Donald Trump has been president for over 2 years now, and he just delivered his 2019 State of the Union address. I wasn’t sure if he would last in office this long with everyone trying to take him down.
I didn’t watch Trump’s speech, which is good, because I heard it was long. These speeches are largely for show. If you actually care what the president has to say, it is better to read a transcript. You can do that in a fraction of the time than the actual speech. Some people do like to watch the reactions of different people (like Bernie Sanders when Trump says we will never be a socialist nation).
I don’t like most of Trump’s policies, but it is hard not to cheer for the guy at times just because his biggest enemies in Washington DC are some of the most despicable people in existence. Unfortunately, a few of those horrible people are people that Trump actually put in his cabinet.
With people like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, who needs enemies? If someone told me in early 2016 that those names would be in the president’s administration, I would have thought almost anyone but Trump had won the presidency (aside from maybe Jill Stein). I would have thought Hillary Clinton had a better chance of picking those two for sure.
Trump’s foreign policy has been completely inconsistent, just as it was in the campaign. But what can you expect when you surround yourself with a bunch of war hawks? He can’t even get a couple thousand troops out of Syria, in a war that never received any congressional approval.
Trump is horrible on Iran. He’s horrible in continuing the funding of the Saudis and the Israelis (the governments, that is). He is horrible in trying to interfere in Venezuela. He has been decent in some of his rhetoric in intervening less in the Middle East, but his actions don’t typically match his rhetoric. And with Russia, relations are horrible despite Trump saying in the campaign that he wanted to get along with Putin.
I do give Trump some credit on North Korea for seemingly avoiding conflict. Trump was very diplomatic when he met with Kim Jong Un.
In other words, foreign policy is still mostly a disaster. There is a tiny bit of hope with Trump in the presidency as compared to almost anyone else, but maybe that is a reason to be pessimistic. If Trump can’t end any wars overseas without his cabinet and the military generals completely turning on him, then there will certainly be no hope with someone more hawkish in office. And it doesn’t look promising that someone like Tulsi Gabbard will win the presidency.
Aside from foreign policy, let’s look at the state of the union from a libertarian perspective.
The Bad
One thing that mostly gets ignored by both major parties is the massive debt and spending coming out of Washington DC. The national debt is about $22 trillion, with $1 trillion annual deficits coming as far as the eye can see. That is actually the optimistic scenario, as the deficit could be far worse if we go into recession.
Meanwhile, the baby boomers continue to retire, and some estimates of the unfunded liabilities are in excess of $200 trillion. It is almost a meaningless number except to portray that promises are going to be broken.
The annual federal budget is now about $4.4 trillion. Per household, this is over $35,000 per year. Are you getting $35,000 worth of “services” from your federal government?
I think the only solution to the spending problem now is for some kind of default. It won’t be an outright default on the debt or on Social Security. It will be a series of mini defaults. Some of the default will be through monetary inflation. Some of it will be in the form of cutting “benefits” in the future. People on Social Security and Medicare aren’t going to be completely cut off, but they will find that their money doesn’t go as far over time. They are probably already experiencing this and don’t fully understand why.
The Fed got away with massive monetary inflation from 2008 to 2014 because we didn’t see massive price inflation as shown by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The Fed did a lot of damage, but it didn’t show in significant price inflation or higher interest rates. This doesn’t mean that it will always be this way. If we get to something like a 1970s scenario again, then the Fed will be forced to halt monetary inflation. The interest on the debt will become so massive that Congress will eventually be forced to cut back. This doesn’t seem possible now, but things can change rapidly. And just because this game has gone on longer than what seemed likely, it doesn’t mean it will go on forever.
The Good
There are many other bad things I didn’t cover such as government spying, government regulations, government bureaucracy, and other invasions of civil liberties.
Still, as massive and intrusive as government has become, there is another side to the coin. I find that many libertarians don’t appreciate the positive sides, or the gains in liberty.
Despite the anti gun rhetoric from the media, there haven’t been any new major gun control laws put in place recently. If anything, more people own guns than before.
Homeschooling has absolutely exploded. You could say that parts of middle class America have seceded from the system, at least as far as education goes. While the numbers are still relatively small as a percentage, it is no longer seen by most people as strange. Because of the numbers, it has become socially acceptable.
While drug laws are still horrible, marijuana has been partially legalized in many states. It looks inevitable that federal laws will officially be eliminated and most states will have nearly full legalization. Public opinion on this issue has changed drastically just in the last decade.
As libertarians, we also need to appreciate technology and decentralization. I hear complaints about Google and Facebook censoring content they don’t like, and I don’t generally mind the criticism as long as people aren’t calling for more government involvement. But let’s step back and appreciate what we are complaining about. 20 years ago, these companies were essentially non-existent. 30 years ago, the internet was basically non-existent. We have the greatest communication abilities now in history by a long shot. While we complain about the censoring of alternative media, let’s appreciate that there actually is alternative media. And let’s appreciate the fact that many millions of people access the alternative media and no longer have just the one choice of the establishment media.
Overall, there are things to be pessimistic about in the short run. The wars and empire continue for now, but they will eventually be curtailed by economic forces. There will be some pain in the short run in terms of the economy, and many people will have to temporarily reduce their living standards.
However, as long as we don’t have nuclear war or some other catastrophic event, then I think technology and decentralization will continue to advance, even in the face of bad economic conditions. We will gain liberty in certain key areas while barely noticing.