I don’t know exactly what Abramson meant by “taxpayers versus government” but the usage seemed clear to me.
Abramson is saying that there is a tendency to reduce complex situations into simplistic, reductionist binaries where one has to choose one but not the other. For instance, you could be pro-taxpayers or pro-government but not both. This tendency, Abramson says, is not useful (“poorly describes how we feel”) and not true (“doesn’t describe anything well”). The specific taxpayers example is also described as a right-wing binary, i.e. a simplification associated with right-wing social media discourse.
I like examples so if you look at the Civil War you’ll notice that the likes of Sir Edward Coke would frame their arguments from a perspective of liberty. I can’t remember who exactly said it so we’ll just say it was a parliamentary view that “the common law was insufficient to protect individual liberty”. (Also I can’t remember if liberty was the specific word used.) This, I think, is analogous to the the “taxpayers” position in the above binary. Yet, I feel, the parliamentary position was ultimately about a process of government. So while Charles I’s period of personal rule is thought to be unpopular for its innovative attitude to taxation (i.e. resurrecting lapsed forms of tax) which would imply the Roundheads were also not in the government camp (in accordance with the binary) they weren’t really advancing that kind of agenda. What the parliamentary position wanted was a process of government that respected the place and role of parliament, and its role in taxation (there is a reason why Charles I did not come up with new taxes per se).
This is a great example to use here because this was an early modern society with a non-modern state. Looking back we might say that having a framework of government and taxation ultimately greatly improved the lot of people because these institutions led to government as we think of it. And, hence, the laissez faire British state in the centuries following the Civil War. But even within the time of the example itself, you can see that the “taxpayers versus government” binary doesn’t really help categorise the actors. And we get to talk about Cromwell’s famous quote:
I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.
Which is to say that cynicism about cynics is often rewarded: just because the masses think it, doesn’t mean no thinking is going on. Cliches, for instance, are over-used because they work. They are so efficient at communicating that people loathe them for it. And because they’re so efficient, people decide to use them. Unless you can think of a general tendency to inappropriately use cliches. I can’t myself. Of course, this is not to say that the masses are necessarily right… it is well known that people often just repeat the same argument rather than independently reaching the same conclusions. Which is the last reason the above is such a great example: we might well question the sense of trying to understand the modern world through examples drawn from early-modern existence of and early-modern thought. Or, in other words, I really hope you don’t support the electoral college because “the founding fathers” liked it: it is a difficult thing to establish the relevance of their experiences. (Not that I see why you’re talking about it here.)
Incidentally, did you try opening responses in new tabs and then trying to respond to them?