This is why I didn't identify as liberal for a long time (even though I'm wildly socially liberal) - the more power the government has, the more it tends to win

This is why I didn't identify as liberal for a long time (even though I'm wildly socially liberal) - the more power the government has, the more it tends to wind up like that. Whether in the form of classic regulatory capture, the defense-industrial complex, or the student debt industry writing the law that covers itself... it's a troubling reality of "big govenment". However at some point, the party representing the conservative movement (i.e., the Republicans) completely abandoned this pretense, instead becoming baldly corporatist. Everybody gets their hands dirty (post Citizens United, how can you not?) but the Republicans don't even pay lip service to that idea any more. The platform is more or less what's good for big companies must be good for America. It raises employment after all! In that world, the one which we live in, the progressive movement (ie, the Democrats) starts to seem actually anti-corporate by comparison. Of course they have tons of their own issues and different corporate patrons, but in comparison they look great. Can you imagine a Republican saying the EPA should regulate CO2? Another way to look at it - from a progressive point of view, regulatory capture and more powerful monopolies are an undesirable side effect of attempts at regulation and reigning in the power of these companies. From the view of today's conservative, it's a desirable outcome; bigger more powerful companies means a bigger more powerful America with better jobs and fewer shipped overseas. Let them trample individual rights because they'll either do it here or do it there, and if they do it here at least it's good for employment.