A front-page Times article about young people trending toward the left politically includes the following passage:
On a central philosophical question of the day — the size and scope of the federal government — a clear majority of young people embraces President Obama's notion that it can be a constructive force, a point he intends to make in his State of the Union address on Tuesday.
"Young people absolutely believe that there's a role for government," said Matt Singer, a founder of Forward Montana, a left-leaning though officially nonpartisan group that seeks to engage young people in politics.
This is ridiculous. Plenty of conservatives believe the federal government "can be a constructive force." I think the federal government was a constructive force when it won World War II and the Cold War, when President Reagan broke the air traffic controller's strike, and when the Supreme Court issued the Citizens United ruling striking down limits on political speech. Not just conservatives, even libertarians believe "there's a role for government." Most libertarians would support the role of government in national defense, in law enforcement (prosecuting murders and robbers and arresting them), in fraud protection, and in dispute resolution (courts). Those who believe there's no role for government are anarchists, and they represent an extremely tiny portion of the American political spectrum.
In other words, the phrases that "the federal government...can be a constructive force" and "there's a role for government" might be embraced by an arch-conservative who favored the Iraq War, an electric fence along the U.S.-Mexican border, and a federally imposed ban on all abortions and embryonic stem cell research just as much as they might be embraced by a left-winger who favors increased taxation and increased welfare spending. The phrases are caricatures of what conservatives believe, straw men that bear little resemblance to reality.