rather the government itself.
Trump wants to get rid of the current government so that he can enrich himself, do whatever he wants to his enemies, and avoid answering to the law. The Christian nationalists who wrote Project 2025 want to destroy the federal government so they can put in place an authoritarian who will force Americans to live under religious rule. Tech elites like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel want to get rid of the federal government so they can control the future without having to worry about regulations.
In place of what they insist is a democratic system that has failed, they are offering a strongman who, they claim, will take care of people more efficiently than a democratic government can. The focus on masculinity and portrayals of Trump as a muscled hero‚ much as Russian president Vladimir Putin portrays himself, fit the mold of an authoritarian leader.
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