It is a mistake for libertarians and others advocating for more liberty to ignore appealing to people’s morality.  The interesting thing is that the authoritarians do this all the time to advance their own agenda.

“Do it for the children.”

“We need to save the planet from climate change by giving us more power to tax and regulate.”

“We need to save democracy in Ukraine by sending them money and weapons to fight the big, bad Putin.”

The authoritarians prey on the goodness of people and use it to enhance their own power.  Even when they are appealing to people’s own self-interest, they justify it in the name of being fair and just.

Selling the Benefits of Liberty

Libertarians should sell the benefits of liberty by appealing to people’s self-interest.  But this doesn’t mean that we should stop there and not also appeal to their morality.

It is easy to find conservatives and libertarians who argue that we should stop sending money to Ukraine.  The justification is typically that we shouldn’t be sending money to Ukraine while we have so many problems here at home.

This was an effective argument when there was severe flooding from Hurricane Helene.  It is a good question to ask why the government is sending hundreds of billions of dollars to Ukraine while largely ignoring (or worse) the people who have lost houses and are in desperate need of assistance.

This is appealing to people’s morality too, but they can more easily identify with someone who lives in North Carolina than someone who lives in Ukraine and speaks a different language.

Still, we shouldn’t stop there.  Even if there had been no disaster in North Carolina and other surrounding states, we still shouldn’t be forced to send money to Ukraine.

By sending money and weapons to Ukraine, it empowers the oligarchs in Ukraine while prolonging the war and all of the death and destruction that come with it.  If you care about the lives of innocent Ukrainians, then you should favor a halt of all U.S. taxpayer money going to Ukraine.  Who cares if Russia takes over eastern Ukraine where mostly ethnic Russians live?

If Ukrainians want to fight and die for that cause, we shouldn’t be funding it.  But if U.S. government funding stopped, it would likely lead to some kind of a peace settlement.

Of course, this war never would have happened in the first place if the U.S. government hadn’t assisted in overthrowing the democratically-elected president of Ukraine in 2014.

Incidentally, it was actually Trump who defended his position of wanting to reach a peace settlement by saying that he wants people to stop dying.  We’ll see if he maintains this position when he becomes president.

Effective Morality Plays

Even though the political left has largely advocated for U.S. involvement in Ukraine, there is a small part of the hard left that has protested the actions of Israel, particularly in Gaza.

This has actually been effective, as majorities in many countries throughout the world have agreed with criticisms of the Israeli state for the mass death and destruction it has caused in Gaza.  Even around half of Americans are at least somewhat opposed to the actions of the Israeli state.

You generally don’t hear the left saying that we should stop funding Israel because we could use that money at home to fight climate change and help the poor.

No.  We generally hear opposition to the Israeli state for murdering tens of thousands of innocent people.  And it has worked too.  That’s because most people find it appalling that someone would murder innocent people, even if it is state actors doing it.

You can debate about whether money going to Israel could be better spent at home by the government or by the individuals who actually earned it.  But when you turn it to morality, it becomes harder for the side who doesn’t have morality on their side.

Sure, people will say that Israel was attacked and they have a right to defend themselves.  But this has little to do with self-defense.  You can’t just blow up buildings and shoot children in the head while claiming the moral high ground.

You can always say that it is wrong to knowingly kill little children.  How could little children be guilty of anything?  The supporters of the Israeli state can claim self-defense all day long, but it doesn’t justify what is happening now.  Killing children is never justified.

Are People Good or Bad?

Most people are neither all good nor all bad.  There are maybe a few who are all bad.  Most people do live for their own self-interest, but they also want to generally be seen as good people.  They don’t favor murdering innocent people, and they certainly don’t want to be seen by others as wanting that.

Americans are generally good people.  Many just want to be left alone to live their own life.  They will take advantage of government welfare when it is available because they see it as part of the system, which it is.  Some actually favor it more than others.  There are certainly many people who would like to live at the expense of others.

Still, this doesn’t mean they favor murdering children.  Just because someone advocates for a government program that might favor them doesn’t mean they are completely evil.  There are varying degrees of morality.

So, when it comes to issues of war, the large and overwhelming majority of Americans don’t want to see innocent people murdered.  This is why the state uses propaganda.  They have to sell wars saying it is self-defense, it is to spread democracy, and it is to liberate others.

While economic arguments and appealing to people’s self-interest should not be ignored, liberty advocates should use morality arguments more often.  The idea of being a good person sells.

The S&P 500 index recently surpassed the 6,000 mark, even though it just closed the day slightly below that.  The Dow is closing in on 45,000.  The Nasdaq is above 19,000 and about 5% away from hitting the 20,000 mark.

I thought it was crazy a couple of years ago when the S&P 500 was at 4,000.  It is now 50% higher from there.

Gold recently hit all-time highs near $2,800 per ounce, but it has pulled back since the election.  Bitcoin is nearing the $100,000 mark.

This could be the mother of all bubbles.  That is particularly the case for stocks.

I thought we were in a bubble in 2019 and 2020.  The prices have roared a lot higher since then.

The Yield Curve

The yield curve has been mostly inverted for all of 2023 and most of 2024.  It has recently flattened quite a bit.  The current yields are as follows:

• 3-month yield = 4.62%
• 2-year yield = 4.21%
• 10-year yield = 4.27%
• 30-year yield = 4.45%

One more rate cut from the Fed should put the short-term rates below the long-term rates, which is where they normally are.

The inverted yield curve is when long rates are less than short rates.  This is a recession indicator.  But the key point here is that the recession doesn’t typically come until the inverted yield curve reverts to normal.  We are in that process now.

This is happening as stock indexes hit all-time highs with extraordinary gains.  It is an understatement to say that stocks are vulnerable right now.

Timing and Severity

While we are likely to see a recession and a reversion to the mean in terms of stock returns, we don’t know exactly when it will happen and how severe it will be.  With the massive gains we’ve seen in stocks over the last decade and a half, a reversion to the mean would mean big negative returns.

Even with that, we have no idea what the reaction will be.  Will the government throw more money at the problem?  Will the Fed reignite monetary inflation?  It may not matter what the Fed does in the short run.  When sellers want to sell and are willing to accept a much lower price for the sake of getting out, then stock prices will go down.

The reaction from the Fed will have an impact on how things take shape down the road.  A return to monetary inflation will likely lead to more price inflation down the road.  If the Fed has a milder response, it will be a more painful recession even though it is the long-term medicine that we need.

Again, a strong Fed response will not necessarily save the stock market from its plummet downwards, but it will impact things for years in the future.

Right now, it seems like stocks are destined to always go up no matter what the news brings.  This is when it is the most dangerous.  There is complacency out there.  There is also arrogance.  It will not last forever.

Now that the election dust has settled, we get to see where Trump is taking us for the next four years.

This is assuming that we will have four years ahead for planet Earth, because the Biden handlers seem determined to spark a nuclear war with Russia.  COVID lockdowns and shots weren’t enough.  They are stepping it up this time with the chaos-making and endangering human life.  What else could be their “reasoning” for greenlighting missile strikes inside of Russia?

It’s not that the deep state can’t cause massive chaos when Trump officially becomes president.  In fact, we should count on it.  But it seems important right now to fast forward two months and get the psychos out of the White House before a larger and more massive war breaks out.

The Most Controversial Appointment

There is a lot of discussion about Trump’s appointments.  The names that are being smeared by the establishment are typically the decent ones.

Matt Gaetz was a bit of a wildcard.  I don’t believe anything the FBI says about him because I don’t believe anything the FBI says with regard to anything of any significance.  Gaetz has withdrawn his name for Attorney General.  But he already resigned from his House seat.

There is speculation that he resigned his House seat because of an investigation and a House ethics report that was going to be released.  If you ever wondered what an oxymoron is, the term “House ethics report” fits nicely.

Even though the FBI and the establishment media make up stories, it is not to say that there couldn’t have been something embarrassing in the report about Gaetz.

Perhaps Trump nominated Gaetz as a middle finger to the criminals who have been going after Trump and Trump supporters.  Maybe Trump knew he wouldn’t get confirmed but used him to start the bidding.  Now the establishment people are more likely to accept another nominee that could be strong but a little less controversial.

Personally, I had my doubts about Gaetz because I saw him interviewed on Dave Smith’s podcast.  I thought Gaetz was slippery in many of his answers.  I already knew he was not a libertarian, but his appearance on the podcast lowered my opinion of him.

The Establishment Indicator

The biggest creeps in the establishment are making a fuss over two other Trump appointments: Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence and Robert Kennedy Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services.

There is almost a perfect correlation between how much the establishment and its shills in the media smear appointment candidates and how decent the people are.

They call Tulsi Gabbard a stooge for Russia and Putin.  They say she cozies up to dictators like Assad.  This is because she has sought truth and peace.  These allegations are childish lies, but unfortunately some people will believe them.  It is similar to when people opposed the Iraq War and we got comments like, “What, you love Saddam Hussein?”

For RFK Jr., they call him a kook or a conspiracy theorist.  This is because he has dared to question vaccine safety and has pointed out that big pharma and big agriculture have embedded themselves with big government to make us less healthy.  He has drawn attention to the chronic disease in the United States and has tied it to our food and the drugs that are prescribed.

As Dave Smith pointed out when he was on Joe Rogan’s podcast right after the election, RFK Jr. is the only presidential candidate who has brought up this issue.  If you think he is wrong on the reasons for why Americans are so unhealthy, then let’s debate the topic.  Offer your own reasoning or advocate for more research to get to the bottom of it.  Instead, the RFK critics just like to smear him and continue to pretend that there isn’t a health crisis in America.

If RFK Jr. gets confirmed, it will be quite interesting what happens.  Even if he doesn’t get much done in terms of cleaning out the rot in the system, he can have a substantial influence just by speaking up.  He can call attention to the unhealthy processed foods out there.  He can call attention to the plethora of drugs that are prescribed to cover up symptoms instead of addressing root causes of the diseases.  Even if he can just get the fluoride out of our tap water, this would be a big win.

Foreign Policy

Of course, there are a lot of bad and ugly picks from Trump, especially on the foreign policy front.  He has appointed several war hawks like Marco Rubio and Elise Stefanik.

Although Rubio is a war hawk, I do see him as someone who can be molded.  He isn’t much of a leader, which in this case might be good.  He isn’t like John Bolton or Nikki Haley.  Rubio will support the war machine, but he may not be smart and conniving enough to completely undermine Trump.

Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense is an interesting pick.  He now has assault allegations against him.  They don’t seem too credible given the timing, but it’s not to say they won’t hurt him.

He is certainly too pro war for my tastes, and he seems to be an Isreali firster like some of the other Trump picks.  I am familiar with Hegseth from Fox News.

He has something like 7 children.  He has been married and divorced twice and is married again.  He comes across as a decent family man now, but so did Mike Johnson, who is a creep.

It is very hard to say how Hegseth would be in this position.  One of his cohosts on Fox is Rachel Campos-Duffy.  Her husband, Sean Duffy, has been nominated as Transportation Secretary.  Rachel Campos-Duffy has been somewhat critical of the U.S. war machine.  The despicable war hawk Brian Kilmeade snapped at Campos-Duffy on an episode of Fox & Friends when Campos-Duffy was placing blame on the Biden administration for what happened in Ukraine.  For someone on Fox News, she has oftentimes been a reasonable voice on foreign policy.  We’ll see if that can spill over to Hegseth.

Trump Loyalists

I believe that Trump is trying, to some degree, to not make the same mistakes he made in his first term.  Most people Trump placed in powerful positions hated his guts and did everything to undermine him.

Trump is trying to surround himself with people who will be loyal without a lot of regard on where they stand on the issues.  While this is so far an improvement from 8 years ago, I still think his judgment is lacking.

If Trump wants people who are loyal, he needs to get over his ego and accept people who sometimes disagree with him and are even critical of him.

I’ll cite two examples.  First, there is Candace Owens.  She was somewhat critical of Trump regarding the COVID vaccines.  She said that Trump comes from an old school of thought that just automatically assumes that vaccines are always good.  She was actually saying this in defense of Trump.  She disagreed with his stance on the vaccines, but she was defending him in the sense that she thought it was coming from a good place.  She was basically saying he was ignorant on the issue, which is better than evil.

Trump immediately made an enemy out of her, and she said that the next time she saw him in person that he was quite rude to her.

Another example is Thomas Massie in 2020.  When he wanted a real vote in Congress for the trillions of dollars in COVID spending, Trump had a fit against Massie for daring to oppose the massive spending.  Trump suggested that he should be tossed out of the Republican Party.  According to Massie, it seems that Trump has gotten over that.

Candace Owens and Thomas Massie are both libertarian leaning.  They have disagreements with Trump.  But they defend Trump when it counts.  They won’t stab him in the back.  They defend Trump on all of the bogus allegations about January 6^th, Russian collusion, prosecutions, and even the smaller lies.  They may have disagreements with Trump, but they state it openly and honestly.  It is because they want more liberty.  It isn’t because they are trying to hurt Trump.

If Trump wants real loyalists, he would find people like Candace Owens and Thomas Massie.  This is why Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. are good picks.  They have disagreements too.  But they aren’t going to purposely undermine Trump.

The people who are open and honest and have real disagreements with Trump are the Trump loyalists.  They aren’t loyal in blindly following whatever he says, but they are loyal in the sense that they will not turn on him when it is convenient.  They will defend him against the deep state and the lies.

Conclusion

The Trump presidency will be filled with many good moments and bad moments for libertarians.  There aren’t going to be any miracles, and Trump may face a bad recession.  The best we can probably hope for in the short run is less war and maybe a tiny bit of fiscal sanity.

The tariffs will be bad, but we can only hope that there might actually be some real cuts in some agency budgets.  If Trump can somehow eliminate the Department of Education, that will be an impressive accomplishment.

There is little talk about the so-called COVID vaccines these days.  The powers-that-be still want you to get your ninth booster (or whatever they’re on), but the topic barely came up in the 2024 election.

Trump may have mentioned it once in the debate with Biden.  He briefly referred to mandates.  He got the message from his supporters that he shouldn’t be bragging about Operation Warp Speed.

The left wasn’t going to bring up the topic at all because it would just remind people of the Biden mandates and also the fact that the so-called vaccines did nothing to actually prevent people from getting COVID.

The Vote Numbers

There are a lot of questions now about how Kamala Harris managed to get about 8 million fewer votes than Joe Biden in 2020.  Part of the reason is Joe Biden himself.  He was so disastrous for four years that millions of people who voted for Biden didn’t vote for Harris.  After all, she said that she wouldn’t have done anything different as president.

Some are using the vote totals to point towards election fraud in 2020.  But this wouldn’t account for something like 8 million votes.  It might be a few hundred thousand votes in the big cities in swing states.

It is surprising that nobody of prominence has half-jokingly pointed to the COVID vaccines as a reason for fewer votes.  If the vaccines killed off a few million people, that would certainly have an impact.  There has been a significant excess death count over the last four years.  The CDC has been shady with some of its numbers, but there have likely been a couple of million deaths above and beyond what was projected for the last four years.

Maybe this isn’t primarily from the unsafe and ineffective vaccines, but someone should probably offer an alternative explanation.  Why didn’t the deaths fall after the vaccines became available?

If anything, they should have fallen below the norm because of some people dying slightly prematurely in 2020.

For example, maybe someone who was 87 years old in 2020 died from COVID or the horrible hospital protocols.  If not for COVID or mistreatment at the hospital, they would have lived another 2 years.  Therefore, the death was moved up from 2022 to 2020.  Yet, the excess deaths continued in 2021 and 2022.

Even in 2024, the deaths should be below what would have been expected five years ago, but it appears we are still seeing some excess death.

The Unspoken

The COVID vaccine issue may not have been an issue that was discussed in the election, but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t an issue.  There were millions of people who were greatly impacted in 2021 and 2022.

Joe Biden and his handlers directed that something near 100 million workers in the United States had to get a needle in their arm or else they were not permitted to have their job and feed their family.

The Supreme Court ended up striking down a big part of the mandate, but it had already done major damage on businesses and people’s lives.  Some businesses also required the shot because they were going along with the mandates, even if some of the dictates were eventually struck down.

This was a major cost of doing business.  Companies had to scramble to have a dedicated team of employees to check for vaccination status and to review exemption requests.  They also had the cost of employees quitting or firing them.

More importantly, this wrecked many lives.  Millions of people were compelled to get the shots because they didn’t want to lose their livelihood.  There were millions more who applied for exemptions and were forced to make major decisions.  This was an extremely stressful time for millions of Americans who didn’t want the shots.

The jabs were not safe.  They were not effective.  They didn’t prevent COVID, and they didn’t prevent transmission.

It is a joke for any leftist today to say “my body, my choice”.  They were primarily the ones who supported these awful mandates.  Some of them went so far as to advocate kidnapping your children or locking you up if you didn’t take their “medicine”.

Maybe Donald Trump and Kamala Harris didn’t talk about the vaccines, but you can bet that it was still an issue in the minds of at least a few million Americans out there.

And while Trump was not good on the vaccine issue, he didn’t try to mandate it, and there is little reason to believe he would have.  Plus, he had Robert Kennedy Jr. campaigning for him at the end, who was a big critic of the vaccine mandates.

So, while maybe this issue didn’t trump the economy in general, it was still a big issue in the minds of many Americans.  They want to see Kennedy expose some of the criminals at the FDA and the CDC at the top. They certainly didn’t want to reward Kamala Harris with the presidency, who said she supported everything that Biden did.

Kamala the Puppet

It is interesting to theorize what would have happened if Kamala Harris had dissented from the vaccine mandates.  Of course, this wouldn’t have happened because she doesn’t ever stray too far from the establishment narrative.

Still, imagine when she was asked that question on The View about what she might have done different from Biden.  Imagine if she said that she wouldn’t have mandated the vaccines and that she would have just tried to use gentle persuasion.  Perhaps most people would not have believed her and rightly so, because she should have said this back in 2021.

But it is still an interesting thought experiment.  There might be some leftists out there who don’t like Trump but are bitter about being forced to get a jab in the arm that they didn’t want.  It’s not a big percentage, but you have to imagine there are a few.

Trump was probably correct in just avoiding the issue.  He originally bragged about the vaccine, but a lot of his supporters never wanted it.  They don’t think it was safe or effective.  There are some Trump supporters who very willingly got the vaccine and don’t regret it.  It was a no-win issue for Trump except to say that he wouldn’t have mandated the shots.

Conclusion

It is likely that the COVID shots and the mandates cost Kamala Harris at least a couple of million votes across the country.  If the shots killed a million people, the majority of those people would have voted for Harris.

Even if the shots didn’t kill anyone (which isn’t the case), the mandates themselves likely turned away some people who might have otherwise supported her.  The left was busy calling Trump a fascist and a dictator.  Who was it again who told nearly 100 million people that they had to get an injection in the arm if they wanted to be able to earn an income and feed their families?

That is a major part of the legacy of the criminal Biden and his handlers.  For this one thing alone, they deserved to lose big.

The latest consumer price inflation (CPI) figures came out a week after Trump sealed up the presidential election.  The numbers are not promising.

The CPI rose 0.2% in October 2024, bringing the annual price inflation rate to 2.6%.  This is a slight uptick from September, which breaks the trend of a falling rate of price inflation.

The median CPI was up 0.3% for the month.  The year-over-year median CPI now stands at 4.1%.

This comes right after Trump’s election, but it also comes after the latest FOMC meeting where the Fed announced another cut to its federal funds rate.

The Fed is cutting rates while price inflation is still above its 2% target.  Meanwhile, the yield curve is close to flat after nearly two years of being inverted.  This screams recession while the Fed still has a slight price inflation problem.

The Trump Problem

Many of the really hardcore Trump fans are under the illusion that he is going to give us this great economy.  We should not live in this false reality.

Even if Trump were sound on economics, which he is not, he wouldn’t be able to work this miracle.  The recession is already baked into the cake.  It is going to happen no matter who is president.

Perhaps it is an interesting irony that Trump oversaw the massive monetary inflation and deficit spending in 2020, which led to the high price inflation a couple of years later under Biden.  There was enough of a lag that Biden got the blame.  If the higher price inflation had happened the moment Biden took office, most reasonable people would not have been able to blame Biden.

The Biden presidency has been a complete train wreck in many ways, but Biden wasn’t really that responsible for the price inflation except that he perpetuated the system of deficit spending.  There likely would have been significant price inflation no matter who became president in 2021.

And now it’s Trump’s turn to inherit the train wreck from Joe Biden.  If the recession starts in the next few months, then most reasonable people will not be able to blame Trump, or at least not at first.  If the recession begins and becomes evident on the day Trump takes office, there will be some on the left who will blame Trump, but this won’t stick with most people.

If Trump takes office and the recession doesn’t hit for another 6 months, then you get into the territory of Trump taking the blame.  If you are a Trump fan, you should be cheering for the start of the recession in the next two months.

The Inflation Pain

Trump can ease some pain by drastically cutting regulations that are just mostly burdensome and add to the cost of consumer goods and services.

Unfortunately, Trump is talking about slapping on massive tariffs.  This will only serve to make products more expensive.  The establishment media, in its quest to criticize Trump on anything, actually gets this point correct at times.  It is one of the very few things.  But we wouldn’t be hearing these criticisms of Harris if she had been elected.

People are still feeling the pain of higher prices.  Insurance has gone up a lot, particularly vehicle insurance in recent years.  This alone can destroy a household budget.

Let’s remember that when they say inflation is coming down, it doesn’t mean that prices are coming down. Overall prices are still going higher, just at a slower pace.  They are going up higher on top of the already high prices where people were struggling.

We may finally get a little relief with a deep recession, but that obviously has its own problems with unemployment and deflating asset prices.  It could mean another financial crisis.  It will really hurt people and companies with high debt loads.

The best way Trump can deal with this is to level with the American people.  He can be honest and tell them that is due to years of misallocations, reckless government spending, and Federal Reserve money manipulation.

Unfortunately, this is not likely to happen.  Trump doesn’t even understand this himself.  And even if he did, he would have to have the courage and honesty to tell the truth to his constituents.

Trump will not be able to pull off any miracles.  The best hope is that he scales down the war machine, cuts some regulations, and makes some actual budget cuts with the help of people like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

With the tough economic times likely to continue in the near future, we have to defend liberty whenever possible.  We have to criticize Trump policies that are bad and praise Trump policies that are good.

There have been many fascinating aspects of the political landscape in 2024.  One thing that has really become evident is that libertarians are having great influence on public opinion.

If we are going to achieve greater liberty in our society, then we must have a greater percentage of people who are favorable towards libertarian ideas.  This means educating others on the morality and the benefits of libertarianism.  This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to use the term libertarian.

The Libertarian Party

The goal of the Libertarian Party should be to sell the message of liberty and to help move our society in a more libertarian direction.  This may or may not mean getting Libertarians (large L or small L) elected to office.

Dave Smith is a comedian and podcaster.  He was considering a run for president on the Libertarian Party ticket.  Because of family considerations, he decided not to run.  Even though this was known for many months before the Libertarian National Convention in May 2024, it still threw the whole convention into disarray.

Dave Smith would have likely gotten the LP nomination in 2024 if he had run.  Instead, the race for the nomination was thrown wide open.  The Mises Caucus alternative was Michael Rectenwald, who holds mostly the same positions as Dave Smith, but who didn’t generate the same excitement.

When the convention was done, the Mises Caucus (i.e., the radical and principled libertarians) did not get the nominee they hoped for.  It ended up being Chase Oliver just barely beating out “None of the Above” on the final ballot.

Chase Oliver is the quintessential left-libertarian if such a thing can exist.

In retrospect, this may have been the perfect thing to happen.  Chase Oliver was the perfect candidate for 2024.  He certainly didn’t take votes away from Donald Trump.

Chase Oliver ran a terrible campaign.  Perhaps more accurately, he barely ran a campaign.  He was visible almost nowhere.  He will end up getting a total of just over 600,000 votes nationwide, which is a bad showing for the Libertarian candidate when compared to past years.

Chase Oliver did not appear on any big outlets.  Perhaps he was unable to get on anything like Fox News or CNN.  But he also declined to go on any of the big podcasts.  He didn’t go on Dave Smith’s show, probably because Dave didn’t endorse him.  Still, wouldn’t he at least want to give his pitch to the audience?

Chase Oliver didn’t go on any big shows as far as I know.  I am thinking about Tom Woods, Joe Rogan, Tim Pool, and Patrick Bet-David, just to name a few.  Maybe he wasn’t invited on all of them, but I do believe he was invited on at least some of them.  And did his campaign team (if one existed) even reach out to them?

Again, it would have meant going on and being interviewed by people who don’t necessarily agree with him and may challenge him, but wouldn’t Chase Oliver want to have the chance for some exposure?  I don’t think any of these hosts would have been really hostile towards him.

The Libertarian Party Influence

Despite Chase Oliver getting the nomination, Angela McCardle retained the position of chair of the national party.  It appears that she is the one who was able to get Donald Trump and other big names to appear at the convention.

Donald Trump promised to free Ross Ulbricht from prison when he spoke in front of the LP convention.  I believe Trump will make good on that promise.  Ulbricht’s mother has worked tirelessly to get her son free, who was sentenced to life in jail for setting up and running a website.

I believe Trump will make good on his promise.  If for some reason he doesn’t, there are going to be tens of thousands of angry libertarians calling the White House and reminding Trump of what was said.

While Ross Ulbricht is one person in a very large country, it is still symbolic of the authoritarianism and injustice that some people have endured.  Freeing Ross will mean more than just freeing Ross, which in itself is important.

The Libertarian Influence

The Libertarian Party is just one potential vehicle for spreading libertarianism.  We have many people promoting liberty who are not directly involved in the party.  There are also many people spreading the ideas of liberty even if they are not purely libertarian.

Looking back now, perhaps it is a really good thing that Dave Smith didn’t run for president in 2024.  Most presidential elections are candidates from the two major parties who really are very much the same.  In 2024, I think there was enough of a difference between the candidates where it actually mattered.

If Dave had run, he would have received a lot of attention.  He has been on with Joe Rogan many times.  Dave has interviewed or been interviewed by Tim Pool, Patrick Bet-David, Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, and several other big-name podcasters.  Rogan probably would have endorsed Dave instead of his last-minute endorsement of Trump.

If Dave Smith had run for president, I think the election would have been a lot closer.  I can’t say that Kamala Harris would have won, but I truly believe it would have been really close.

I had a strong feeling that Trump was going to win the election in the week leading up to Election Day.  Kamala Harris was not impressive at all.  But even more so, Trump had all the momentum on his side.  He appeared on Rogan.  JD Vance also went on Rogan.  They were human conversations, and Rogan ended up endorsing Trump.

Trump had a team of independent thinkers out there campaigning on his behalf.  The most notable people were Vivek Ramaswamy, Elon Musk, Robert Kennedy Jr., Nicole Shanahan, Tulsi Gabbard, and Tucker Carlson.

In the final week, Dave Smith said that he was going to vote for Donald Trump.  One of his reasons was that he couldn’t stand to see Liz Cheney up there campaigning with Kamala Harris.

I believe a bigger reason (and he later alluded to this with Rogan after the election) is that Dave has a big influence on most of the people who are influencing Trump.  Dave has interviewed Vivek, RFK, Nicole Shanahan, and Tucker Carlson.

Here we have a radical and principled libertarian in Dave Smith who will possibly influence the next president of the United States.  If we have this, we don’t need a Libertarian Party candidate for president.

The Dave Smith Influence Continues

Most recently, Dave tweeted out a message about not just opposing Mike Pompeo, but the need to keep all of the neoconservatives away from the Trump administration.  Donald Trump Jr. replied to Dave’s tweet (X post) and said he agrees and that he is on it.

https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1855593982958379321

Shortly after this, Donald Trump announced that he would not be inviting Mike Pompeo or Nikki Haley into his cabinet in the upcoming administration.  This is especially hilarious because Pompeo was out there campaigning for Trump in the moments before the election and trying to pretend to be a great advocate of his.

Donald Trump Jr. is more libertarian than his father.  He is obviously following Dave Smith.  We have to imagine that Don Jr. probably has as much political influence on Donald Trump as anyone, with the possible exception of Melania.

Even if Dave had run for president and gotten 10 million votes, I believe he is having more influence right now doing this.

Cautious Optimism

Donald Trump is going to do some very bad things as president.  He will probably oversee a recession.  He will likely impose higher tariffs and make our lives more expensive.  He will also be way too hawkish on foreign policy as compared to what libertarians would like to see.

Still, there is great reason for optimism, even if the deep state continues to try to hurt and delegitimize Trump in every way.

Trump has said that he wants to close down the Department of Education and return all education to the states.  There is a slim chance of this happening in the next four years, but at least it is being discussed.

In terms of foreign policy, it will be a mixed bag.  He will likely appoint some bad people and some decent people.  But a mixed policy is better than what we have now, which is a bunch of crazed war hawks always pushing for more U.S. government intervention.

I think the next four years is a possible opportunity for libertarians and libertarian-leaning people to have real influence and to make some lasting change.

In addition, we can continue to spread the message of liberty even if we aren’t immediately successful in changing policy in some areas.  The more that public opinion favors greater liberty, the greater the prospects for the future.

It’s been quite a week.  The big news is:

The Fed has cut its target rate by 25 basis points.

Oh yeah, and Trump has won the presidency.

Which matters more to the economy?

The president tends to get too much blame or too much credit for the economy.  There is a certain irony that the massive spending and monetary inflation that happened in 2020 under Trump led to the higher price inflation during the Biden administration, which was a factor in Harris losing to Trump.

The president can have an impact on the economy with radical changes one way or the other.  The unconstitutional and immoral vaccine mandates in 2021 caused economic damage along with other damages.  In terms of spending though, it seems that federal spending is almost always increasing, so it is hard to just blame the president when Congress controls the purse strings and the people elect them.

To be sure, the president can have a positive economic impact by trying to drastically cut spending and repealing regulations.  There is little reason for optimism when hearing about a Department of Government Efficiency headed by Elon Musk.  We actually don’t want efficiency from government.  We just want less of it.

Still, the fact that it is even being discussed is a positive sign.  Maybe nothing much will happen in the next four years, but at least it is a topic of conversation now.  That is a start.  For lasting positive change, we need public opinion on our side.

Recession Fears

Even though I was cheering for Trump against the puppet and her evil puppet masters, I do see a major downside to a Trump presidency.

The yield curve was inverted for 2023 and most of 2024.  It is now close to flat.  It means that a recession is on the horizon.  I thought a year ago that it would have started by now.  One can only hope that it will start in the next two months under Biden, but that is unlikely at this point.

So, when the recession hits, the establishment media will blame Trump.  Of course, they already call him a Nazi, so I guess being a bad economic manager doesn’t sound so bad in comparison.

Unfortunately, Trump is not that great on economics.  He thinks higher tariffs will bring us more prosperity.  They will only bring us higher prices and higher tensions.

If we are going through a recession, that would be a good time to make massive cuts in government spending.  You could call it anti-Keynesianism.  It is a painful time anyway, so that might be a good time to make painful cuts.

If it is handled right, we might actually see some genuine prosperity by 2028.  But that is a big “if”.  Trump hasn’t always been that great at surrounding himself with good people.  We can only hope that libertarian leaning people like Vivek Ramaswamy and Nicole Shanahan will be influential on him.

Powell Says He’ll Stay

Jerome Powell said that he plans to stay on the job even if Trump asks him to resign.  Powell assumed the job of Fed chair in February 2018 after Trump’s nomination.  Biden actually kept Powell on the job, which kind of gives you a hint about the man and the position.

Powell will likely stay on the job until 2026, and then Trump can nominate someone else.  He should nominate Judy Shelton for Fed chair.  He previously tried to get her in as a Fed member, but the Senate would not confirm her nomination.  Now the Republicans will have a majority in the Senate, and Trump obviously has a lot of influence.  Shelton is an advocate for returning to a gold standard.

The economy will probably be a mess no matter what, as we have to deal with all of the previous malinvestment and the massive debt.  And everybody except for Trump’s supporters are going to blame him for everything anyway.  So, he might as well try to make some lasting and positive change.

The Easy Cuts to Spending

The hardest thing to cut in defying the establishment is war spending and foreign aid.  With the American people, it is probably the easiest thing to cut.

Sure, these cuts would impact some people like those who work for weapons manufacturers.  But most of this spending does not go directly to the American people.  Sending hundreds of billions of dollars to Ukraine benefit very few people in the United States except for the ruling elite.  If this spending gets cut, it is an instant win for the American people.  It could help offset some of the economic pain that is to come.

I hope that Elon Musk and Ron Paul get an opportunity to drastically cut spending everywhere, but I know that will be a lot more difficult politically.  I can already hear the stories about starving and homeless teachers because of cuts to (or the elimination of) the Department of Education.

In conclusion, the economy is going to fall hard.  The stock market soared to new all-time highs when Trump was announced the winner.  This just means it will fall that much farther in the years ahead.

With a bad economy, let’s hope that the good people who have endorsed Trump continue to have influence and continue to advocate policies of greater liberty.  On the economic front, we need drastic cuts in government spending.  We don’t need a new Fed chair to make that happen.

It is the day before the election as I write this, and I haven’t fully decided on my vote for president.  If you asked me a couple of months ago, I was leaning towards doing a write-in vote for someone like Ron Paul.  As of today, I am leaning towards voting for Trump.  What changed?

The more I watch Kamala Harris and the Biden administration, the more disgusted I get.  Biden made a recent gaffe, which means he accidentally expressed his opinion out loud.  He said that Trump supporters are garbage.  I already knew he despised tens of millions of people, but it is actually worse when he has the gall to say it out loud as if to flaunt it.

Meanwhile, Kamala Harris is fumbling almost every interview and speech.  This doesn’t particularly bother me except that I know she is fully controlled by the same people who control Biden.  She is a puppet.

I was reminded of her authoritarianism recently when I watched a video of her from 2010 bragging about her plans to throw parents in jail in California for their kids missing too much school.

Harris is also out there campaigning with Liz Cheney of all people, which tells you just what kind of a person she is and what kind of a president she would be.

Reasons Against Trump

If I vote for Trump, I am not endorsing what Trump did in his first term, nor am I endorsing many of his policy positions today.  I am making it clear that I do not support the following:

• Hiking tariffs
• Belligerence towards Iran
• Funding and arming the Israeli state
• Allowing Fauci to have the spotlight during COVID
• Promoting the COVID vaccines
• Hiring people like John Bolton, Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Christopher Wray, Bill Barr, and the list goes on and on

There are many other areas that are perhaps less significant where I strongly disagree with Trump.

To be sure, I also have my criticisms of his demeanor at times, but it has nothing to do with what the establishment media says.  I don’t think Trump should pick a fight with someone like Candace Owens just because she offers some constructive criticism.  He also originally did the same thing with Joe Rogan when Rogan spoke highly of Kennedy (before Kennedy endorsed Trump).

I have no issue with Trump with regard to the lies the media hands out.  He didn’t tell anyone to drink bleach.  He didn’t call white supremacists very fine people.  He didn’t call for an insurrection.  He didn’t hold a Nazi rally.  He didn’t collude with the Russians to steal the election.

Changing My Mind

The reason I have changed my mind and am leaning in favor of voting for Trump is because of the prominent people who have been speaking at his rallies and cheering him on.  I have my disagreements with J.D. Vance, but he is about the best I could have hoped for in a running mate for Trump.  He is not great on foreign policy, but he is better than almost anything we’ve had from the two major parties in quite some time.  Vance recently appeared on Rogan and was talking about how we need to do something about the Federal Reserve.

Aside from Vance, there are a handful of people that get me somewhat excited, or at least cautiously optimistic.  I have in mind the following people:

• Robert Kennedy Jr.
• Nicole Shanahan
• Elon Musk
• Tulsi Gabbard
• Vivek Ramaswamy
• Tucker Carlson

I have my disagreements with all of them, but I believe they all want to sincerely help the country, and they all lean libertarian to some degree on the issues where they focus.

Kennedy was great on COVID, and he is a strong advocate for making America healthier.  He understands the damage government has done in this respect.  He also believes that the CIA killed his uncle.

Nicole Shanahan (RFK’s running mate) has been surprisingly great on many liberty issues.  She has had multiple conversations with Ron Paul and has been very open to his ideas while praising him.

Elon Musk recently said he wants to cut $2.5 trillion out of the federal budget.  He wants a government efficiency commission, which normally sounds bad.  But I believe he is serious about this, as he actually directed a message to Ron Paul about helping to cut government spending.
Tulsi Gabbard isn’t a total non-interventionist with foreign policy, but she is far better than anyone in the Biden administration.  If she gets a prominent role in directing U.S. foreign policy, we will be much better off.

Vivek Ramaswamy goes on all of the major libertarian podcasts and frequently expresses libertarian ideas.  Again, I am aware that he is not a pure libertarian, but it is incredible that someone like this is having influence on Trump.

Tucker Carlson is also not a libertarian, but he is pretty close where it really counts.  Tucker has done an amazing job at going just far enough to not lose Republican support while challenging many conventional things.  He challenges the whole foreign policy apparatus, and he challenges the national security state.  His economics may not always be great from a libertarian standpoint, but he is great on the things where he focuses his attention.

Not Letting the Perfect Be the Enemy of the Good

Sometimes I hate this saying because people use it as justification to support bad things.  If you voted for Bush in 2004 for president and used this saying, it is just completely wrong because there was barely anything good about the Bush presidency.

In the case of Trump, I think it does apply because Trump is significantly better than Harris and her puppet masters.

Libertarians running for office often say that you shouldn’t choose between the lesser of two evils.  But there are very few libertarians running for office where I agree with everything they say.  So, I am always voting for a lesser evil.  It is just a question of degree.

In this case, I think Trump is significantly less evil.  He doesn’t hate my guts.  If he does, he is a great actor.  Biden and Harris and their controllers hate my guts.  They hate the average American family.  They will barely tolerate you if you obey their dictates.

We aren’t going to get a libertarian president any time soon.  But we have a candidate who has several prominent people around him who at least lean libertarian.

The people mentioned above are almost bullying Trump (in a good way) towards greater liberty.  Kennedy endorsed Trump, and Kennedy is supposed to lead a transition team.

We have several of these people who are questioning the Fed, the intelligence agencies, U.S. foreign policy, and bloated government in general.  How can a libertarian look at this and not consider supporting it in the hopes of moving us in the right direction?

Ron Paul isn’t running for president.  The country wasn’t ready for Ron Paul in 2008 or 2012.  The country still isn’t ready for someone like Ron Paul, but we are getting a lot closer.

Cautious Optimism

Kennedy, Shanahan, Vivek, Elon, Tulsi, and Tucker can guide Trump in the right direction.  They can overwhelm the establishment people who will try to influence Trump.

I understand that a lot can go wrong.  I understand that Trump will do many things that are bad.  I understand that it is hard to change anything significant for the better in Washington D.C.

But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.  There is reason for very cautious optimism.  Even if Trump is a bad president again, people are getting educated.  They are learning that the ruling elite do not like them and do not have their best interests at heart.

We can build on this and continue to move public opinion in a more libertarian direction.

There is going to be some chaos after the election no matter what happens, but there is reason to be hopeful for the future.

November 5, 2024 is the big day.  We may not actually find out the official results on this day unless there is a resounding Trump victory, which isn’t impossible at this point.

To be sure, this shouldn’t be a big day.  There is something wrong with an entire system when our lives so heavily depend on an election.  Some libertarians take the position that it doesn’t matter who is elected president because they are all statists.  To a certain extent that is true, but it is hard to say that there is no difference.  If there were no difference, then the ruling elite wouldn’t be working so hard to ensure a particular result.

Just as in past elections, the whole thing could come down to a handful of swing states.  Within those swing states, there are probably less than 100,000 swing voters who will ultimately determine the results if the results are at least somewhat valid.

Think about Florida in 2000.  It is not clear today how much better or worse our country would have been with Gore instead of Bush.  But it came down to just a few hundred votes in one state.

Why should our lives be determined by a few thousand votes, or even a few hundred thousand votes, out of a country with around 340 million people?  Again, there is something wrong with our system.  The thing that is wrong is that the presidency and the entire federal government have way too much power.  If there weren’t so much power, then it wouldn’t mean so much to so many people.

Trump Soars While Kamala Harris Dives

I am expecting a Trump victory.  I will not be shocked if he isn’t the declared winner, and I won’t be shocked if he is prevented from taking office.  Still, I think he is going to win the election.  He may not win the so-called popular vote, but he will win the electoral votes, which is what matters.

Kamala Harris has been a complete disaster for her party and the ruling elite.  She has been fumbling her interviews and speeches.  She is just not likable at all.  The only thing she has going for her is that the ruling elite is on her side, and the ruling elite have propagandized nearly half of the population to despise Donald Trump and have an irrational hatred of the man.

Kamala Harris is also dealing with the Joe Biden problem.  He not only has some kind of dementia, but then he shows his true colors and calls Trump supporters “garbage”.  This is not something that Bill Clinton or Obama would have done.

The Democrats and the ruling elite have resorted to calling Trump the next Hitler and saying that he had a Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden.  This smells of pure desperation.

Meanwhile, Trump is soaring, but not if you watch the establishment media.  Trump appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast where he mostly acted like a normal human being.  Trump had his weak moments in the 3-hour long conversation, but he mostly came across as a decent person.

Trump the Person

I have heard some people say that they don’t like Trump the person but that his policies have been good for the country.  I take almost the opposite approach.

I actually think Trump is a decent person.  It doesn’t mean I have to defend everything he’s said and done in his life.  I am not defending him if he cheated on his wife (current or past).  I am not defending some of his name calling, although some of it probably was appropriate.

Listening to Trump, he just sounds like a real person.  Most of the people from his past who knew him well speak highly of him.  Trump brags a lot, but he actually doesn’t brag much about many good deeds he has done in the past.

I believe Trump actually does want the country to do well, even if it is just so he can brag about it.  Most of all, I don’t think Trump hates me.  Joe Biden hates me.  He spent his presidency not just attacking Trump, but attacking Trump supporters.  In some ways, he attacked anyone who didn’t go along with his dictates.  Does anyone remember the vaccine mandates and Biden trying to demonize anyone who didn’t want it?

Kamala Harris is covering it up a tiny bit better than Biden, but she hates my guts too.  She hates normal families.  She hates middle America.  She once bragged about her idea of putting parents in jail if their kids missed too much school in California.  She promoted a bail fund to release violent criminals from the 2020 riots.  She hates our guts.

The people supporting Harris are supporting someone who hates them too.  She will accept them as long as they fall in line, but the minute they fall out of line, Harris will send in the goons to set them straight.

I don’t agree with many Trump policies.  I thought he was bad on COVID.  I don’t agree with imposing tariffs.  I don’t agree with his support of the Israeli state.  I don’t agree with his belligerence towards Iran.  I don’t agree with many of his previous picks for his administration.

Yet, in spite of all that, he is still better than Harris and her puppet masters.  I think he is at least sincere in wanting the country to do well.  He doesn’t want to tear down western civilization.

Rough Times Ahead

No matter who officially wins the presidential election, there is going to be chaos.  The economy is set to implode no matter who takes office.

If Harris wins, we will have more mandates, more authoritarianism, and more cultural decline.  It’s possible we get this with Trump too, but it is a certainty with Harris.

If Trump wins, the powers-that-be are purposely going to create more chaos.  Don’t underestimate their ability to double-down yet again.  We will get more Russia collusion stories.  We will get more attempts to throw him in jail.  Perhaps there will be more assassination attempts.  We will certainly get more Hitler stories.  It is going to be total chaos.

Although we are in for some crazy times, there is part of me that is optimistic.  We have more Americans than ever questioning the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, the FDA, the CDC, and many other agencies.  We have this unique coalition of people like Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, Vivek Ramaswamy, RFK Jr., and Nicole Shanahan.  None of them are libertarians, but they all have some ideas that are libertarian.  And again, I get the impression that they don’t despise me and actually want to do good things.

This is a prime opportunity for libertarians to reach out to Trump supporters and find common ground.  It is also an opportunity to educate them on the things that Trump gets wrong and to move them in our direction. Tucker Carlson has done a really good job of this on issues of foreign policy and the national security state.

No matter who wins on November 5^th (or after), there is going to be chaos.  But there is also a path forward that involves greater liberty and less power for the government.

In the month of October 2024, the yield curve has significantly flattened.  It has been mostly inverted for all of 2023 and 2024, which is a very long time.  This means that short-term yields have been higher than long-term yields.

It has almost completely flattened now.  Across the curve, the lowest yield is 4.14% (the 3-year and 5-year) as I write this.  The highest yield is 4.87% (1-month yield).

So, it is still very slightly inverted in some spots, but close to flat.  The long yields have gone up.  From October 1 to October 30, the 30-year yield has risen from 4.08% to 4.49%.

The short yields have only fallen slightly.  But the Fed is expected to lower its target rate once or twice more before the end of the calendar year.  This should push short-term yields down more.

The Significance

Why is this so important?  It is because an inverted yield curve predicts a recession.  But the recession doesn’t hit or become evident until the yield curve flips back to “normal”.  In other words, the short-term yields should fall below the long-term yields before the worst of the recession hits.

This means that the new president in January 2025 may have a big economic disaster thrown on their lap.

The yield curve was severely inverted before, and it lasted an enormously long time.  If the length and severity of the inversion is any indication of the severity of the recession, then we are in for a wild ride ahead.