I know its a trope about how horrible the DMV is, but my experiences with local government services hasn’t been that bad.
When my landlord refused to fix my plumbing, I called the county health dept. They sent a worker over who verified the issue, talked to the landlord and a plumber came out that night.
When I’ve had bad experiences with businesses I contacted the state attorney general and sometimes they were very helpful (other times they said theres nothing they can do, but it did intimidate the business that was bothering me).
I can do a lot of my DMV renewals online, and its pretty easy. When I needed a Real ID I brought the documents to the local branch, and was out within ten minutes. My ID came in the mail weeks ahead of schedule.
When I’ve been unemployed, I got my UI set up pretty quickly.
When I was a struggling college student I got a lot of pell grants and other state and federal grants to help pay for school and living expenses.
I’ve had bad experiences, but I think its just a trope that government is always bad, useless or inefficient. That hasn’t been my experience.
In terms of not trusting the US Govt., it looks like our departure from Afghanistan is leaving behind quite an unholy mess. Thw taliban are taking citites, and holding important travel routes. The Afghan people who helped the US with the promise that we had their backs are in a deadly perilous situation, and if you told me that they no longer trust the US government I would not be surprised. I hope we can get this shit together and do right by the people who helped us.
I mean, I guess to Carter depends on whether one is bellicose outside or within one’s own borders.
If Carter sees China locking up and torturing 1 million Uyghurs in rural western China as okay since it’s not actual aggression against a foreign nation, maybe. YMMV.
The point isn’t whether the BLM protests were actually a Covid transmission threat or not - if done with masks and distancing, they would be reasonably safe - as it was that the health professionals were clearly biased in favor of protests they liked and against protests they didn’t like. That was what led to the distrust.
The lead pipe water situation in Flint was a big one. The day after the election, I remember seeing Michael Moore on Morning Joe, talking about how Clinton and various other folks all came to Flint, decried the situation, made vague promises, left town and absolutely nothing changed, and he convincingly theorized that a lot of people in Flint whose houses are worth nothing now checked all the D boxes on their ballot but couldn’t bring themselves to vote for her.
I often think Moore is full of shit, but I thought yeah, that tracks. That an American city can be poisoned like that and for there to be years of total inaction and fingerpointing instead of ripping up the streets to fix it (not that Canada’s any better: see “First Nations communities, toxic water in”) was proof positive for many that government simply wasn’t a force for good any more.
Yes, but this is about the U.S., which is supposed to stand for freedom and democracy, right?
Also, notice that almost all of the news about that genocide comes from the same news outlets that have been demonizing “enemies” of the U.S. for the past two decades.
Might there be a connection between the two points? How else can one justify military spending on an unprecedented scale to support, among others, over 800 military bases and installations around the world to defend “our freedoms”?