When Donald Trump was elected president, I felt like it exposed a lot of people. I saw people who called themselves libertarians who supported almost every aspect of Trump. I also saw people who called themselves libertarians who opposed virtually every word uttered by Trump. There really is such a thing as Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS).
It is understandable for a libertarian to love Trump for his political incorrectness, his slams against the establishment media, and his exposing (even if inadvertent) of the deep state.
It is also understandable for a libertarian to hate Trump for his bad economics, his horrible cabinet picks, and his continuing of foreign wars.
With that said, it is almost impossible to be a principled libertarian and not have something of a nuanced position towards Trump. Some of the things he says are really good. Some of the things he says are really bad. I think the best a libertarian can do is to cheer him on when he says or does something that favors liberty and to speak against him when he says or does something against liberty.
When I hear a libertarian who says Trump should be impeached for colluding with Russia, it tells me something about that person. This is someone who doesn’t really oppose the state. They are buying into the war propaganda (against Russia). They are buying into the establishment lies.
I can see where libertarians could have legitimate differences regarding Trump on an issue like immigration. I can see legitimate differences on opinions of Trump’s effectiveness or his overall intentions.
But overall, Trump’s presidency has done me a favor of further identifying people who call themselves libertarians who I just can’t trust.
I have my safe spaces, if you will. There are websites and podcasts that I go to on a fairly regular basis where I can depend on hearing good libertarian thought.
I am in a small minority in the world. Most of my life is surrounded by people who see the world in a different way, at least politically speaking. I also get some exposure to the establishment news, even when I try to avoid it. This is why I like to be able to escape to a libertarian world at times. I find this in reading articles, watching videos, and listening to podcasts.
The Coronavirus Exposure
Like almost everyone else in this world, things have changed dramatically in my life over the last month. Many businesses are shut down in my area. I am working at home full time. Fortunately, we can go outside and get exercise, and my kids were already homeschooled, so there is no adjustment there.
Unfortunately, something else in my life has changed over the last month. Some of my “safe spaces” have become a little less safe.
I have seen many libertarians fall for the media hysteria hook, line, and sinker. They have been swindled. They have been taken for a ride. Some of them are starting to admit this is the case. Some of them are gradually changing their tune without admitting they were duped. Some of them are standing by the hysteria.
I am not just talking about the libertarians who I already didn’t trust. This isn’t about people who enthusiastically supported Gary Johnson and Bill Weld in 2016. This isn’t about someone working at a DC think-tank who calls himself a libertarian just because he wants lower marginal tax rates and the legalization of marijuana. (There is nothing wrong with these things, but libertarianism goes way beyond this.)
I am talking about people who consider themselves to be hardcore libertarians. They follow the Austrian school of economics. They have been hardcore against the state. Some of them even call themselves anarcho-capitalists.
Yet, they bought into the media lies and propaganda. They listened to Fauci and his predictions of hundreds of thousands of people dying and the hospitals being overwhelmed.
Even worse, I have even heard a few of them consider the possibility that we may need government action to deal with a pandemic. This is disheartening beyond belief.
The establishment media constantly lies and distorts about anything that is remotely political. I don’t understand why some libertarians all of a sudden started trusting them just because of the existence of a virus.
Establishment Media: We have to invade Iraq because there are weapons of mass destruction.
Libertarian Guy: That’s fake news.
Establishment Media: Assad used chemical weapons against his own people.
Libertarian Guy: That’s fake news.
Establishment Media: We have to deal with climate change now and listen to our models or we will be under water in 10 years.
Libertarian Guy: That’s fake news.
Establishment Media: Trump won the presidency because Putin interfered in our elections.
Libertarian Guy: That’s fake news.
Establishment Media: There’s a virus that is highly contagious with a high mortality rate. We must listen to our models and act now or there will be hundreds of thousands or even millions dying in a pandemic.
Libertarian Guy: Oh my. They said there’s a horrible virus. We really need to take this one seriously and listen to the experts on how to handle this.
This is my world crashing down on me. My safe spaces are now limited. Lew Rockwell has been fantastic with his website. Ron Paul has been excellent on the issue. The Mises Institute has had some good material. Beyond that, I don’t know what happened to my libertarian world.
I have heard some libertarians who bought into the media hysteria but still insisted that there should be no mandatory lockdowns. So I can’t pull their libertarian credentials because they aren’t advocating for the use of force. I don’t understand how they could be so gullible this time, but at least they didn’t sell out their principles. In the long run, I can forgive these people.
For the ones who seemed to justify government action, especially in the form of lockdowns, they have probably lost me forever. I won’t be able to trust them again.
The good news out of this is that I have talked to many people who think that shutting down the economy is a joke. These are people who are not libertarians, but they understand that the reactions to the virus are way overblown.
So in the last few weeks, many libertarians I know have moved away from libertarianism, while many non-libertarians I know have moved slightly towards libertarianism, at least as far as not trusting the government.
I actually heard some libertarians defending the hysteria because in this case, it was expert epidemiologists who were warning of a severe pandemic. But how is this any different than climate scientists saying we will get global warming or flooding or whatever bad thing will happen?
The problem is that the people we are told are the experts are the people handpicked by the establishment and their media. There are epidemiologists who think this virus is way overblown, but you have to find them on the internet. You won’t likely see them on ABC news or CNN.
You can always find an expert in something to tell you what you want to hear. This is especially true in government when there is money and political power involved.
It has been sad to see some libertarians fall for this hoax. I am not saying the virus itself is a hoax, but the media and government hysteria is a hoax. It allowed the politicians to do things that were almost unimaginable 6 weeks ago.
There is going to be great economic carnage from this whole thing. If the government stays out of the way (relatively speaking), then we should still be able to buy toilet paper and food. Thank goodness that our grocery stores are not run like our medical care system.
The federal government and the Federal Reserve are being reckless now and will make things very bad. But I am optimistic that the government will lose legitimacy over this whole thing. There are many people seeing through the propaganda. It is easier to see through when you are unemployed because of the propaganda.
Our living standards are going to suffer, but I hope we can come out of the other side of this with more liberty, as more people see that they can’t trust the government, and they can’t depend on the government.
I think it is incredibly damaging to the libertarian movement to cheer Trump on at all, even when he does something seemingly good. He is such a remarkably disgusting and ignorant human being, and if he does something good it very likely is not the result of his thoughtful consideration.
And I’ve lost a lot of respect for a lot of libertarians during this pandemic. There has been such little humility from the start. Scientists who spend their lives studying these virus and the associated epidemiology were warning us very early on that this virus was new and not well understood and could potentially result is a significant number of deaths. It had just jumped from animals to humans so we lacked immunity as a population, there is no vaccine yet, the fatality rate was not known (and still isn’t), the transmissibility was unknown, the length a person who has had it stays immune is unknown, etc.
So many on the belligerent, Trump fueled, right (who many libertarians were more than happy to associate themselves with) were calling it a hoax and downplaying it. Pointing out that there were zero death in the US in February (which is like pointing out that there are no casualties from a war, an hour after they were deployed). Then comparing it to the flu which is a very different (and better understood) virus with a vaccine. In two months the death toll from Covid-19 had surpassed the death toll from the flu for the past year. And there is still a lot we don’t know about this virus, yet people with no background in this type of thing continue to make claims despite their initial claims being devastatingly wrong. I for one am ashamed to be associated with these people.
I have been personally affected in many ways. I have lost loved ones and friends to this, and for people to call it a hoax and not take it seriously is incredibly callous.
In Michigan there were people protesting the governor’s lock-down. They were coming from all over the state and congregating within close proximity. Their actions put a lot of people at risk and could potentially lead to a resurgence of deaths. They did a massive disservice to their cause. I am an anarchist, and envision a world without politicians, but sometimes the government enforcement coincides with what free people ought to be doing (the state enforces us to stop at red lights. It’s in general, a good idea to abide by this law even if you don’t respect the state).
It is not just hand picked experts making outrageous claims. The claims you refer to as a hoax by these experts has mostly been correct with obvious errors on the conservative side because there is a lot unknown. My wife is a scientist in the field of biology, my friends are doctors and nurses and healthcare providers all of the country. I hear first-hand accounts of what’s happening and have people to explain the complexity of this pandemic.
The most blatant misinformation I’ve seen being spread has been coming from my libertarian cohort. Posting videos of empty hospitals claiming there are hardly and cases, claiming this was bio-warfare initiated by Chine, or that it is caused by 5G networks — things have been definitively debunked.
Yes, there are economic impacts. But there are economic impacts to allowing a pandemic to spiral out of control. Physical distancing has slowed the transmission, effectively averting catastrophic demands on hospitals (barely in some cases around me where some hospitals were at capacity and people where dying in the halls). If we end these precautions too soon, we could see another spike. Many economists acknowledge that the economic impact of allowing this to happen would eclipse the impact due to closing/slowing the economy to prevent it.
And if you think I’m a paid good for some liberal liberal organization, please feel free to email me. I’ll send you my phone number and I’d be happy to chat.