During the Cold War, Republicans and Democrats alike found communism appalling. Communists did not prefer government solutions to private sector solutions; they thought that the private sector should be abolished or made inconsequential.
Even today, people on their iPhones post on Facebook or Twitter about the evils of corporations. This is a decent definition of ideologue: someone advocating for policies in ways that their own advocacy would disable. We know that corporations can abuse their power and should be regulated; we also know that corporations enable us to enjoy a lifestyle unimaginable without them.
But sometime during the Cold War, a group of Republicans began to believe that you could never move too far to the right. That is, they knew corporations were good and they decided that government (beyond the small portion dedicated to protecting their property rights or granting them defense contracts) was evil in the same way that communists had earlier decided that corporations were evil. Those ideologues took over the party in this century.
And this is how we've come to a point where Trump wins a poll for most respected man in America even while regularly showing executive skills that would get him fired after two months of managing a local Walmart. To be a Republican now doesn't just mean that you prefer the private sector to the public sector. (There are very good reasons for such a preference.) To be a Republican now is to believe in the deep state and the inherent incompetence and evil of government. Communists' attitude towards corporations and Republicans' attitude towards government is roughly the same: they have contempt for its mission, don't understand how it works, and only want to see it shrunk down to a size where it can be drowned in a bathtub without regard for any real world implications.
There is no example of any community that has shifted its quality of life upwards without a collusion of entrepreneurial, strong government and entrepreneurial, strong business. None. (And if you think you know of one, tell me. I'd like to check it out.)
Donald Trump - who now represents the Republican ideal in a president - has done everything he can to prove Republican's contention that government is inevitably incompetent. COVID has revealed the cost of this ideology.
The US is one of the worst countries in the world on two counts: tests administered per COVID case and the number of deaths per million. This in spite of having the world's largest GDP and the largest number of scientists and researchers in the world. Republicans cannot admit that their ideology - their belief that governments can never be competent - has been proven disastrously wrong in this pandemic so instead opt for beliefs in conspiracy theories about how these deaths are not real and the pandemic is no worse than the flu. Meanwhile, other, more rational countries actually succeed with government programs to mitigate the damage this pandemic can do to lives and livelihoods.
Ideology lowers IQ like a blow to the head or a bout with a serious addiction. Until they decide that government agencies - like any private sector organization - can be managed well and add value, they will be forced to cling to conspiracy theories and deny that their ideology actually does make their world worse. Confronted with unexpected facts, we have two choices: change our minds or change the facts. Republicans simply deny those facts.
To have two opposing parties that lean in opposite directions towards either public or private sector solutions is healthy and seems almost inevitable. To have even one party that wants to attack either sector and make it inconsequential is disastrous.
Some problems require well run government agencies. Some problems require well run corporations. For all of their flaws, Democrats know this. For all their potential, Republicans do not. Until that changes, each time Republicans gain power we will be left worse off for it. Reality doesn't show much respect for your beliefs; in spite of that, your beliefs ought to show a lot of respect for reality.
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