"Government's role should be only to keep the playing field level, and to work hand in hand with business on issues such as employment. But beyond this, to as great an extent as possible, it should get the hell out of the way"
About this Quote
Ventura’s line lands because it fuses policy into barroom candor: “get the hell out of the way” isn’t a footnote, it’s the thesis. Coming from a pro-wrestling celebrity turned governor, the profanity is doing strategic work. It’s a populist tell, a way of marking distance from technocratic Washington-speak and aligning with people who feel managed rather than served.
The interesting tension is in the first half. “Keep the playing field level” nods to fairness and rule-setting, not the libertarian fantasy of no refs. He even endorses government-business partnership on “employment,” a phrase that quietly centers jobs as the political sacrament of the 1990s and early 2000s. That’s Third Way territory: markets, but supervised; capitalism, but with guardrails. Then he swerves hard into anti-bureaucratic bravado. The subtext is that the problem isn’t power itself; it’s who’s holding it and how irritatingly they wield it. Government is acceptable as umpire and dealmaker, intolerable as micromanager.
Context matters: Ventura rode a Reform Party moment of anti-establishment disgust, when “government” was imagined less as public goods and more as red tape, taxes, and insider games. His phrase “hand in hand with business” also betrays a pragmatic, even transactional view of democracy: legitimacy comes from outcomes (jobs), not from process. The quote works because it flatters two audiences at once - the small-government skeptic and the fairness-minded voter - while keeping Ventura’s brand intact: blunt, anti-elite, allergic to permission slips.
The interesting tension is in the first half. “Keep the playing field level” nods to fairness and rule-setting, not the libertarian fantasy of no refs. He even endorses government-business partnership on “employment,” a phrase that quietly centers jobs as the political sacrament of the 1990s and early 2000s. That’s Third Way territory: markets, but supervised; capitalism, but with guardrails. Then he swerves hard into anti-bureaucratic bravado. The subtext is that the problem isn’t power itself; it’s who’s holding it and how irritatingly they wield it. Government is acceptable as umpire and dealmaker, intolerable as micromanager.
Context matters: Ventura rode a Reform Party moment of anti-establishment disgust, when “government” was imagined less as public goods and more as red tape, taxes, and insider games. His phrase “hand in hand with business” also betrays a pragmatic, even transactional view of democracy: legitimacy comes from outcomes (jobs), not from process. The quote works because it flatters two audiences at once - the small-government skeptic and the fairness-minded voter - while keeping Ventura’s brand intact: blunt, anti-elite, allergic to permission slips.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
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