The US govenment now owns equity stakes in 30 private companies after being involved in 0 just over a year ago. How does this work in a country that believes in classic free markets?

Isn't this interventionism? Isn't this "picking winners and losers"?

Before two years ago, the US government only stepped in as a temporary rescue (WWI and WWII, the 2008 financial crisis), and I remember that Republicans were often heavily critical of it. Now, the current model is that equity stakes are being used proactively during peacetime as a permanent tool. What happened to the free-market republicans, the Reaganites, the fiscal conservatives, or (my favorite) the "classical liberals?

I can't imagine what the term "state capitalism" would do to a Republican's brain from just 10 years ago.