Yes, I'm aware that typical Republican voters typically believe a number of obviously-false things, like thinking "big government" doesn't include a bunch of th

Yes, I'm aware that typical Republican voters typically believe a number of obviously-false things, like thinking "big government" doesn't include a bunch of things that it obviously does include. Including spending almost as much on military as the entire rest of the world put together (44.5% of world total, and btw twice the per-capita budget of any sane country), and using that enormous military to invade countries that do not pose a threat. I'm not even arguing (here) against this military budget, nor the adventurism. I'm arguing against calling it small-government, and against calling it "defense", because it's obviously neither. Anyway, that got off-track. To return to the point, I'm perfectly "careful to distinguish between subjective and objective elements", thank you very much. But given that the subjective elements, on this particular subject, are laughably disconnected from reality, it's pretty cynical to exploit that. I understand the "two parts to [your] argument". I would have thought that was clear. And I'm agnostic on the effectiveness of the proposed strategy. However, I think both parts are cynical.