As I write this, there are only five days left until November 3, 2020, which is the final day of voting for the election.  It is hard to call it Election Day since likely more than half of the people who will vote have already voted.  It is more like Election Month now.

I still have no idea who will win the presidential election.  I am not even sure who I am voting for.  Actually, I probably won’t be voting “for” anybody unless I write in a name.  If I vote for Trump or Jo Jorgensen, it would be more of a vote against the establishment than a vote for either of the candidates.

The polling tells us that Biden should win.  But the polling was terribly wrong in 2016.  People who mildly favor Trump, or who really dislike Biden and will vote for Trump, are not people who generally want to announce to the world that they are marking their ballot for Trump.  They certainly don’t want to say it on Facebook and receive the wrath of the their “friends”.  They may not want to tell someone taking a poll either.

There will likely be record turnout in this election.  It’s hard to believe that Trump vs. Biden could bring out more passion than Trump vs. Clinton.  It isn’t really Trump vs. Biden though.  It is Trump vs. the establishment.

I say this knowing well that Trump has surrounded himself by a bunch of establishment people. And Trump himself has mostly supported establishment policies, except that he hasn’t started any new major wars in his four years.

But the establishment absolutely hates Trump because he is a threat to their power.  Trump occasionally tells the truth about important matters, which the establishment hates.  Trump does not fall in line and obey like any president is supposed to do with the major issues.  This is especially problematic for the establishment when it comes to foreign policy.

The tens of millions of Americans who hate Trump and will vote against him by voting for Biden do not hate Trump for the same reasons as the establishment.  Most Americans who hate him, hate him because he is brash.  He doesn’t always speak in niceties the way a typical politician does.  Trump is just supposed to say that he cares about the children and loves puppies.  These people also hate him because they have a caricature of him that has been created by the establishment media.  Sure, Trump creates some of this himself, but anyone who mostly just listens to and reads the establishment media will likely hate Trump because almost every story portrays Trump as a bad guy.

The average Trump hater thinks Trump is a bully.  They think he is some kind of racist.  They dislike him for saying mean things on Twitter. This is not why the establishment hates him.  The establishment figures will accuse him of being a bully and a racist and anything else that portrays Trump in a bad light.  But they hate Trump because he is a disruption to their power.  Trump helps to shine a light on the corrupt establishment and the depth of the power.  Sometimes he does so inadvertently, but he does so nonetheless.  Sometimes the establishment exposes itself by overplaying their hand.

The Republican Anti Establishment

There are people inside the Republican Party, and even some outside the party, who whole-heartedly support Trump.  This doesn’t mean that they think he is perfect.  It doesn’t mean that they think he doesn’t have numerous flaws.  But they see Trump as the right person at the right time to do what nobody else has been able to do.

To be sure, Trump is not a typical Republican.  His foreign policy views have somewhat changed many Republicans’ thoughts on the issue.  In my view, it is for the better.

Trump is not a fiscal conservative.  Of course, almost nobody is once they are in office.  But Trump is not generally good on economics.  He has been decent in terms of reducing some regulatory burdens and reducing corporate income taxes.  He is a disaster when it comes to tariffs and overall government spending.

When Trump ran for the Republican nomination in 2015 and 2016, he was far from the best candidate for fiscally conservative Republicans.  Ted Cruz was better.  Rand Paul was better.  You could make an argument that someone like Marco Rubio would have been better.

But that is not the primary issue.  Republican voters were tired of politicians.  They were tired of Republican politicians without a backbone. They were tired of being told one thing and then getting another once the person got in office.  In many ways, they were right.

The reason Trump got the nomination is because he is a fighter.  He is an alpha male.  He won’t back down from a fight.  This is what many Republican voters wanted.  They trust Trump to take on the establishment and its media. The Republican voters were fed up with the Bushes and Romneys of the world.

There is great enthusiasm for Trump from his supporters.  There may be even more now than in 2016, but there is also greater hatred from the other side than in 2016.

Trump has been holding multiple rallies every day.  When you look at the size of the crowds, it is amazing.  He is getting tens of thousands of people at these rallies.  He is basically speaking in front of the equivalent of a football stadium audience (when stadiums were full) every day, especially when he does two or three rallies in a single day.  This is the live audience.  It doesn’t count how many people see some of it on television.

If Trump loses, there are tens of millions of people in the United States who will have lost their voice.  But these people won’t change any of their views.  They will still exist, even though I’m sure the powers-that-be would love to send them all to a reeducation camp of some sort.

Where will these people go for an outlet?  Who will be their voice?

If Trump does lose the election (legitimately or not), I think Trump still stays as the effective leader of the Republican Party, or at least the leader of a major faction of the Republican Party that has come to despise the establishment.

I have no idea who will run in 2024.  But until then, and maybe beyond, I think Trump remains the leader in many ways.  He will keep on using Twitter as long as he is allowed.  If he is kicked off the platform, he will use an alternative.

Mike Pence will not take over as a leader.  He is a politician.  Most Trump supporters know this.  Pence does not rock the boat.  He’ll do his best to defend Trump to appear to be a team player.  But he is an establishment guy who happens to be a little better on economics.  He will not fight the establishment the way Trump has.

There are no other major politicians who will do this either.  Even someone like Rand Paul will not do it.  There is a reason that Trump easily beat out Rand Paul in 2016 in the Republican primaries.  Rand Paul is not an alpha male like Trump.  Rand Paul also shows signs of wavering in his principles, unlike his father.  Paul has been much better since the 2016 primaries, but he still plays ball with the establishment up to a certain point.  Again, so does Trump, but his rhetoric is abrasive and largely anti establishment.

The anti establishment faction wants a fighter.  That is what it takes to take on the powerful interests in the swamp.  I don’t think Trump has drained the swamp, but he is shined a bright light on it.  We can see better just how thick the swamp is.

There is only one other person right now who can be seen as a major voice for the anti establishment people.  That is Tucker Carlson of Fox News.  It is amazing that Carlson has been allowed to stay on the air, especially in the primetime spot.  His ratings are far superior to any other political show on cable television.

Carlson speaks against the establishment.  He is a fighter.  He is extremely effective with his rhetoric.  I don’t agree with everything he says, but he is persuasive with his monologues and his interviews.  He will cover stories that nobody else in television media dare to touch.

I doubt that Tucker Carlson will run for political office.  I don’t want him to run.  He is far more effective doing what he does every night Monday through Friday.  The anti establishment people need a voice.  If Trump loses the election, they will really need an outlet.  I believe that Trump remains the voice for these people, but Carlson is not far behind.  These are the only two people I can think of.

I don’t know what Republican voters will do in 2024, assuming that Trump or Carlson is not running for president.  The Republican voters will never have this kind of enthusiasm for anyone else. They can more easily spot a fake politician – which is most of them – now that they have seen Trump.

If the nominee in 2024 is Mike Pence or Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz or some governor we have barely heard of, then many will relent and support the person as the lesser of two evils, especially if Kamala Harris is the other evil.  But there won’t be rallies with tens of thousands of people. There won’t be enthusiasm. Of course, there won’t be the anti Trump enthusiasm either.

It is important to recognize that there will be 60 million or more people who vote for Trump. If he loses, these people still exist, and they will want a voice.  If Biden loses, all of the anti Trump people still have a voice.  They have many voices.  It is the entirety of the establishment media, of politicians, of celebrities, of corporate executives, and the entire culture on display.

This is why it is tempting for me to vote for Trump, even though I disagree with many of his policies.  I hate everything that the establishment represents.  I hate the lying, the corruption, and the criminality.  I hate the political control and the brainwashing.

Trump is so imperfect in so many ways, yet he has managed to do what nobody else could.  He has exposed the establishment for the world to see for anyone who cares to look just a little bit with a clear head.

If Trump loses, he is not going away.  What he has done is not going away.  He is not exactly Obi-Wan Kenobi, but if you strike him down, the force may get stronger.  The tens of thousands of people attending his rallies every day will see Trump get struck down.  They have been watching it for over four years.  They hate the establishment more today than the day Trump was elected in 2016.  If Trump loses, the anti establishment people may or may not go into hiding, but I think they will only get stronger.

Stocks fell hard on Monday, October 26, 2020, just a week before the election.  The Dow was down 650 points, while the S&P was down nearly 2%.

There were several things attributed to the decline.  There is a question of whether there will be a “stimulus” deal. Interest rates have ticked higher. And there are reports about a spike in coronavirus cases.

It is no surprise the media is playing up that last item.  With just a week until the election, the powers-that-be want to make our lives seem as miserable as possible.

The truth is that nobody really knows what drives stock prices down (or up) on any given day except that buyers and sellers are meeting at a price below what the price had been the day before.

There are a lot of theories out there about what will happen with the stock market based on the election results.  A lot of the pro Trump people think that stocks will tank if Trump loses.  The anti Trump people aren’t necessarily saying that stocks will tank if Trump wins because they would generally rather not talk about the stock market.

I do think Biden had the right response in the last debate when Trump was touting the stock market. Sure, 401k accounts have gone up, but that really doesn’t help most people.  It certainly doesn’t help most people in the short run.  The people on so-called Main Street are more worried about their jobs than their stock portfolio, especially since most of them don’t have a stock portfolio.

Of course, it is the policies that Biden advocates that have caused much of the wreckage, particularly in regard to the lockdowns.

Anyway, I am not sure that the election results are going to matter much one way or another with regard to the stock market.  It could easily crash after the election, but it could just as easily happen over the coming week.

There is more free market rhetoric that comes out the mouths of Republicans.  But when it comes to policy, it doesn’t seem to matter that much.  We still get massive spending, massive debt, and massive monetary inflation.

It might hurt stocks a bit if corporate taxes go back up under Biden.  But Biden hasn’t been talking much about corporate tax rates. He talks more about marginal tax rates on high-income earners.

And even here, little changes have not seemed to matter over the years.  Taxes went up under Bill Clinton, but stocks mostly boomed. Now, part of this was a bubble that eventually popped, but I think most libertarians would agree that we were much better off economically in the 1990s than we are today.  That was the last time there was some fiscal sanity. The Republican-controlled Congress and the Clinton White House seemed to keep each other in check, and we almost had an actual balanced budget.

There is one thing that the stock investors don’t like.  That is uncertainty.  And there is plenty of uncertainty in the year 2020, and there is a lot of uncertainty with regard to the election.

The best short-term result for stock bulls is that there is a landslide either way.

Still, there are problems even here.  If Biden wins easily, there will still be questions about how he will govern. If all of Congress goes to a Democratic majority, I think this could really be seen as a threat for investors.

If Trump wins easily, then you have the threat of rioting and continued attempts by the establishment to make our lives as miserable as possible.  They will want to make sure that those tens of millions of Trump supporters pay a dear price.

Then there is the possibility that the election draws out in a contested legal battle.  What happens if nobody is willing to concede? What happens if there is no end in sight and there is talk of Nancy Pelosi becoming president in January?

This would spook the market more than anything.  There would be great instability.

No matter what happens, I still believe that stocks are in a massive bubble.  I thought it was the end of the bubble in March, but I somehow underestimated the power of massive Fed inflation.  I also underestimated the power of major stimulus and unemployment checks coming from the federal government.

I expect it will be a roller coaster ride from here.  It could be a great benefit for day traders who go in and out of the market quickly.  There will be a lot of volatility.

If Biden wins and stocks go down, don’t count on that becoming a permanent trend.  It’s possible it will just because it would have happened anyway, but uncertainty doesn’t typically last long when it comes to new presidents.

If you remember back to 2016, stock futures tumbled hard when it became evident that Trump was going to win the presidency.  Stocks opened the following day down, but it didn’t last long.  By the end of the week, most people realized that Trump was not going to be bad for stocks, or at least not any worse than a Hillary Clinton presidency would have.

So while I expect extra volatility due to the elections, I don’t expect the presidential election to be a long-term factor.  There are so many variables right now, don’t even bother trying to guess what will happen.  Again, this will only be good for day traders.

The final presidential debate of 2020 is done.  Prior to the debate, probably something around one-third of voters already voted. And a large majority of people who haven’t voted who watched the debate, most likely won’t change their mind.

But there is always that small fraction of voters who have yet to make up their mind.  And the choice doesn’t have to be “vote for Trump” or “vote for Biden”.

In my case, I haven’t fully decided.  I won’t vote for Joe Biden.  If I heard all of the right things from today to Election Day, then I could still possibly vote for Trump or Jo Jorgensen.  My most likely vote will be for “Other”.

There are so many areas where I disagree with Trump, but it is hard not to cheer for the guy because of his enemies.  The worst elements of society are his enemies, and there is a reason for that. They hate it when Trump tells the truth about certain things, and they hate it when Trump delegitimizes the establishment.  Trump is a threat to their power.  This includes the establishment media.

Overall, I thought both candidates performed well.  Biden stumbled over his words on more than one occasion, but he wasn’t a total train wreck.  I believe he flat-out lied several times, but it might not hurt him much because anyone who is undecided probably doesn’t know they were being lied to.

Trump did much better than the first debate.  The bad thing for Trump is that he started out shaky.  He was making some weird movements with his body in the first few minutes.  I have no idea what that was about.  And his first question was on the coronavirus, which I believe he handled poorly, at least at the beginning.  It got a lot better after that.  However, if there was someone who isn’t a political junkie who just turned in for the first five or ten minutes, they probably wouldn’t have been impressed with Trump.

The moderator somewhat exceeded my expectations, which isn’t saying much.  It was definitely a much better run debate than the last disaster with Chris Wallace.  Perhaps part of that is because the microphones could have been cut off during each candidate’s two minutes after the initial question.  Part of it is also that Trump just didn’t interrupt as much, which actually served him well.

There was one part early in the debate when Trump was talking about the coronavirus and opening up schools.  After Trump had finished, the “moderator” said something to the effect that young people can catch it and spread it.  But she then proceeded to ask Biden a question.  In other words, she was just interjecting to oppose Trump. A moderator should never counter a candidate’s point unless it is part of a follow-up question for that candidate.

Anyway, the rest of the debate wasn’t too bad.  Of course, she could have asked some more direct and stinging questions, but that is the case with most establishment media figures.

As I said, Trump didn’t start out well.  He was bad on the coronavirus when talking about a vaccine and blaming China.  He quickly got a lot stronger, as he talked about the cure being worse than the disease.

Biden was all over the place.  He said he didn’t want shutdowns and then immediately talked about closing bars and gyms in concerning areas.  I would hope that there are no bar owners or gym owners across America who would vote for Biden.

Biden actually had two libertarian moments in the debate, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

The elephant in the room is Hunter Biden and the emails from his laptop.  From a libertarian standpoint, the information is no shock.  They basically show that Joe Biden was skimming money from foreign countries by using his position.  His son was getting big payouts from foreign countries while funneling some of that money to Biden.

Joe Biden is a corrupt good old boy.  He is a politician.  He has done what most politicians do.  He was able to do a lot of it because he held such a high position of power.

I think the bigger story here is the media cover-up.  Most of the establishment media will barely cover the story.  And when it is covered, they just pretend like there is nothing there.  Or worse, they say that it is a plot by Iran and Russia.  It isn’t clear why Iran wants to see Donald Trump reelected.

I thought Trump did an ok job of addressing the subject.  The moderator asked one somewhat direct question on the topic, but it was easy for Biden to avoid

When pressed by Trump, Biden said that he hasn’t directly received any money from any foreign power ever.  This may have been a technical truth, but it is a lie.  In other words, Hunter Biden would receive money from foreign countries for favors done by his father.  Hunter would keep a bunch of the money, but also send some of it on to his father.  So Joe Biden didn’t technically receive money directly from a foreign power.  But he did receive money.

The problem with this topic in the debate is that most people who don’t support Trump have no idea what is going on.  I think Trump made a mistake in not getting to the very basics of the story. Trump should have directly asked Biden if it was Hunter’s laptop and if those emails are real.  Pin him down on a yes or no question.

The problem is that Biden was able to sidestep several times and even change the subject.  At one point, Biden somehow managed to turn the subject on to Trump’s taxes, and Trump actually bit on it.  Trump started defending his tax returns instead of sticking with the topic and going after the Biden corruption.

Biden said that Russia and Iran will pay a price for interfering with the election.  Biden actually mentioned Rudy Giuliani first, probably to preempt Trump attacking his dealings with Hunter Biden.  Trump was weak in his response and should have challenged the premise.

Trump talked about how he has been tough on Russia instead of initially calling the whole thing a hoax.  I don’t know if Trump understood the first time that Joe Biden was saying the Hunter email scandal was Russian interference.  It would have been a great time to ask for specifics.  “Are you saying that the computer repairman in Delaware where Hunter dropped off his laptop is a Russian spy?”  “How exactly did Russia get Hunter’s emails?”

It was later in the debate that Trump realized that Biden was accusing Russia of being involved in the laptop scandal.  He rhetorically asked if the laptop is a Russian hoax now, basically making fun of the notion.

Again though, I doubt that many anti Trump people even know what is being talked about.  If someone just watches the establishment media outlets, they probably barely knew anything about Hunter Biden’s laptop and the emails.  And for the few who were aware of the story at all, they were probably believing that somehow it was Russian and Iranian interference.

It’s just ridiculous. Whenever Biden talked about the subject, he was either trying to change the subject, or he was lying about it, or he was avoiding the question.  This is no surprise because how could he answer it truthfully and not look bad? Even though we all know it goes on in Washington DC, what Joe Biden and his son were doing were criminal acts.

Anyway, there were two somewhat libertarian moments that Biden had.  They showed Biden’s hypocrisy, but I see it as positive that he said these things.

First, there was a moment when Trump was talking about China and this was in reference to the impacts of his tariffs.  He said something to the effect of “I just gave 28 billion dollars to our farmers.”  Joe Biden said, “taxpayers” or “taxpayer”.  In other words, what Biden was saying is that Trump didn’t give anything to farmers.  It came from the taxpayers.  This is an elementary libertarian point that can be used on every subject dealing with government spending.  It was a good Biden moment from my perspective, but of course, Biden doesn’t say the same thing when it comes to almost anything else.

The second libertarian moment for Biden was when he said that nobody should go to jail for a drug problem.  Now I don’t believe Biden when he says this, and it is counter to nearly everything he has stood for in the past.  I mean, maybe he has changed his mind because of his son’s drug problem, but I highly doubt that’s it.  Most politicians would be happy to throw away people in jail for an offense in which their own family is exempt.

I believe Biden said this because it is a more popular position than it was in the past. Even in 2008 when Ron Paul was running for president on the Republican ticket, he would say that he opposed the federal war on drugs when asked.  He was mostly ridiculed.  In 2020, it is considered to be a quite reasonable position to say that nobody with a drug problem should go to jail just for the issue of drugs.

Libertarians see negatives everywhere, and to be sure, there are a lot of negatives to be seen. But let’s acknowledge that in the year 2020, Biden said that nobody should go to jail for a drug problem and this is considered acceptable.  In fact, the candidates were trying to outdo each other with regard to criminal justice reform.  This is one area where libertarians should truly try to form alliances with others in destroying the political war on drugs.

My overall assessment from the debate is that Trump won.  I have no idea if it will be enough.  The polls say that Biden is way ahead in the race, and many people have already voted.  But we know how the polls went in 2016.

The rallies for Trump have been enormous.  He has a huge base of enthusiastic fans.  There are a lot of people voting “for” Trump.  There is barely anyone voting “for” Biden.  But half the country hates Trump, so they will vote against him in the form of marking the ballot in favor of Biden.

We are not going to know the results on Election Day. There is a decent chance we still won’t know the outcome the day after.  2020 has already been a wild ride.  I don’t expect the election to be any different.

Yes, you read that right.  In 2016, I actually made a libertarian case for Hillary Clinton.

To be clear, I am not voting for Joe Biden or supporting Joe Biden in any way.  I am not even hoping he wins because I have no idea what it will bring.

There are obviously numerous reasons to be against Joe Biden from a libertarian perspective, or even just a human being perspective.  He is corrupt.  He is embedded in the establishment.  He is creepy.  He is pro war.  He is a proponent of big government.

The number one reason to be against Joe Biden is Kamala Harris.  In terms of policy, she is everything he is and worse.  She is more pro war, and she is an even bigger proponent of big government.  And given Biden’s age and mental capabilities, a Biden presidency has a high degree of probability of turning into a Harris presidency.

But that’s enough about how bad Biden is.  The point of this piece is to make a possible libertarian case for Biden. How could that be, given what I just said?

First, I believe that the establishment has put the American people through the wringer on purpose for the last 4 years.  The year 2020 is the culmination of this with riots and coronavirus lockdowns and mask mandates.

Before 2020, the establishment and its media tried its hardest to get rid of Trump or delegitimize him as much as possible.  They also sought to divide the country and make people angry at each other. It was continual lies and falsehoods.  The biggest one was the Russia hoax pushed by the most vile people in existence.  When that wasn’t successful, they turned to Ukraine.  They impeached Trump over a phone call by accusing him of withholding foreign aid for political purposes.  In other words, the House Democrats impeached Trump over the very thing that Joe Biden admitted to doing on video.

So again, you are probably wondering how this is a case for Biden.  Well, my only hope is that removing Donald Trump would bring back some civility.  To be sure, it is more the anti Trump people who are not civil, but a Biden presidency could perhaps bring down the tensions.  It doesn’t make the 60 million or so people who vote for Trump go away, but there is at least a possibility of some civility.

I have had some Trump supporters get mad at me for saying this.  I said that if getting rid of Trump means that life can go back to somewhat normal (pre-March 2020), then I may favor Biden.  I believe that the hysteria over coronavirus and the subsequent lockdowns and mask mandates were push hard by the establishment to try to make our lives as miserable as possible until the election in November. It worked.

I have no idea what will happen if Biden wins.  He has said at times that he may favor a national mask mandate or national lockdown.  I doubt this would happen.  And good luck trying to enforce it even if the orders came.  I was in North Carolina in July when there was a statewide mask mandate and most people weren’t wearing a mask where I was in the mountains.  If the local sheriff wasn’t going to enforce it, the governor wasn’t going to go there to enforce it himself.  Biden certainly won’t be coming to my city to enforce a mask mandate.

In fact, if Biden did try such a thing, it would probably advance the cause of liberty greatly. We would see the ideas of decentralization and state nullification take hold.  As libertarians, this is really what we want.  We want it done peacefully, but ignoring federal orders sure does set a precedent for other things.

At the same time, I’ll say that if Trump wins the presidency again, I hope that states like California will consider secession or some form of decentralization.  We should all cheer this on.

Anyway, let’s get back to Biden.  If the coronavirus magically dies down after the November election after a Biden win, then I will celebrate to a certain degree.  I want to go to concerts again.  I want to go to sporting events.  I want to walk into the grocery store without feeling like I’m in a hospital.

Again, some Trump supporters hate me for saying this because it seems like I am giving in to the mob. But I’m not actually endorsing or voting for Biden.  I’m just saying that my life will be happier if Biden wins and, as a result, life somewhat goes back to the way it was.  It’s not my fault that the majority of people are so incredibly gullible that they listened to the words of the lying establishment media. Many of them are still being extremely gullible, and I can’t help that.  These people are making our lives miserable, and we should certainly fight it.  But again, if a Biden presidency makes it all go away, I think I favor that from a selfish point of view.

The other libertarian case for a Biden presidency is that the economy is in complete shambles. I know Trump won’t admit this, and he’ll blame what problems are evident on the coronavirus and the lockdowns. But the economy was a ticking time bomb anyway before the lockdowns.  It is just so much worse now with the lockdowns and the incredible levels of government spending and monetary inflation that have taken place just in 2020.

Trump has been mostly horrible in terms of economic policies.  He has been decent (comparatively speaking) with regard to some regulations and corporate taxes.  But he is a big spender, and the debt is completely out of control at this point.  There are going to be major problems over the next 4 years.

If Trump is president, we get to hear about how Trump’s capitalist policies are destroying the economy.  It will be false of course, but the same gullible people wearing masks everywhere they go will believe it.

If Biden is president, they will try to blame Trump for the recession, inflation, or whatever the problems are.  But after a year or so, that won’t stick.  Biden and the left will get more of the blame.  So if we’re going to have an economic mess on our hands, it seems better if the more socialist side gets the blame.

I know there is great fear over what Biden might do in reaction to a major economic depression, but we should have that fear no matter who is president.  Can it get much worse than trillions and trillions of dollars in new debt in a 6-month period?  Can it get much worse than $3 trillion added to the Fed’s balance sheet?  Maybe it can get worse, but it could get worse with a Trump presidency too.

Maybe the best situation is for Biden to lose the election but then be coronated as the winner through fraud.  I would rather that than the other way around.  I want a Biden presidency that is not seen as legitimate.

I actually don’t mind that people try to delegitimize the Trump presidency, except I don’t agree with lying about it, and I don’t agree with trying to do it by favoring the establishment.  I care more about delegitimizing the establishment.  That usually includes the presidency, but Trump is a different story. While Trump does many things that favor the establishment, he has a very adversarial relationship with the establishment, if in rhetoric only.

In conclusion, I am not cheering for Biden or supporting him in any way.  In fact, I will take some pleasure in watching the faces of the establishment hacks if Trump wins, just as I did in 2016.  However, no matter who wins or who takes office in January 2021, it isn’t going to be pretty.  The economy will still be bad no matter what.

There is a case that a Biden presidency could be more beneficial to the cause of liberty in the long run.  It isn’t a strong case, but it is hard to see how four more years of Trump is going to bring us closer to liberty unless we see California secede.

Trump has served his purpose in exposing the establishment – sometimes on purpose and sometimes inadvertently – for anyone who cares to see it.  I’m not sure what more he can do at this point, but I’m open to suggestions.

Back in early March of 2020, I was already questioning the narrative on the coronavirus.  I have 100% opposed all government measures pertaining to the virus or fear of the virus in terms of lockdowns, regulations, and mandates.  The only government actions I haven’t opposed are the reversing of original orders, such as removing government restrictions and lockdowns.

I was surprised how many Americans fell for the media-induced hysteria.  I was surprised how easily Americans gave up their liberty.  Property rights are a major part of liberty, and business owners in particular were deprived of their liberty if they were deemed “non-essential”.

I was even more surprised how many libertarians I know or know of who fell for the hysteria. I know of a few libertarians who bought into all of the hysteria and were (or still are) really fearful of the virus but didn’t favor government lockdowns.  But most self-identified libertarians who bought into the hysteria were willing to compromise their principles or showed they didn’t have a strong set of principles to begin with.

I have heard libertarian justifications for lockdowns, mask mandates, and other restrictions put on by government.  They say that someone with a virus is violating the non-aggression principle by infecting others.  There are many issues with this line of argument, especially when asymptomatic people are put in the category of potential aggressors.  It is also problematic that it is very hard to prove how someone became infected.

I believe the answer lies in liberty and property rights.  If you have strong property rights while government does not control most property, then it will be up to the property owner on how to handle the situation.

Here is the biggest problem with the “libertarian” argument that someone could potentially have a virus and as a spreader would be an aggressor.  The problem as with so many things is: Who gets to decide?

Why is the coronavirus considered so dangerous while the flu – at least in the past – was not considered to be really dangerous, at least relatively speaking?  What about the common cold?  Would someone with a cold be considered a violator of the non-aggression principle if the person left their house?  Who gets to determine what constitutes a major health danger and the threshold for becoming an aggressor?

This is really what separated most libertarians from the beginning.  Many have realized that the coronavirus is massive hysteria and that they were sold a bill of goods.  At the very least, some will admit that it was probably overblown and the reactions were overblown.

What has separated libertarians on this topic is in trusting “the science”.  The problem is that “the science”, as defined by the hysterics, is really the establishment-approved science.  They will quote Dr. Fauci and the so-called expert epidemiologists all day long.  But these are the “experts” paraded on television by the establishment media. There are a lot of scientists, including epidemiologists, who don’t agree with Fauci, and some of them think the coronavirus is no worse than a flu.  There are even a few who think it is less than the flu. Better yet, there are some who question everything we’ve been told about the virus.

I am not a scientist, but I question just about everything we’ve been told about it by the “experts”.  I really have no idea. I have read some people questioning whether there really is a new virus, saying that the virus everyone is talking about was never properly isolated.  This calls into question all of the testing, which even the so-called experts will admit can put out false positives.

What if the tests are just picking up any coronavirus and not COVID-19?  A certain percentage of people who are feeling sick will have a coronavirus, as has been the case in the past.

I showed an example of how, by today’s standards, we could have a pandemic for the sniffles.  If everyone who had a runny nose within 7 days of dying were deemed to have died of the sniffles, then we would get hundreds of thousands of deaths each year recorded as the sniffles.

There was obviously a spike in deaths in New York and New Jersey in April 2020.  Some of these could have been due to another virus spreading.  Some of them could have been due to people going to the hospital with anxiety or other problems and then drugged up and thrown on a ventilator to die.  Some of them could have died due to COVID-19. It’s possible it could be a combination of all three and more.

I really don’t know. What I do know is that we have been continually lied to by the “experts”.  Again, these so-called experts are the handpicked people by the establishment telling us what the establishment wants us to be told. It reminds me of what I have heard about climate change for the last decade or more.  I will hear that 97% of scientists agree that global warming or climate change is real.  This is based on the establishment’s own version of the question, and it involves mostly government-funded scientists.

Incidentally, this is one of the major problems when government is involved in anything. Many doctors are afraid to speak out because the government essentially owns them.  If the government pulls their license away, a doctor loses his or her livelihood.

I don’t trust the politicians, the government bureaucrats, the government-funded scientists, and the corporate media.  They are all part of the establishment.  These are some of the same people who told us there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  They told us Assad gassed his own people in Syria.  They told us that Putin and Russia hacked the election and colluded with Trump.  The list goes on and on.  If they will lie about things to get us into war, they will certainly lie about a virus.  Many of the exact same people who have lied us into war are now lying about the coronavirus.

I knew from the beginning that we were being lied to about the virus because I don’t trust anything of importance coming out these people’s mouths.  I saw from the very beginning that we were being misled with the statistics out of China.  The establishment media was quoting a death rate of 3 to 4 percent from those contracting the virus.  Some said it might be 2%.  It doesn’t take an expert statistician to realize that the 3 to 4 percent mortality rate was garbage because they were basing it on the sickest people who were being admitted to the hospital.  

On March 20, 2020, I wrote: “With the coronavirus, they are taking the number of people who tested positive for the virus against the number of people who have died from it.  Therefore, the mortality rate seems higher, but it isn’t a valid comparison.  They are largely testing people who are the worst off.  There will be many people who had the coronavirus who never got tested.”

Couldn’t this have been easily pointed out by Fauci and his minions and the establishment media?

(By the way, if there is one thing I got really wrong at the beginning of March, it is that I thought stocks were going to get hammered and not recover any time soon.  I underestimated the Fed’s massive monetary inflation and its impact, but that has nothing to do with believing the establishment or libertarian principles.)

Here is another thing to pay attention to, even now.  How many times have you been told that it is important to wash your hands, social distance, wear a mask, etc.?  How many times have you been told you should get a flu shot?  How many times have you been told that we need a coronavirus vaccine?  How many times have you heard that contact tracing is a key to stopping the spread?

On the first question in particular, if you have a television, you have probably heard some variation of “wash your hands, social distance, wear a mask” hundreds of times.

Now let me ask you this question.  Not including alternative websites, how often have you heard from the media on what to do if you do contract the coronavirus?

I have rarely heard anything from the establishment media on steps to take if one becomes ill and tests positive for the coronavirus.  I hear that you should stay quarantined or go to the hospital, but how should you actually treat yourself?

Even with the preventative measures “wash your hands, social distance, wear a mask”, there is rarely mention of vitamins, supplements, and just living healthy.  I have only occasionally heard about vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc, and other things to take for preventative measures or for actually treating the coronavirus.

I think this in itself says a lot about what’s going on.  Why do we hear constantly about wearing a mask and getting a vaccine, yet we rarely, if ever, hear about how to treat the virus at home?  If many millions of Americans have already gotten the virus, and supposedly hundreds of thousands have died, don’t you think there would be a little advice on how to handle it if you do get sick?

I can only speculate that this is why a few hospitals become crowded when the number of cases spike in a particular area.  Someone who got flu symptoms in the past would have likely just stayed in bed, drank chicken soup, and recovered.  Now, if someone gets the flu and watches and believes the news, they are far more likely to go to the hospital.  They don’t know what else to do.

The world has been duped.  The same liars who lie to us about war and anything else of importance have also been lying about the coronavirus since at least March.  Libertarians, of all people, should know this.

I don’t have to know everything about the coronavirus.  Nobody else does either.  What I do know is that there are people in this world who are evil and will exploit human ignorance for their own gain in power.

You should never trust “the experts”, especially when it involves power.  Any time a crisis gives the possibility of more power (i.e., legalized violence) to politicians and bureaucrats, then the crisis itself should be questioned.  In a real crisis, the answer is peace and liberty, not handing over more power to others to rule over us.

There has been nothing mundane about the year 2020.  Maybe not everyone sees it this way.  I have heard of people just sitting inside their apartment for many months because there’s not much open or because they are terrified of a virus.

My life has carried on somewhat normally, but I am past the stage of my life where I go out to bars or bowling or any number of things.  I didn’t even go to movies much.  The things that changed for me in 2020 were working from home regularly, not eating a dinner out on the weekends, and my kids not having as much in the way of activities.  I am still working at home, but we do go out to dinner about once every other week, and my kids’ activities have somewhat picked up.

It hasn’t been a boring year though.  It has been devastating for many.  It has been sad and depressing for people who are lonely and in need of interaction.  It has been a lot of things, but boring doesn’t describe it for me.  I never would have thought back in February that I would feel like I’m walking in a hospital when I go to the grocery store.  I never would have thought that the American people would so easily roll over to the dictates of governors and mayors shutting down businesses.

Anyway, here we are. I don’t think there is much controversy in saying that we are in a recession or we had a recession in 2020. But it really is a recession like no other.

First, the recession itself isn’t really the story, or at least it isn’t the one getting the headlines.  We’ll see headlines all over the place about COVID deaths or hospitalizations, yet we don’t see tickers of the number of businesses closed down that are never coming back.

Second, this recession is marked by a boom in the stock market.  There was a scary drop in March and April for stock investors, but stocks have mostly boomed since then.  The Nasdaq in particular blew past its all-time highs in the face of a major recession.

Who would have guessed that the Fed would expand its balance sheet by nearly $3 trillion over the course of just a few months?  I knew the Fed would be aggressive in the next recession, but it really is amazing the unprecedented actions taken.

While I am happy there is still some federalism left, it isn’t enough.  The governors and mayors locked things down, but the financial burdens didn’t fall on them.  The local and state governments haven’t officially been bailed out, but they really have.  The federal government passed a $2 trillion bill for business bailouts, unemployment checks, and stimulus checks.

If we had a strong federalist system, none of that would have happened.  Why should the taxpayers of South Dakota (where there was no state lockdown) have to pay for failed businesses in New York where the lockdowns and restrictions have been steep?  The governors and mayors should be held responsible by their own constituents for these decisions.

A Recession Anyway

One of the really frustrating things for me – and there are many – is that the Fed and the federal government aren’t taking the blame for this recession.  Instead, we hear it was the fault of the coronavirus. The more astute may say that it was the fault of the lockdowns in response to the coronavirus.

While the lockdowns certainly brought on the recession quickly, I believe that one was going to happen anyway in 2020, but I guess we’ll never know.

If you remember all the way back to boring 2019, the Fed was having to step in to save the repo market from spiking interest rates.  We also saw an inverted yield curve as measured by the 10-year yield vs. the 3-month yield.  This has been an accurate predictor of recessions, and I guess we could say it was again. But we’ll never know for sure if we would be in a recession right now if there had been no coronavirus fear and lockdowns.

This is what is particularly alarming about our economic state now.  We were already set up for a recession, and lockdowns across the country were added to that equation.  Now we have trillions of more in debt and a further ballooning of the Fed’s balance sheet.

I believe there is still major trouble ahead.  But it is impossible to predict how this will all unfold.  There are even more variables now than before with so much power given to politicians at all levels.  Will the ultra easy money delay more economic recession in the year to come?

There are tens of millions of Americans struggling financially.  This includes hundreds of thousands of business owners and millions of people who have lost their job.  There are also a lot of people with reduced hours and reduced pay.  Meanwhile, prices are going higher with all of the Fed’s inflation.

If Trump loses the election or is forced out in January 2021, then Biden (or maybe Harris) becomes president.  While that isn’t comforting, there could be a benefit to a Biden presidency when the economic manure hits the fan.  I’m sure the establishment media will still be blaming Trump, but it will fall on Biden.  It makes it harder to blame capitalism, even though we don’t have anything close to free markets now.

We’ll never know if a recession would have happened anyway in 2020.  But what we do know is that we are in much worse shape now than we were a year ago.  Americans should prepare for a reduced standard of living.  There will be exceptions.  There always are.  But the vast majority of people are going to see major economic turmoil still to come.

Imagine we are in the year 2025.  It is announced that a new virus strain has seemingly been discovered.  It is a form of the sniffles.  It is a novel sniffles.  Sometimes it is called Sniffles-25.

The primary symptom of the sniffles is a runny nose.  Most people have to use a tissue to wipe their nose unless they use their sleeve.  Some people who are getting sick with the sniffles show signs of other symptoms, which can include tiredness, headache, upset stomach, and lethargy.  But a runny nose is the primary and common symptom amongst people with the novel sniffles.

If anyone gets the novel sniffles and goes to the hospital, the hospital will get reimbursed a greater amount if certain equipment is used.  If the person with the sniffles dies, then the hospital gets even more.  So it is important for the hospital to document whether a patient had a runny nose when entering the hospital.

There are still about 325 million people living in the United States at this time, and almost 3 million people die every year of various causes.  We’ll say that 2.8 million people die every year.

About 8 percent of the population currently has a runny nose or has experienced a runny nose in the last 7 days.  Anyone who has used a tissue to wipe their nose in the last 7 days is assumed to have Sniffles-25.

Anyone who dies who has used a tissue to wipe their nose in the last 7 days is listed as Sniffles-25 positive, and the death certificate should identify this.

The 8 percent of the population who have been deemed to have Sniffles-25 within the last week are spread out somewhat randomly.  It impacts all ages of people.

There are 2.8 million deaths every year in the country, and about 8 percent of them have a runny nose within a week of dying.  Therefore, by the end of the year 2025, it could be said that 224,000 people died with the sniffles.  This includes someone who is 95 years old with cancer, and it includes someone who dies in a motorcycle crash.

But when the media reports these deaths, they accidentally change one word.  Instead of saying “with”, they say “of”.  Therefore, it is reported that 224,000 people died in the year 2025 of the sniffles.

It gets a lot of people scared.  People who get the sniffles and start experiencing other symptoms like headache or tiredness feel that they need professional help and will often go to the hospital for treatment.  Fear of the sniffles has managed to shut down the economy and have nearly everyone walking around with a mask on.  If you have to wipe your nose, you had better seek some privacy so as not to alarm other people.

This was the year 2025 with the novel strain of the sniffles.  While people had experienced runny noses before, there was never anything like this.  But by the end of the year, there were millions of people walking around saying that the sniffles had killed well over 200,000 Americans.

**************

This is not a claim that COVID-19 is the sniffles.  This is not a claim that COVID-19 cannot be dangerous to anyone. This is not a claim that nobody should take COVID-19 seriously.  This is not a claim that nobody has died of COVID-19 as a contributing factor.  These are different discussions.

It is a claim that you should be careful in citing that over 200,000 Americans have died “of” COVID-19.

Mike Pence vs. Kamala Harris was not as entertaining as Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden.  Most people were disgusted with the political theater of Trump vs. Biden, or at least they claimed to be.  I’ll admit I enjoyed it.  I have low expectations of these people anyway, so it may as well be entertaining.

After watching the vice presidential debate, I have confirmed that I prefer Trump over Pence, and I prefer Biden over Harris.  Actually, I already thought this, but it was easily confirmed after the debate.

Biden is part of the good old boys club.  He is corrupt and part of the establishment.  He is easily molded, which could be seen as good or bad.  I don’t see Biden as more of a threat than any other politician belonging to the establishment.

Kamala Harris is far scarier.  I can tell she is a nasty person like Hillary Clinton.  She holds just about all of the worst positions.  She is evil, and her stance on issues is evil.

This was yet another debate without talk of foreign policy.  There was a little discussion about China, but it was mostly about tariffs and the coronavirus.  There were a couple of mentions of Russia, but more on that little item later.

Harris did not get to show off how much of a war hawk she is.  She talked about how many different groups of people were supporting the Biden/ Harris (or is that Harris/ Biden?) ticket.  She said 7 members of the George W. Bush cabinet are supporting their campaign.  In other words, the establishment war hawks who hate Trump are supporting their campaign.

Harris is really scary on all of the issues.  The good news is that she isn’t likeable.  She is condescending at her best.  Mike Pence tried to play it different from Trump.  Pence was more conciliatory and sometimes overly nice.  Harris was an attack dog who couldn’t say a nice thing.  Almost all of her jabs were directed specifically to Trump.

There were a couple of times where Pence interrupted, but it wasn’t frequent.  As soon as he did, Harris had to condescendingly berate Pence about how she is talking.  It was easy to see why she was such a failure in the Democratic primaries.

Harris avoided directly answering many questions.  When asked about a national mask mandate and national lockdowns, she avoided answering.  Instead, she talked about contact tracing and vaccines.  In Kamala Harris world, this means more government spying and forced injections.

Pence was not particularly good talking about the coronavirus.  He kept talking about a vaccine.  He is a bit more polished than Trump, but he is so much more boring.  He is there to play it safe.  You don’t get the cold hard truth from Pence like you sometimes get from Trump.

This was probably the most frustrating aspect and the main reason why I am not fond of Pence. He is an establishment guy, and he sounds like an establishment guy.  He isn’t Trump or anything close.  He didn’t go after Harris hard enough, and Trump and Pence should know that they aren’t going to get much help from debate moderators.

This moderator was an improvement over Chris Wallace, which isn’t saying much.  She didn’t have as many problems to deal with.  But it was annoying when Pence would go over his time.  She would keep saying, “Thank you Vice President.  Thank you Vice President.”

I know he was going over his time, but can you say it once and let him finish?  Do you have to keep interrupting every 3 seconds?

I used to laugh when they would have these lights at debates that would change colors when the candidate was getting close to the time limit.  I can see now why they may have been somewhat effective.

Anyway, the moderator didn’t ask any really tough questions, especially of Harris.  That is my biggest criticism.  That is why it is up to Trump and Pence to ask the tough questions.

There was one question that the moderator definitely didn’t ask.  Pence had a great opportunity to bring it up, but mostly fumbled it.

Harris actually started, on her own, talking about Trump cozying up to Russia.  She was revisiting the whole Russia hoax. Just the other day, there was a document declassified (but heavily redacted) that showed John Brennan’s handwritten notes from when he was head of the CIA.  He says in his notes that he informed Obama about how Hillary Clinton was going to push the Russia narrative against Trump.

Maybe this is what Trump was talking about at the last debate when he said they had Obama and all of them caught.  But it has received almost no media coverage (surprise, surprise).

Here is really strong evidence that the whole Russia narrative was a hoax.  It was pushed by Clinton, Obama, Brennan, Comey, and the other criminals.  Yet, when Harris brings up Russia, Pence didn’t say a thing.  He did mention something in reference to it near the end of the debate, but it was not specific and most people probably didn’t know what he was talking about for the few who were still watching.  I can only hope Trump keeps talking about it at the next presidential debate.

Overall, I thought they were both terrible.  Pence is polished but boring.  Harris is unlikeable.  And like Biden, she couldn’t directly answer a question about packing the court.  I think Pence and Harris are both losers, but Harris is the bigger loser.  Unfortunately, despite her horrible qualities, she actually has a pretty good chance of becoming president of the United States because many people hate Trump and Biden is old and controlled.

This is a popular theme you will hear from third-party campaigns and supporters.  I was involved in Libertarian Party politics in the past, so I know it well.  When there was an election with a Libertarian Party candidate running, it was frequently said that one shouldn’t vote for the lesser of two evils.

In other words, you don’t have to vote for the Democrat or Republican.  They are both evil, so you shouldn’t support evil.

I suppose this line of thinking presents a problem if you don’t agree with everything the Libertarian stands for.  I hear it now with Jo Jorgensen running for president on the Libertarian Party ticket.  I hear that you shouldn’t vote for the lesser of two evils (Trump or Biden).  The problem is that I don’t fully support Jorgensen and everything she says.  So really, she may just be the lesser (the least) of the three evils.

We are confronted with the question of why you shouldn’t support the lesser of two evils, but you should support the lesser of three evils.

When it comes to advocating policies, I find it easy to be a libertarian.  I can just follow the Libertarian Party pledge.  I don’t advocate the initiation of force for political or social goals.

Sure, there are gray areas.  Sometimes it isn’t always clear what constitutes force, or what constitutes initiating it. But it is a general principle that can keep one from going astray on any particular issue.

It can be tough to take a libertarian stance on certain pieces of legislation.  For example, if there is a proposal that would cut two different taxes but raise one other tax at the same time, should a libertarian support it?  It would lead to a net decrease in taxation, but one piece of it would mean higher taxes.

Of course, whether a libertarian chooses to support the proposed legislation, he or she should make it clear that they support the part of lowering taxes and do not support the piece that raises taxes.

When it comes to voting, it becomes really difficult as a libertarian.  How much should a candidate be in line with your philosophy?  Does it make sense to vote for the lesser of two (or more) evils?

Governor Lockdowns

I live in the state of Florida.  I was mad back in April when the governor, Ron DeSantis, issued lockdown orders for the state. I was calling him Dictator DeSantis.  I spoke similarly of the mayor of my city, and I still do.

But DeSantis has changed his tune enormously over the last several months.  He just fully reopened Florida, although there are still some restrictions from local city or county governments.

DeSantis has been quite good on the issue of lockdowns and mask mandates coming from the government, at least compared to most other governors in the United States.  I would probably give the top prize to Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota.  But considering Florida is a very populous state with a wide range of people, I feel lucky that Florida is relatively better off in terms of government restrictions for a virus.

Florida has a broad demographic of people.  But if anything, there are a disproportionate number of older people, who are supposedly at much higher risk from the virus.  That makes it that much more astounding that DeSantis was able – politically speaking – to fully reopen things ahead of most other states.

DeSantis just barely won the election in 2018.  He barely beat out a corrupt “progressive” (i.e., a socialist) who almost surely would have heavily locked things down on his own dictatorial orders for a long period of time.

Don’t get me wrong here.  These dictatorial powers have been allowed by the consent of the people.  If most people didn’t consent to mask mandates and the shutting down of businesses, then even the hardcore leftwing governors wouldn’t be able to get away with these edicts.

When there are a lot of mixed opinions out there, as we have now, it does provide some latitude for governors and mayors.  DeSantis could have just as easily kept things somewhat locked down.  He would have had some pushback from his more conservative base, but that hasn’t stopped some other Republican governors in other states.

I did not vote for DeSantis in 2018.  In some ways, I feel a little bad that I didn’t, although I certainly couldn’t have known what would happen in the year 2020.  If you had asked me back in April, I would have criticized DeSantis heavily, saying that he is no different than all of the other bad politicians.

While voting for DeSantis would have been voting for the lesser of two evils, he really is less evil than the person who lost.  I am grateful that DeSantis is governor over some socialist who would be cracking skulls right now for not masking up or for trying to open up a business.

Stating Principles

I don’t know if this will change the way I vote in the future.  I have voted for what I thought before was the lesser of two evils, and the person turned out to be far more evil than I thought.  It is not an easy subject for a libertarian.

There is one thing that is really important, and I think this is the key for any libertarian. If you decide to vote for the lesser of two evils, make sure you make it clear what you want.

For example, you could say, “I support Governor Candidate A because he wants to lower income taxes by 10%.  I want to lower income taxes to zero, but I will tentatively support Governor Candidate A because it is a step in the right direction.”  (Luckily I don’t have to worry about a state income tax in Florida.)

You should always make your principles clear.  You should make your end goals clear.  And don’t be afraid to criticize a candidate even if you are voting for the person as the lesser of two (or more) evils.  Voting for someone doesn’t mean that you excuse them when they do something wrong.

There is no right or wrong for a libertarian when it comes to voting.  Well, if you are voting for someone like Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, I would need some really good reasoning on how that would advance society towards liberty.  However, you certainly don’t need to agree on everything in order to vote for a candidate or even lend some enthusiastic support.

I was never a big fan of using the “lesser of two evils” argument.  I stopped saying anything like it a while ago.  This year has confirmed it for me. DeSantis really is the lesser of two evils, and Floridians are much better off for it.