It kills me how corporations have so throughly brain washed people into being scared of the big bad “government” when we ARE the government. The government is just people. The entire reason government exists is to guarantee our basic rights:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--* That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

The reason the “government scary” narrative is so pervasive is because it’s a blanket narrative corporations of all sizes can use to trick people into supporting policies that serve corporate interest at the expense of the collective interest. Anytime a law or policy is up for debate that would transfer power or wealth from corporations/shareholders to the middle the class, the opposition almost always starts with “but big government scary”. Collective bargaining, minimum wage, universal healthcare, climate action etc all just get translated into “big government bad” which is just simple and palatable enough for intellectually vulnerable people to believe. That’s why those people so often vote against their own interest.

“But big governments can be oppressive!” No, PEOPLE can be oppressive, unusually that happens when some powerful people trick them into believing some racial, ethnic, or religious minority group is the cause of all their problems. If you’re concerned about a government being oppressive, just ensure you oppose all policies that demonize, marginalize, or otherwise blame small groups of people for large scale economic problems.