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The era of big government is over, President Bill Clinton declared in his 1996 State of the Union address.

There was no question about that at the time. Clinton was banking on triangulation co-opting the GOPs policy ideas to win over its voters to win re-election that fall. After years of hearing about Reagan Republicans grip on the suburbs and the GOP takeover of the House in 1994, Democrats had decided if you cant beat em, join em. The result was two parties both in favor of shrinking the federal government and leaning into a more laissez-faire neoliberalism.

Twenty-five years later, that time is over. Shrinking the size and scope of government is no longer a driving force in either party. What we see instead are two very different visions of the role of government but no real desire from either side to curtail its influence. Republicans are increasingly embracing authoritarianism over libertarianism, even as they frame it as freedom; Democrats have stopped running away from the tax and spend criticism that Clinton embraced.

Its not that big a surprise to see this shift on the Republican side of the aisle. The GOP has had a loose commitment to limited government over the years, in terms of both raw power and areas of influence. On an ideological level, the anti-regulatory spirit embedded in the party has always clashed with the social conservative branchs need to control certain peoples bodies and behavior through anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ policies.

And while President Ronald Reagan campaigned on slashing spending through cutting the governments allowance, the resulting tax cuts didnt slow a massive increase in federal spending. We saw the same under Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump. Ballooning deficits undercut promises of reduced government.

The GOP has had a loose commitment to limited government over the years.

Trump didnt even pay lip service to limiting the federal governments power and scope. But the party went along with him, even though his flashes of authoritarianism are diametrically opposed to the libertarian impulse once prevalent in the more serious wing of the GOP.

Today, the governors vying for Trumps supporters have been fine with using whatever means possible to assert similar auras of authority. Gov. Greg Abbott has consolidated power in Texas by riding roughshod over city and county elected officials and countering what had once been party dogma: Local governments produce better outcomes. Abbotts latest executive order, issued Thursday, bars any level of government in the state from mandating Covid vaccinations, despite the Pfizer vaccines recent FDA approval.

Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has spent weeks ordering school districts not to mandate masks for students. (That effort appears to be backfiring as school boards, cities and counties call his bluff.)

What really makes this latest shift from small government so striking is the GOPs newfound desire to regulate the behavior of private businesses. After decades of devotion to the free market, Republicans recently began targeting what they consider symbolically woke actions by major corporations. Attempts by Abbott and DeSantis to ban cruise lines from requiring vaccinations for their passengers show that this interventionism extends to dictating corporations more substantive actions.

Across the aisle, Democrats are finally aggressively touting major projects and investments after years of running scared from Republican attacks on their tax and spend policies and alleged socialism. President Joe Biden surprised most of the Washington establishment when he championed nearly $4 trillion in proposed new spending. By backing that vision, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have grounded it firmly in the mainstream of Democratic politics.

Democrats are finally aggressively touting major projects and investments after years of running scared from Republican attacks on their tax and spend policies and alleged socialism.

But give credit to the rising clout of progressives such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. Sanders once considered a gadfly, now the chair of the Senate Budget Committee plans to spend the next weeks barnstorming GOP territory to gin up support for the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill that Democrats are preparing for next month.

This dedication to big government isnt a fait accompli in either party. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem came out in an Instagram post Tuesday against a bill that would ban employers from mandating shots for their employees, calling it not conservative and a wolf in sheeps clothing. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine opposes a similar bill in his state but the idea is still popular among the anti-vaccine crowd that DeSantis and Abbott are trying to capture.

And as I wrote Tuesday, some moderate Democrats in the House and the Senate are balking at the price tag of the reconciliation bill, despite the popularity of the proposed spending among voters. Theyre likely to win some concessions which will dull the impact of some of the affected programs but the vast majority of projects will be at least partly funded.

From those Democrats, one hears echoes of the political consultants who convinced Clinton that stealing Republican voters was more important than actual liberal achievements. But were a long way from 1996 the momentum has swung toward active governance, not elected officials who sit on the sidelines. And with one party eager to expand government assistance and the other filled with leaders eager to assert their dominance, dont expect to hear either speak sincerely about small government any time soon.

Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for MSNBC Daily, where he helps frame the news of the day for readers. He was previously at BuzzFeed News and holds a degree in international relations from Michigan State University.

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Ron DeSantis and Bernie Sanders agree on one thing - MSNBC

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- Rumbles from the motorcycles and rock shows of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally have hardly cleared from the Black Hills of South Dakota, and the reports of COVID-19 infections among rallygoers are already streaming in -- 178 cases across five states, according to contact tracers.

In the three weeks since the rally kicked off, coronavirus cases in South Dakota have shot up at a startling pace -- sixfold from the early days of August. While it is not clear how much rallygoers spread the virus through secondary infections, state health officials have so far reported 63 cases among South Dakota residents who attended the event.

The epicenter of the rally, Meade County, has become red-hot with new cases, reaching a per capita rate that is similar to the hardest-hit Southern states. The county reported the highest rate of cases in the state over the last two weeks, according to Johns Hopkins researchers.

The Black Hills region's largest hospital system, Monument Health, warned Friday that it has seen hospitalizations from the virus rise from five to 78 this month. The hospital was bracing for more COVID-19 patients by converting rooms to intensive care units and reassigning staff.

Virus cases were already on the rise when the rally started, and it's difficult to measure just how much the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is to blame in a region where local fairs, youth sports leagues and other gatherings have resumed.

However, Meade County could be a harbinger of things to come for the Upper Midwest as infections ripple from those events, said Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.

"This coronavirus forest fire will keep burning any human wood it can find," he said. "It will find you, and it's so infectious."

Health officials in North Dakota, Wyoming, Minnesota and Wisconsin all reported cases among people who attended the rally, with North Dakota also reporting two hospitalizations. Some health officials noted people could have caught the virus elsewhere.

A team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determined last year's rally looked like a "superspreader event." The team said the event offered a lesson: Such large gatherings can result in "widespread transmission" of infections and attendees should follow precautions like getting vaccinated, wearing masks and social distancing.

The aftermath of this year's rally looks eerily similar to last year -- when the event heralded a wave that did not subside until the winter.

But the pandemic fallout from the rally won't be seen for weeks and an exact case count will likely remain unknown, Osterholm said.

Daniel Bucheli, a spokesman for the state Department of Health, said the virus spike is following "a national trend being experienced in every state, not just South Dakota."

He also pointed out that Meade County's vaccination rate of 45% lags behind the statewide rate of 56% eligible people vaccinated.

The city of Sturgis also downplayed the virus numbers, issuing a statement that blamed the increase in positivity rate on a "significant increase in testing performed to proactively reduce the spread of COVID-19" and accusing "individuals in the national media" of mischaracterizing the event.

Despite the more contagious delta variant, this year's motorcycle rally was even bigger than last year. More than 500,000 people showed up during the 10-day rally.

The streets of Sturgis filled with rallygoers drawn to the libertarian rules of South Dakota -- motorcycle helmets weren't required, minimal attire and bodypainting were welcome, and masks were often nowhere in sight. Bikers bellied up to bars and packed into rock shows.

Two bands that performed at the rally have canceled shows after musicians came down with the virus. Corey Taylor, the lead singer of Slipknot who had embarked on a solo tour, told fans he was "very, very sick" from COVID-19, though he did not say where he contracted it.

"This is the worst I've ever been sick in my life," Taylor said in a Facebook video this week. "Had I not been vaccinated, I shudder to think how bad it would have been."

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How much impact could Sturgis rally have on COVID caseload? - WPTV.com

Martin Fey| For The Bulletin

Republicans often grouse about Hollywood and news media hostility toward conservative views, and the penchant of both institutions for caricaturing conservatives as racists. But the phenomenon is nothing new.

From 1971 to 1979, Norman Lears popular sitcom All in the Family revolved around the small-mindedness, ethnocentrism, jingoism, homophobia and racism of family patriarch Archie Bunker, who in almost every episode was given a liberal lesson. It was a great creation, but Archies offensive language and addiction to stereotypes would never get past Hollywoods woke censors today, nor would Lears choice to make him a sometimes-likeable character despite his copious flaws. It has been said that preaching is fatal to art, but Lear preached liberalism without browbeating his audience. Conservatives and liberals both tuned in for nearly a decade, and then to many years of reruns.

Today there is no subtle preaching in Hollywood, no effort at understanding opposing points of view. A similar sitcom today would portray Archie as pure evil, a scheming white supremacist rather than an unthreatening ignoramus. Hollywood 2021 is close to the reverse of it in the 1950s, when communists, former communists and socialists were blacklisted. Now its conservatives and Republicans in Hollywood who work in fear, muzzled by the threat of an informal blacklisting that harms careers and breaks long relationships.

A few occasionally speak out, though usually gently. Tim Allen, star of the sitcom Last Man Standing, is one of them. In one frank moment he told comedian Jimmy Kimmel on air that being a non-liberal in Hollywood is risky. You get beat up if I dont believe what everybody believes, he said. This is like 30s Germany. Although Last Man Standing was the second highest rated sitcom in 2017, ABC decided to cancel it. Many fans angrily attributed that decision to Allens political views, although the anger subsided when the Fox network picked up the show the next season.

Stacey Dash, an African American/Latina actress best known for her leading role in Clueless, put it this way:

Because Im black Im supposed to therefor be a Democrat, which is absurd, she said. They (Democrats) are supposed to be the party of tolerance, but I dont see any tolerance.

Stars who are aging out of the industry, like Clint Eastwood, Kelsey Grammer and John Voight, are more likely to speak honestly about their political views, but they never show any intolerance toward their liberal counterparts. Instead, they usually invoke libertarian ideas and the desire that people be willing to hear both sides. Occasionally they go out on a limb. Voight called Donald Trump the greatest president since Lincoln, a statement that no doubt took him completely off the cocktail circuit.

The Trump presidency brought the Hollywood leftists to new heights of viscousness, even threats of violence. The same people who in 2020 condemned Trump for refusing to accept his election loss and accused him of fomenting insurrection were apoplectic after his 2016 win. They led the so-called Resistance movement, which rejected Trumps legitimacy and began the anti-Trump hysteria that marred his entire presidency.

It is expected that actors and musicians will be openly liberal and anti-conservative, but the Trump era dragged many of them to slathering lows. Wrestler actor Mickey Rourke and Orange is the New Black actress Lea Delaria chose baseball bats as their preferred weapon for a Trump beat-down. Musician Marilyn Manson and comedian Kathy Griffin created Trump decapitation images. Madonna told thousands at a DC womens march that she had thought a lot about blowing up the White House, and actor Robert DeNiro, still a tough guy in his aging decrepitude, was joined by rapper Everlast in preferring to simply punch Trump in the face.

Most Americans, fortunately, can separate Hollywood fantasy from reality. But there is another class of script readers who have been far more damaging the icons of the mainstream news media. Except for Fox News on cable and the airwaves of talk radio, the media spoke in lockstep and with the same vocabulary through every one of the false narratives brought to bear on Trump. It started with the falsehood that he extolled Nazis and white supremacists after the Charlottesville VA tragedy, a vicious lie that the unreported full text of his remarks should have long ago put to rest. Then there was the Russia collusion lie, based on documents the FBI knew to be fraudulent and discredited by the nearly three-year Mueller probe that Democrats simply rejected. The supposedly reliable intelligence sources that said Russia had offered terrorists bounties for Americans killed in Afghanistan, and that Trump had done nothing to stop them, turned out to be mendacious. Then there was the false story that Trump had peaceful protestors gassed in Lafayette Park near the White House so he could stage a photo op. The inspector general found that the Park Service gave the order because a fence contractor had a job to do. While the lies were circulating Trump was vilified as a dictator, a racist and a traitor. By the time the truth was out, few were paying attention.

Hollywood, music and the media have done more damage in the past five years to American institutions than any presidency in history. Unfortunately for those industries, trust in them was one of the casualties.

Martin Fey is a member of the Quiet Corner Tea Party Patriots.

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View from the Right: Hollywood, music and the media have damaged American institutions - Norwich Bulletin

Most Virginia voters go for candidates with a D or R next to their name, but who should have dibs on the L?

This year, election officials preparing Novembers ballots were faced with the dilemma of how to differentiate the Libertarian Party from the Liberation Party, the newly formed initiative from gubernatorial candidate and social justice activist Princess Blanding.

We didnt want to list them both as L. Because thats a really bad idea, Dave Nichols, elections services manager for the Virginia Department of Elections, said at a state Board of Elections meeting Tuesday.

To resolve the issue, the state reached out to both parties for ideas.

We believe the identification of L for Libertarian has long been used in Virginia and voters understand that L officially represents a vote for the Libertarian Party, Joe Paschal, the chair of the Libertarian Party of Virginia, wrote in response. We believe it would be unfair to ask our party to change the ballot identification of L after spending years establishing this familiarity with voters. As such, we request L for the Libertarian Party on all ballots in Virginia.

The Liberation Party, which Blanding chairs, seemed to concur. In her own letter, Blanding suggested LP, LTP, or LBP as possible abbreviations for her party.

The state board voted to go with LP as the default abbreviation for the Liberation Party, keeping the other two suggestions on file for backup use.

Libertarian Robert Sarvis was on the ballot for governor in 2013 and the U.S. Senate in 2014. The party does not have any statewide candidates this year. However, there are a few Libertarians running for seats in the House of Delegates, meaning some voters will see both Libertarian Party and Liberation Party options on their ballots.

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Libertarian vs. Liberation creates third-party conundrum on Virginia ballots - Virginia Mercury

Many scientific findings continue to be disputed by politicians and parts of the public long after a scholarly consensus has been established. For example, nearly a third of Americans still do not accept that fossil fuel emissions cause climate change, even though the scientific community settled on a consensus that they do decades ago.

Research into why people reject scientific facts has identified peoples political worldviews as the principal predictor variable. People with a libertarian or conservative worldview are more likely to reject climate change and evolution and are less likely to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

What explains this propensity for rejection of science by some of the political right? Are there intrinsic attributes of the scientific enterprise that are uniquely challenging to people with conservative or libertarian worldviews? Or is the association merely the result of conflicting imperatives between scientific findings and their economic implications? In the case of climate change, for example, any mitigation necessarily entails interference with current economic practice.

We recently conducted two large-scale surveys that explored the first possibility that some intrinsic attributes of science are in tension with aspects of conservative thinking. We focused on two aspects of science: the often tacit norms and principles that guide the scientific enterprise, and the history of how scientific progress has led us to understand that human beings are not the centre of the universe.

Sociologist Robert Merton famously proposed norms for the conduct of science in 1942. The norm of communism (different from the political philosophy of communism) holds that the results of scientific research should be the common property of the scientific community. Universalism postulates that knowledge should transcend racial, class, national or political barriers. Disinteredness mandates that scientists should conduct research for the benefit of the scientific enterprise rather than for personal gain.

These norms sit uneasily with strands of standard contemporary conservative thought. Conservatism is typically associated with nationalism and patriotism, at the expense of embracing cooperative internationalism. And the notion of disinterestedness may not mesh well with conservative emphasis on property rights.

Science has enabled us to explain the world around us but that may create further tensions especially with religious conservatism. The idea that humans are exceptional is at the core of traditional Judeo-Christian thought, which sees the human as an imago Dei, an image of God, that is clearly separate from other beings and nature itself.

Against this human exceptionalism, the over-arching outcome of centuries of research since the scientific revolution has been a diminution of the status of human beings. We now recognise our planet to be a rather small and insignificant object in a universe full of an untold number of galaxies, rather than the centre of all creation.

We tested how those two over-arching attributes of science its intrinsic norms and its historical effect on how humans see themselves might relate to conservative thought and acceptance of scientific facts in two large-scale studies. Each involved a representative sample of around 1,000 US residents.

We focused on three scientific issues; climate change, vaccinations, and the heritability of intelligence. The first two were chosen because of their known tendency to be rejected by people on the political right, allowing us to observe the potential moderating role of other predictors.

The latter was chosen because the belief that external forces such as education can improve people and their circumstances is a focus of liberalism. Conservatism, on the other hand, is skeptical of that possibility and leans more towards the idea that improvement comes from the individual implying a lesser role for the malleability of intelligence.

The fact that individual differences in intelligence are related to genetic differences, with current estimates of heritability hovering around 50%, is therefore potentially challenging to liberals but might be endorsed by conservatives.

The two studies differed slightly in how we measured political views and peoples endorsement of the norms of science, but the overall findings were quite clear. Conservatives were less likely to accept the norms of science, suggesting that the worldviews of some people on the political right may be in intrinsic conflict with the scientific enterprise.

Those people who accepted the norms of science were also more likely to endorse vaccinations and support the need to fight climate change. This suggests that people who embrace the scientific enterprise as a whole are also more likely to accept specific scientific findings.

We found limited support for the possibility that belief in human exceptionalism would predispose people to be more sceptical in their acceptance of scientific propositions. Exceptionalism had little direct effect on scientific attitudes. Therefore, our study provided no evidence for the conjecture that the long history of science in displacing humans from the centre of the world contributes to conversatives uneasiness with science.

Finally, we found no strong evidence that people on the political left are more likely to reject the genetic contribution to individual variation in intelligence. This negative result adds to the evidence that science denial is harder to find on the left, even concerning issues where basic aspects of liberal thought in this case the belief that people can be improved are in potential conflict with the evidence.

The two studies help explain why conservatives are more likely to reject scientific findings than liberals. This rejection is not only dictated by political interests clashing with a specific body of scientific knowledge (such as human-caused climate change), but it appears to represent a deeper tension between conservatism and the spirit in which science is commonly conducted.

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Many conservatives have a difficult relationship with science we wanted to find out why - The Conversation UK