The fundamental confusion here may be the misconception that pro-people pro-liberty or pro-progress means anti-state. Or that the new people are anti-state in any way that means well for most people.
It seems entirely consistent that the people most alarmed about law enforcement and intelligence being handed over figures who are indicating they don’t intend to use it in a principled manner are critics who’ve seen how even less extreme more accountable people have used these roles poorly. The new team seems headed in a direction that might make poor past iterations look principled.
“Burn it all down” is good cover for people who want to selectively burn things down for their benefit (but not their things).
> It seems entirely consistent that the people most alarmed ... are critics who’ve seen how even less extreme more accountable people have used these roles poorly.
That would make sense if... there had been accountability in the past for the law enforcement and intel folks who abused their power. So far there's been no accountability ever for any of them no matter what they've done. If that continues and the only change is the targets then that will be very bad indeed, but that's not what Trump and friends are saying, and they seem to want to reduce the size of the agencies in question, which will necessarily reduce the number of targets they can acquire, or the extent to which they can persecute them -- unless of course AI makes them much more efficient in the future, say. Not that there's any guarantee that these agencies will ultimately be reduced in size. But if I take what they're saying at face value and they deliver on it, then I think we're looking at an overall improvement.
It seems entirely consistent that the people most alarmed about law enforcement and intelligence being handed over figures who are indicating they don’t intend to use it in a principled manner are critics who’ve seen how even less extreme more accountable people have used these roles poorly. The new team seems headed in a direction that might make poor past iterations look principled.
“Burn it all down” is good cover for people who want to selectively burn things down for their benefit (but not their things).