This "confusion" about putting Trump and Koch in the same basket feels like willful ignorance. Trump runs the Republican party, and Koch funds the Republican party, so it should be plainly obvious why they are both demonized by the left. You may as well ask why AOC and Hillary Clinton are both demonized by the right despite the many policy disagreements they might have.
Seconded. This is just an absurd degree of not engaging with what one’s opponents are actually saying. I provided a perfectly reasonable and clear explanation last week, far more cogent than this joker, and all I got was crickets.
People can be tactical allies yet fundamentally have different end goals.
Or, I suppose the optimistic way of looking at Trump is that he's a crypto-libertarian (ultimately agrees with Koch) but sees populist rhetoric and tariff threats as a tactic to bend the world in that direction. (It seems Musk sees him that way; arguably Wall Street does too.)
If so, that still makes them both enemies of Team Blue.
“expand government’s power and concentrate those powers in my hands to do whatever serves my personal interests.”
LoL how? Explain it to me.
What has Trump to increase the power of government?
Dismantle the Department of Education?
Massively Cut Taxes?
Oppose Foreign Wars?
He was a little slower than other Republicans fighting lockdowns, but by election Nov 2020 he was telling people not to live in fear of the virus. I think we all knew what the other guys message was.
I live near DC and literally nobody thinks he's increasing the power of people in DC!
You're right that Trump isn't pushing entitlement reforms. That's because he's a politician trying to win elections and not a think tanker writing papers nobody gives damn about.
Koch got his boy in the Mitt Romney campaign. Mitt Romney ran against entitlements and got 59% of the white vote...only to lose because all those immigrants Koch loved choose Obama because he was promising them free healthcare.
“What has Trump to increase the power of government?”
While I indeed mostly agree with you - and *unquestionably* agree that he has done much less of this than did Obama, and FAR FAR less than did Biden - there is one obvious place where 2nd term Trump has done this: his current “Liberation Day” tariffs.
And you can’t just write this off as “well, previous Congresses gave the President this power”. Because he is the first one to use it to massively increases the power of the Executive and the power of the federal government.
2) higher reciprocal tariffs that have not been implemented yet
3) high tariffs on china
I will take these in turn.
The 10% tariffs (less then my town taxes restaurant meals) applied to all American imports would be $320B in revenue. For reference, the budget deficit last year is $1.800B. Trump says he will use tariffs to offset income taxes.
The second we will see. It's connected to the third in that China can just re-rout trade surpluses through intermediaries.
The third we will also see. I personally don't consider China an "enemy". I think they should allow more domestic consumption, especially of making babies. But at least half of Trumps critics also want to fight Cold War 2.0 with China and tariff them so I leave the to the side.
Overall, I don't see a good enough reason for a freak out on this.
One of the main reasons we're living under an autocratic narcissist is because of whataboutisms like this article. I'd rather get rid of both Trump and Koch than have a party that keeps both in power.
The Republicans should REFUSE Koch's money, or just ignore any debt to him for it? Miriam Adelson's money? ALL money from ANYONE? All donations above $100?
Right. So you prefer the Dems who installed the autocratic Biden regime. And Autocratically installed Kamala as the Dem presidential nominee without a single vote cast for her.
Though this question is complicated by Trump's occasional use of the word "libertarian" to describe himself and his willingness to hire CKI, CATO, and other libertarian peeps as staffers and appointees (I'm available Mr. Trump!) when no GOPster is available, especially the first term when the lily livered RINOs all stayed away because they believed the Russia hoax would stain them.
Trump's real world effectiveness as objectively libertarian will I think prove to be beyond question if he manages to reduce the debt and size of government, disempower the DeepState/IC/corporate oligarchy that de facto runs the country in opposition to both the electorate and the Constitution, end wars, and lower tariffs overall (even if not for totalitarian countries that use slave labor and seek to ultimately overrun the world and harm the U.S.).
Opposition to Trump is in my mind a kind of IQ test for libertarians, at least for their practical wisdom and their appreciation for nuance, if not for their computational abilities or ability to grasp undergraduate level social science theory.
There are a lot of optimistic assumptions in the above paragraphs about what Trump would have to accomplish to prove himself to be a libertarian.
- reduce debt: Current policies will likely increase debt, not decrease it. Would love to see evidence to the contrary.
- reduce size of government: Head count is going down. Remains to be seen if the cuts happen in meaningful ways that help more than hurt American prosperity.
- Disempower deep state: Translation, simplify the complex regulatory bureaucracy (that we have created to minimize externalities) so individuals can pursue economically productive activities with minimal resistance. Finding that balance will be the struggle till the end of time. I hope he is successful at reducing regulatory bottlenecks without inviting blatant externalities that make us all worse off.
- End war: Good luck with that one.
- Lower tariffs overall: What makes you think he will do that? If he sees them as such an effective negotiating tool now, why would he abandon them in the future?
Ignored completely are all the things Trump has done that are antithetical to a libertarian like Koch.
No Mr. Waln overall I disagree and think you don't understand the government we live under. One place you are right is that Trump will not likely drastically cut the debt nor will he llkely cut the size of government enough - he will just cut both more than a Democrat would have, the salient point. Second, there was less world war and instability under Trump 45 than under recent Democrats. Third and most important, you don't understand what the DeepState is. We have a weird set of power centers and political class that are not planned but evolved or accreted. They will use censorship, rigged elections, blackmail, it looks like assassination, government (via NGO) funding of groups that practice "journalism" or "campaigning" etc. etc. to control the political process, they do control most media (though the populace is no longer listening to these "journalists"), and they do choose who will become enriched and have a symbiotic relationship with their approved, to-be-enriched, classes, professions, industries, corporations and mutlimillionaires and billionaires. Libertarians largely ignore all these (though Rothbard wrote about it when he talked about the commanding heights of the economy or the use of fiat currency inflation to redistribute wealth to those closest to government and central banks, and Sheldon Richman wrote about it in his essay on libertarian class theory.) Libertarians also, when kissing the little brown ring of people in the Ivies, NYTimes, WaPo, Brookings etc. etc. clutch their pearls and dither stupidly about due process for invaders or "norms" that always prevent anyone from cutting back on state power.
Nothing Trump did on debt is as bad as the Biden did or Harris proposed. Run the math on this.
Anyway, to the extent that Trump "increases the deficit" its financed through tax cuts rather then new spending. I'll take the tax money and deal with the debt later versus have money spent on other people and deal with the debt later.
"Remains to be seen if the cuts happen in meaningful ways that help more than hurt American prosperity."
Given what I know of DC I like all these cuts.
Trump is proposing big cuts to medicaid. I wish him the best on that.
"Ignored completely are all the things Trump has done that are antithetical to a libertarian like Koch."
What did Koch accomplish in his lifetime? He supported GWB, that was a disaster. He supported a Romney and he lost because the immigrants he loves so much choose the guy promising them free healthcare, oops.
Opposition to Trump is pretty much mandatory for libertarians at this point. His actions in his first 100 days alone have proven him worse for libertarian goals than fifty Kamala Harrises.
-His "Liberation Day" tariffs show a hostility to trade and basic economics that makes Bernie Sanders look like Milton Friedman. He did more damage to economic liberty and prosperity in a single day than Biden did in an entire presidency.
- He literally shipped people to a concentration camp without a trial, on spurious charges. The only reason a libertarian shouldn't oppose him on this alone is if they don't think small government principles should apply to everyone equally.
-He has launched repeated military strikes on Yemen (I suppose its possible Harris would have also done that).
- He is flagrantly corrupt and established his own bitcoin to allow people to surreptiously pay him off.
-He has appointed a crank who wants to ban vaccines to the government department in charge of regulating vaccines, jeopardizing the freedom of the American people to make choices in their health care.
At this point, the party of Reagan and Friedman is dead. What is left is far more hostile to liberty than any Democrat.
So far Trump has not done much to demolish the "Deep State," probably because it does not exist, at least not to the extent you claim it does. I wish it didn't, because maybe it could strike a blow for liberty by stopping him. Trump is so terrible that the shadowy bad guys from a conspiracy theory are better for liberty than him.
Trump is evicting an invading army of illegal aliens who were brought here as part of an updated Cloward-Piven strategy to bankrupt the US and enslave taxpayers to provide them with free day care (public schools, $15000 per kid per year), housing, medical care, food, even if they are convicted killers and rapists who will continue that "hard work" here. Why is enslaving taxpayers libertarian?
Trump appointed someone who will stop forcing so called vaccines (and fluoride etc. etc.) into your body against your will. How is forcing people to ingest harmful chemicals, or any chemical, libertarian?
Trump is using tariffs as a tactical device to make non-totalitarian countries drop their tariffs on Americans. Today there may be an announcement of a free trade no tariff policy between the US and the UK. He is also using tariffs to stop the rise of war mongering totalitarian countries like China that use slave labor. How is it libertarian to allow YOU to fund totalitarian countries, slavery, and war?
I remember the 1970s and 1980s when libertarian were attractive precisely because of their contrarian insights, incisive intelligence, and intellectual honesty. Now so many are just player pianos in a store run by the DeepState. You don't actually deserve Gitmo but you do deserve shunning.
Sending people to a concentration camp in a country that they aren't even originally from isn't "evicting" them.
The large number of illegal aliens here aren't an army and no one "brought" them here. They came here of their own volition because their countries sucked and the USA is better. Immigrants, even illegal ones, contribute more on average in taxes than they take out, so if this is a plot by the Deep State to bankrupt the welfare state, the Deep State is really incompetant.
Trump isn't using the tariffs as a negotiation strategy. That's just cope his supporters made up because they don't want to admit that they voted for an economically illiterate moron. He imposed the tariffs because he's stupid and thinks that trade is bad for the economy. When he realized how unpopular they were he adopted his supporters' spin that they were a negotiation strategy.
Whether forcing people to put harmful chemicals into their bodies is libertarian or not isnt relevant to the discussion because fluoride and vaccines aren't harmful.
The intellectual attributes that make libertarians contrarian, incisive, and intellectually honest also prevents them from falling for brain-dead conspiracy theories. Since Trump's actions only make sense to crackpots and cranks, it makes sense that libertarians would oppose them, since libertarians are less likely to fall for stupid nonsense.
Again your remarks are largely false. You can't persuade someone by arguing from premises that are false and that they do not accept.
There is no evidence that the El Salvador prison is a concentration camp. Isn't it innocent until proven guilty? Doesn't it need due process? Many Democrats on X and elsewhere have circulated memes etc. in which El Salvador is a Nazi death camp. After all the Nazis sent people away to other countries too! Calling it a concentration camp instead may show that you are less deranged, but the logic is just as deficient. The most famous person sent there is now known to be a formerly deported illegal alien whose wife beating and MS 13 membership had his wife so terrorized that Democrats could get her to complain, on fear of death, when she'd been freed of him.
Illegal aliens are clearly an invading army. The Biden regime used taxpayer resources to advertise that they should come here and live off the taxpayer, and that it would enforce no law preventing that. Children of immigrants and immigrant children now make up over 25% of public school wards, all at taxpayer expense, and rent over 10% of residential property. It doesn't matter if they rake someone's yard or debone someone's chicken while the taxpayer provides them with day care, medical care, housing subsidies, EBT, etc. The Biden regime even flew them around the country to hide them with the help of government funded NGOs, wherever it wanted more replacement voters or for the Census to create new Democrat Congressional districts.
As to forcing vaccines on people you seem deeply ignorant about the evidence that the Covid vaccine was very harmful to specific groups (e.g. causing myocarditis) while providing few of the benefits promised. But that doesn't matter as much as that it was non-consensual. I could probably find someone, some illegal aliens maybe, who could introduce completely anti-septic dildos into your body, and it wouldn't really be "harmful" so give me your address and put your mouth (etc.) where your money is.
As to Trump and tariffs I think we already see that you are too uninformed and careless to know what is rhetoric and what not, how much Trump understands about the gains of trade, how much he thinks he is using government policy to reverse the effects of previous government policy, and how much the end state will be an overall of liberalization of free trade, with most countries other than totalitarian military enemies. Whatever an objective and intelligent person will think of Trump's tariff policy 4 years from now when we see what it was, what I am very sure of is that most vocal anti-Trumpers do not have the mentality to make that assessment now. Since every other judgement they have made about Trump has again and again been proven to be complete crap.
If you were a libertarian you'd be a sad specimen of one. Maybe you can get a job at Cato or Mercatus, assuming you are not already there.
Leaving China aside for a moment, Trumps current tariffs are set to collect around $320B in revenue, or 1.1% of GDP. He claims he will use this to offset income taxes.
The federal deficit last year under Biden/Harris was $1.8T! Largely due to party line votes on three huge multi trillion dollar spending bills and interest on trillions in COVID lockdown spending (the left did the lockdowns). Harris wanted to reverse the Trump tax cuts from 2017 and add all new taxes on things like unrealized capital gains, which all would have amounted to a heck of a lot bigger burden then $320B.
Great comment. I’m sure Bryan must have written about how politics has become, for many, our new religions. The church of Trump may at times find common ground with other churches (Libertarians and Reagan Republicans, etc.), but for Progressives to choose to see other political churches as identical is patently dishonest.
>"You can't persuade someone by arguing from premises that are false and that they do not accept"
That's certainly true, but you seem to be unaware of just how extraordinary some of the claims you are making are. You are treating extremely bizarre and out-there assertions as if they are common sense.
For example, the idea that the mess Biden made at the border was some sort of agentic plot to harm Americans implies a massively implausible level of coordination and secrecy among Democratic elites who in reality can't even stop some Russian hackers from stealing their emails. It requires extraordinary levels of evidence for that theory to become more plausible than the more reasonable assertion that Biden was trying to satisfy too many interest groups and once and acted incompetently. I see no such extraordinary levels of evidence, in particular I cannot find any evidence that Democrats advertised to migrants to get more of them to come here, except for some posts from some online news sources that I would not trust further than I could throw them while on Jupiter.
When I said that the El Salvador prison was a "concentration camp" I did not mean it was a literal Nazi death camp. However, it certainly meets the conventional definition of the term as a place where large groups people are imprisoned together in deplorable conditions without good cause. The prisoners are not being systematically executed, but the conditions they are being kept in are abominable, especially since most of them are probably not gang members.
The COVID vaccine is very safe and even if it does cause myocarditis in some young people, the risk of COVID is likely worse, especially since COVID itself can also cause myocarditis. I've seen the viewpoint before in conservative circles where they act like the vaccine has value for some people, but also risks. I suspect it's because they are too smart to be antivaxxers, but also assume that if the antivaxxers keep pointing out that there is smoke, there has to be fire. There is no fire, the vaccines are safe.
I do oppose vaccine mandates because of a libertarian belief that people have a right to be idiots if that is their free choice. But the fact that people have a right to be idiots doesn't make them any less idiotic.
“It is intellectually confusing and politically harmful to say that they are both “right-wing.” The sooner that those on Team Blue give up their silly “left-right” framework, the better for America.
But… but… but… both Trump and Koch oppose leftist politicians being elected.
And implementing their wonderful-for-all (except for some evil rich people) public policies.
That means Trump annd Koch are both for evil. And for fascism.
The demonization of Koch reminds me strongly of the right-wing demonization of George Soros. Both are philanthropists who donate a ton of money to political causes. Both are moderates who have heterodox views on a wide variety of issues. Both are unfairly demonized as radical extremists. I am not sure what conclusions to draw, except that rich people who care about politics are frequent targets of cranks and partisan hacks of all stripes.
I am not arguing that Soros and Koch are morally equivalent in terms of the effects of their actions. I am arguing that the reaction to them by political partisans is equivalent in terms of how histrionic and disproportionate it is.
I think (?) that's better, but even then Koch hasn't funded local DAs who let violent criminals go for some murky DEI reasons (even as he supports criminal justice reform of a saner variety), nor has he deliberately crashed currencies etc. for profit. I think the owner of this substack may even live in a county ruled by a Soros DA. Additionally the mainstream media and academia give no critical analysis or reportage of Soros and no one publishes books on his nefariousness. So any negativity directed at Soros is not histrionic but (a) deserved and (b) occasioned by those who deliberately ignore the problem.
Just as Trump being elected was caused by people who deliberately ignore (or even abet) America's problems. As well as by Lord Obama and his courtiers and jesters belittling Trump at a nerd prom.
What both Caplan and Lewis agree on is that Trump and Kock are ideological demons of the Left that can best be explained by "tribalism." The essential characteristic of tribalism is described by John Tooby as the evolutionary adaptation of "coalitional instincts." which humans have in excess and most other animals do not possess at all. The short article at the following link clarified this insight more powerfully than anything else I've ever read. Now I see coalitional instincts everywhere:
More and more I tend to believe that ideology (and idealism) are luxuries of the upper classes, which is why elites tend to be progressive and out-of-touch. Working class folks are more pragmatic, and hence more flexible. They're not as wedded to their (college-trained) preconceptions or their deeply rooted notions of virtue and sin. Rather, they ask 'how can you make me richer and safer?' Issues like equity, climate reform, migrant support, etc. are not just luxury beliefs but are evidence of disconnection-the inhabitation of an artificial, media-driven reality. We talk about political tribalism, but it's not distributed evenly.
This "confusion" about putting Trump and Koch in the same basket feels like willful ignorance. Trump runs the Republican party, and Koch funds the Republican party, so it should be plainly obvious why they are both demonized by the left. You may as well ask why AOC and Hillary Clinton are both demonized by the right despite the many policy disagreements they might have.
Seconded. This is just an absurd degree of not engaging with what one’s opponents are actually saying. I provided a perfectly reasonable and clear explanation last week, far more cogent than this joker, and all I got was crickets.
People can be tactical allies yet fundamentally have different end goals.
Or, I suppose the optimistic way of looking at Trump is that he's a crypto-libertarian (ultimately agrees with Koch) but sees populist rhetoric and tariff threats as a tactic to bend the world in that direction. (It seems Musk sees him that way; arguably Wall Street does too.)
If so, that still makes them both enemies of Team Blue.
Indeed. It’s hypocrisy for the OP to call it “tribalism” when the left does it, but “tactical allies” when the right does it.
The OP? Abbreviations.
Original Poster aka author.
“expand government’s power and concentrate those powers in my hands to do whatever serves my personal interests.”
LoL how? Explain it to me.
What has Trump to increase the power of government?
Dismantle the Department of Education?
Massively Cut Taxes?
Oppose Foreign Wars?
He was a little slower than other Republicans fighting lockdowns, but by election Nov 2020 he was telling people not to live in fear of the virus. I think we all knew what the other guys message was.
I live near DC and literally nobody thinks he's increasing the power of people in DC!
You're right that Trump isn't pushing entitlement reforms. That's because he's a politician trying to win elections and not a think tanker writing papers nobody gives damn about.
Koch got his boy in the Mitt Romney campaign. Mitt Romney ran against entitlements and got 59% of the white vote...only to lose because all those immigrants Koch loved choose Obama because he was promising them free healthcare.
“What has Trump to increase the power of government?”
While I indeed mostly agree with you - and *unquestionably* agree that he has done much less of this than did Obama, and FAR FAR less than did Biden - there is one obvious place where 2nd term Trump has done this: his current “Liberation Day” tariffs.
And you can’t just write this off as “well, previous Congresses gave the President this power”. Because he is the first one to use it to massively increases the power of the Executive and the power of the federal government.
Trump's tariffs consist of:
1) 10% universal tariffs.
2) higher reciprocal tariffs that have not been implemented yet
3) high tariffs on china
I will take these in turn.
The 10% tariffs (less then my town taxes restaurant meals) applied to all American imports would be $320B in revenue. For reference, the budget deficit last year is $1.800B. Trump says he will use tariffs to offset income taxes.
The second we will see. It's connected to the third in that China can just re-rout trade surpluses through intermediaries.
The third we will also see. I personally don't consider China an "enemy". I think they should allow more domestic consumption, especially of making babies. But at least half of Trumps critics also want to fight Cold War 2.0 with China and tariff them so I leave the to the side.
Overall, I don't see a good enough reason for a freak out on this.
I ain’t talking about the 10%. I’m talking about the rest.
And depending on how it plays out, I’m not yet freaked out.
But your claim was about enhancing government power. And surely THIS is the *one* place he HAS done so.
One of the main reasons we're living under an autocratic narcissist is because of whataboutisms like this article. I'd rather get rid of both Trump and Koch than have a party that keeps both in power.
The Republicans should REFUSE Koch's money, or just ignore any debt to him for it? Miriam Adelson's money? ALL money from ANYONE? All donations above $100?
How does this work?
He’d like that, yes, since he clearly prefers left of center government.
Right. So you prefer the Dems who installed the autocratic Biden regime. And Autocratically installed Kamala as the Dem presidential nominee without a single vote cast for her.
Got it. Very clear.
I've asked before which one is more effective, Koch or Trump? https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/257374-a-koch-and-a-smile/
Though this question is complicated by Trump's occasional use of the word "libertarian" to describe himself and his willingness to hire CKI, CATO, and other libertarian peeps as staffers and appointees (I'm available Mr. Trump!) when no GOPster is available, especially the first term when the lily livered RINOs all stayed away because they believed the Russia hoax would stain them.
Trump's real world effectiveness as objectively libertarian will I think prove to be beyond question if he manages to reduce the debt and size of government, disempower the DeepState/IC/corporate oligarchy that de facto runs the country in opposition to both the electorate and the Constitution, end wars, and lower tariffs overall (even if not for totalitarian countries that use slave labor and seek to ultimately overrun the world and harm the U.S.).
Opposition to Trump is in my mind a kind of IQ test for libertarians, at least for their practical wisdom and their appreciation for nuance, if not for their computational abilities or ability to grasp undergraduate level social science theory.
There are a lot of optimistic assumptions in the above paragraphs about what Trump would have to accomplish to prove himself to be a libertarian.
- reduce debt: Current policies will likely increase debt, not decrease it. Would love to see evidence to the contrary.
- reduce size of government: Head count is going down. Remains to be seen if the cuts happen in meaningful ways that help more than hurt American prosperity.
- Disempower deep state: Translation, simplify the complex regulatory bureaucracy (that we have created to minimize externalities) so individuals can pursue economically productive activities with minimal resistance. Finding that balance will be the struggle till the end of time. I hope he is successful at reducing regulatory bottlenecks without inviting blatant externalities that make us all worse off.
- End war: Good luck with that one.
- Lower tariffs overall: What makes you think he will do that? If he sees them as such an effective negotiating tool now, why would he abandon them in the future?
Ignored completely are all the things Trump has done that are antithetical to a libertarian like Koch.
No Mr. Waln overall I disagree and think you don't understand the government we live under. One place you are right is that Trump will not likely drastically cut the debt nor will he llkely cut the size of government enough - he will just cut both more than a Democrat would have, the salient point. Second, there was less world war and instability under Trump 45 than under recent Democrats. Third and most important, you don't understand what the DeepState is. We have a weird set of power centers and political class that are not planned but evolved or accreted. They will use censorship, rigged elections, blackmail, it looks like assassination, government (via NGO) funding of groups that practice "journalism" or "campaigning" etc. etc. to control the political process, they do control most media (though the populace is no longer listening to these "journalists"), and they do choose who will become enriched and have a symbiotic relationship with their approved, to-be-enriched, classes, professions, industries, corporations and mutlimillionaires and billionaires. Libertarians largely ignore all these (though Rothbard wrote about it when he talked about the commanding heights of the economy or the use of fiat currency inflation to redistribute wealth to those closest to government and central banks, and Sheldon Richman wrote about it in his essay on libertarian class theory.) Libertarians also, when kissing the little brown ring of people in the Ivies, NYTimes, WaPo, Brookings etc. etc. clutch their pearls and dither stupidly about due process for invaders or "norms" that always prevent anyone from cutting back on state power.
"Current policies will likely increase debt"
Nothing Trump did on debt is as bad as the Biden did or Harris proposed. Run the math on this.
Anyway, to the extent that Trump "increases the deficit" its financed through tax cuts rather then new spending. I'll take the tax money and deal with the debt later versus have money spent on other people and deal with the debt later.
"Remains to be seen if the cuts happen in meaningful ways that help more than hurt American prosperity."
Given what I know of DC I like all these cuts.
Trump is proposing big cuts to medicaid. I wish him the best on that.
"Ignored completely are all the things Trump has done that are antithetical to a libertarian like Koch."
What did Koch accomplish in his lifetime? He supported GWB, that was a disaster. He supported a Romney and he lost because the immigrants he loves so much choose the guy promising them free healthcare, oops.
Opposition to Trump is pretty much mandatory for libertarians at this point. His actions in his first 100 days alone have proven him worse for libertarian goals than fifty Kamala Harrises.
-His "Liberation Day" tariffs show a hostility to trade and basic economics that makes Bernie Sanders look like Milton Friedman. He did more damage to economic liberty and prosperity in a single day than Biden did in an entire presidency.
- He literally shipped people to a concentration camp without a trial, on spurious charges. The only reason a libertarian shouldn't oppose him on this alone is if they don't think small government principles should apply to everyone equally.
-He has launched repeated military strikes on Yemen (I suppose its possible Harris would have also done that).
- He is flagrantly corrupt and established his own bitcoin to allow people to surreptiously pay him off.
-He has appointed a crank who wants to ban vaccines to the government department in charge of regulating vaccines, jeopardizing the freedom of the American people to make choices in their health care.
At this point, the party of Reagan and Friedman is dead. What is left is far more hostile to liberty than any Democrat.
So far Trump has not done much to demolish the "Deep State," probably because it does not exist, at least not to the extent you claim it does. I wish it didn't, because maybe it could strike a blow for liberty by stopping him. Trump is so terrible that the shadowy bad guys from a conspiracy theory are better for liberty than him.
This is laughably delusional.
Trump is evicting an invading army of illegal aliens who were brought here as part of an updated Cloward-Piven strategy to bankrupt the US and enslave taxpayers to provide them with free day care (public schools, $15000 per kid per year), housing, medical care, food, even if they are convicted killers and rapists who will continue that "hard work" here. Why is enslaving taxpayers libertarian?
Trump appointed someone who will stop forcing so called vaccines (and fluoride etc. etc.) into your body against your will. How is forcing people to ingest harmful chemicals, or any chemical, libertarian?
Trump is using tariffs as a tactical device to make non-totalitarian countries drop their tariffs on Americans. Today there may be an announcement of a free trade no tariff policy between the US and the UK. He is also using tariffs to stop the rise of war mongering totalitarian countries like China that use slave labor. How is it libertarian to allow YOU to fund totalitarian countries, slavery, and war?
I remember the 1970s and 1980s when libertarian were attractive precisely because of their contrarian insights, incisive intelligence, and intellectual honesty. Now so many are just player pianos in a store run by the DeepState. You don't actually deserve Gitmo but you do deserve shunning.
Sending people to a concentration camp in a country that they aren't even originally from isn't "evicting" them.
The large number of illegal aliens here aren't an army and no one "brought" them here. They came here of their own volition because their countries sucked and the USA is better. Immigrants, even illegal ones, contribute more on average in taxes than they take out, so if this is a plot by the Deep State to bankrupt the welfare state, the Deep State is really incompetant.
Trump isn't using the tariffs as a negotiation strategy. That's just cope his supporters made up because they don't want to admit that they voted for an economically illiterate moron. He imposed the tariffs because he's stupid and thinks that trade is bad for the economy. When he realized how unpopular they were he adopted his supporters' spin that they were a negotiation strategy.
Whether forcing people to put harmful chemicals into their bodies is libertarian or not isnt relevant to the discussion because fluoride and vaccines aren't harmful.
The intellectual attributes that make libertarians contrarian, incisive, and intellectually honest also prevents them from falling for brain-dead conspiracy theories. Since Trump's actions only make sense to crackpots and cranks, it makes sense that libertarians would oppose them, since libertarians are less likely to fall for stupid nonsense.
Again your remarks are largely false. You can't persuade someone by arguing from premises that are false and that they do not accept.
There is no evidence that the El Salvador prison is a concentration camp. Isn't it innocent until proven guilty? Doesn't it need due process? Many Democrats on X and elsewhere have circulated memes etc. in which El Salvador is a Nazi death camp. After all the Nazis sent people away to other countries too! Calling it a concentration camp instead may show that you are less deranged, but the logic is just as deficient. The most famous person sent there is now known to be a formerly deported illegal alien whose wife beating and MS 13 membership had his wife so terrorized that Democrats could get her to complain, on fear of death, when she'd been freed of him.
Illegal aliens are clearly an invading army. The Biden regime used taxpayer resources to advertise that they should come here and live off the taxpayer, and that it would enforce no law preventing that. Children of immigrants and immigrant children now make up over 25% of public school wards, all at taxpayer expense, and rent over 10% of residential property. It doesn't matter if they rake someone's yard or debone someone's chicken while the taxpayer provides them with day care, medical care, housing subsidies, EBT, etc. The Biden regime even flew them around the country to hide them with the help of government funded NGOs, wherever it wanted more replacement voters or for the Census to create new Democrat Congressional districts.
As to forcing vaccines on people you seem deeply ignorant about the evidence that the Covid vaccine was very harmful to specific groups (e.g. causing myocarditis) while providing few of the benefits promised. But that doesn't matter as much as that it was non-consensual. I could probably find someone, some illegal aliens maybe, who could introduce completely anti-septic dildos into your body, and it wouldn't really be "harmful" so give me your address and put your mouth (etc.) where your money is.
As to Trump and tariffs I think we already see that you are too uninformed and careless to know what is rhetoric and what not, how much Trump understands about the gains of trade, how much he thinks he is using government policy to reverse the effects of previous government policy, and how much the end state will be an overall of liberalization of free trade, with most countries other than totalitarian military enemies. Whatever an objective and intelligent person will think of Trump's tariff policy 4 years from now when we see what it was, what I am very sure of is that most vocal anti-Trumpers do not have the mentality to make that assessment now. Since every other judgement they have made about Trump has again and again been proven to be complete crap.
If you were a libertarian you'd be a sad specimen of one. Maybe you can get a job at Cato or Mercatus, assuming you are not already there.
Leaving China aside for a moment, Trumps current tariffs are set to collect around $320B in revenue, or 1.1% of GDP. He claims he will use this to offset income taxes.
The federal deficit last year under Biden/Harris was $1.8T! Largely due to party line votes on three huge multi trillion dollar spending bills and interest on trillions in COVID lockdown spending (the left did the lockdowns). Harris wanted to reverse the Trump tax cuts from 2017 and add all new taxes on things like unrealized capital gains, which all would have amounted to a heck of a lot bigger burden then $320B.
Great comment. I’m sure Bryan must have written about how politics has become, for many, our new religions. The church of Trump may at times find common ground with other churches (Libertarians and Reagan Republicans, etc.), but for Progressives to choose to see other political churches as identical is patently dishonest.
>"You can't persuade someone by arguing from premises that are false and that they do not accept"
That's certainly true, but you seem to be unaware of just how extraordinary some of the claims you are making are. You are treating extremely bizarre and out-there assertions as if they are common sense.
For example, the idea that the mess Biden made at the border was some sort of agentic plot to harm Americans implies a massively implausible level of coordination and secrecy among Democratic elites who in reality can't even stop some Russian hackers from stealing their emails. It requires extraordinary levels of evidence for that theory to become more plausible than the more reasonable assertion that Biden was trying to satisfy too many interest groups and once and acted incompetently. I see no such extraordinary levels of evidence, in particular I cannot find any evidence that Democrats advertised to migrants to get more of them to come here, except for some posts from some online news sources that I would not trust further than I could throw them while on Jupiter.
When I said that the El Salvador prison was a "concentration camp" I did not mean it was a literal Nazi death camp. However, it certainly meets the conventional definition of the term as a place where large groups people are imprisoned together in deplorable conditions without good cause. The prisoners are not being systematically executed, but the conditions they are being kept in are abominable, especially since most of them are probably not gang members.
The COVID vaccine is very safe and even if it does cause myocarditis in some young people, the risk of COVID is likely worse, especially since COVID itself can also cause myocarditis. I've seen the viewpoint before in conservative circles where they act like the vaccine has value for some people, but also risks. I suspect it's because they are too smart to be antivaxxers, but also assume that if the antivaxxers keep pointing out that there is smoke, there has to be fire. There is no fire, the vaccines are safe.
I do oppose vaccine mandates because of a libertarian belief that people have a right to be idiots if that is their free choice. But the fact that people have a right to be idiots doesn't make them any less idiotic.
“It is intellectually confusing and politically harmful to say that they are both “right-wing.” The sooner that those on Team Blue give up their silly “left-right” framework, the better for America.
But… but… but… both Trump and Koch oppose leftist politicians being elected.
And implementing their wonderful-for-all (except for some evil rich people) public policies.
That means Trump annd Koch are both for evil. And for fascism.
Yours is a distinction without a difference.
How can you not see that?!?
The demonization of Koch reminds me strongly of the right-wing demonization of George Soros. Both are philanthropists who donate a ton of money to political causes. Both are moderates who have heterodox views on a wide variety of issues. Both are unfairly demonized as radical extremists. I am not sure what conclusions to draw, except that rich people who care about politics are frequent targets of cranks and partisan hacks of all stripes.
This is the most crapulent moral equivalency I've seen outside of apologists for Jew killers.
I am not arguing that Soros and Koch are morally equivalent in terms of the effects of their actions. I am arguing that the reaction to them by political partisans is equivalent in terms of how histrionic and disproportionate it is.
I think (?) that's better, but even then Koch hasn't funded local DAs who let violent criminals go for some murky DEI reasons (even as he supports criminal justice reform of a saner variety), nor has he deliberately crashed currencies etc. for profit. I think the owner of this substack may even live in a county ruled by a Soros DA. Additionally the mainstream media and academia give no critical analysis or reportage of Soros and no one publishes books on his nefariousness. So any negativity directed at Soros is not histrionic but (a) deserved and (b) occasioned by those who deliberately ignore the problem.
Just as Trump being elected was caused by people who deliberately ignore (or even abet) America's problems. As well as by Lord Obama and his courtiers and jesters belittling Trump at a nerd prom.
Soros literally bankrolled the DEI radicals in my school district and attorneys office.
“ Both are moderates…”
George Soros is a moderate 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Seriously, either you are a hard leftist, or you have no clue whatsoever the ultra-left DAs Soros funded getting elected in cities like S.F. And L.A.
Or perhaps both.
Or you’re just clueless.
Yeh, in whose hands is power being distributed to? The “people” or persons? oh I mean’t to say oligarchs and gerontocrats
What both Caplan and Lewis agree on is that Trump and Kock are ideological demons of the Left that can best be explained by "tribalism." The essential characteristic of tribalism is described by John Tooby as the evolutionary adaptation of "coalitional instincts." which humans have in excess and most other animals do not possess at all. The short article at the following link clarified this insight more powerfully than anything else I've ever read. Now I see coalitional instincts everywhere:
https://www.edge.org/conversation/john_tooby-coalitional-instincts
More and more I tend to believe that ideology (and idealism) are luxuries of the upper classes, which is why elites tend to be progressive and out-of-touch. Working class folks are more pragmatic, and hence more flexible. They're not as wedded to their (college-trained) preconceptions or their deeply rooted notions of virtue and sin. Rather, they ask 'how can you make me richer and safer?' Issues like equity, climate reform, migrant support, etc. are not just luxury beliefs but are evidence of disconnection-the inhabitation of an artificial, media-driven reality. We talk about political tribalism, but it's not distributed evenly.
https://open.substack.com/pub/jmpolemic/p/matters-of-importance
Hence the recent coinage of the term "luxury belief."
Diametrically opposed, eh? One destroys you with his selfishness; the other hems you in with property rights. Pick your poison.