The Republicans, which I used to be one of, want smaller gubmint for the same reason bank robbers want smaller police forces. After WWII America flourished under capitalism because it was a net exporter and the only major industrial power with its production still intact. Europe had to take a different path that made the people more friendly toward their governments and less distrusting out of necessity.

America had the opportunity to follow their lead many times since when capitalism devoured itself and had to be bailed out, but the ignorance of a mostly uninformed and unsophisticated voter base kept it alive without major overhaul. Americans were deceived into believing that their taxes actually funded their government, so any benefits that might have mitigated the many downturns of the economy were denied via envy politics and outright racism. As a consequence, American business has always had a steady supply of hungry unemployed and underemployed workers to draw from.

The sheer ridiculousness of the pride workers take in not depending upon their own democratically elected government to represent them and see to their best interests is the joke of the rest of the world. Telling others to pull themselves up by their bootstraps while being kneecapped repeatedly by the oligarch employers is nothing short of masochism. If there is any hope for America to become, finally, a civilized nation it will be that the oligarchs may have pushed the plebes over the limit of what even they will accept while remaining convinced of the claim to greatness spouted by criminals like Trump.