A former Democrat describes how Reagan's line "Government is the problem" changed his politics permanently. He connects big government to 20th-century atrocities: roughly 100 million non-combatant deaths and billions enslaved under totalitarian regimes.
I was registered as a Democrat until the Reagan presidency. He said something in one sentence that changed my outlook, and that's when I left the Democratic Party for good.
And he said, government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.
And it hit me like a thunderbolt. But I realized, because I have been obsessed with good and evil all of my life, and the amount of evil in the 20th century— 100 million non-combatants killed, billions enslaved in totalitarian regimes— and it was all done by big governments. Big government makes a lot of evil possible.
Life, Legacy, and a Dangerous Mission in the Soviet Union | Sunday Fireside Chat
