>>2027390Trains in 'merica have a very similar problem as many other large projects that require government support. Someone opposes it, but they don't have enough political power to stop it, but it is politically extremely inexpensive to just sabotage something by spreading FUD and attacking smaller dependencies under false pretenses, until the entire project still "exists" but can't be anything else but a failure
A prominent example of this is the USPS, which the GOP ha been trying to eliminate for decades to enrich their cronies running private courier services. The average GOP voter lives in the fucking middle of nowhere that DHL would never bother trying to service, so they are utterly dependent on USPS, but they can be easily convinced that the USPS is a welfare queen handout for "the blacks". So they managed to shove through this rule where it has to pre-fund its own retirement plan with 75 years (not a typo) of reserves, and the government is prohibited from supporting it in any way. Because "fiscal prudence and we're protecting worker's retirements lol". In this way, they have effectively given the USPS a lethal dose that will slowly kill it off from a death spiral of funding and service cuts, so that now, things have gotten so bad that even the hillbillies who vote republican are now starting to be like "huh, maybe it really should be privatized and handed over to linda mcmahon"
It's like that with trains and transit, but on a smaller scale. "This project sucks and doesn't work" (sabotages it) "see?"
