This is the cover of the Time news pamphlet. Trump is not dismantling “government,” he’s trimming (not nearly enough in my view) a bloated, heavy-handed, highly corrupt federal bureaucracy. Which I guess is sort of the progressive definition of “government.”

In return, progressives will sneer, “Why don’t you move to Somalia if you hate government?” This is the quintessential progressive argument; an emotive, hyberbolic reductio ad absurdum. As if there is no middle ground between complete dystopian anarchy and a dystopian, Terry-Gilliam-Brazil-like, Brobdingnagian Leviathan bureaucracy that not only does things like:

• A Veterans Administration that gives its chief bureaucrats huge bonuses while veterans die on waiting lists.
• An ironically named Environmental “Protection” Agency that dumps millions of gallons of toxic waste into a pristine river then exempts itself from consequences.
• A Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that supplies semi-automatic weapons to Mexican drug cartels (while simultaneously lobbying to outlaw ownership of those same weapons to law-abiding American citizens).
• A Federal Aviation Administration that resists all efforts to modernize a 30-year-old air traffic control system because of opposition from wealthy corporate jet owners.
• A Department of Education and a Food and Drug Administration that, for some reason, have their own de facto SWAT Teams and can legally kill you for committing student loan fraud or selling raw milk to willing buyers. Other civilian Federal Agencies with their own heavily armed, tactically-trained enforcement squads include the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Office of Personnel Management (make sure to get your TPS reports in on time or we’ll kill you), and the Railroad Retirement Board.

Not to mention, in the hands of a corrupt administration these agencies become weaponized against critics and opponents. Journalists who ask the wrong sorts of questions can be put in jail. An administration can make sure supportive political groups are funded from public coffers while denying funding to opponents. They can even use federal law enforcement agencies and intelligence services to attack political opponents.