The 45th President of the United States will be Donald J. Trump. In what was hailed as a "historical election", the seventy-year-old billionaire real estate mogul will succeed Obama to the throne of the American Empire. He will be the oldest to ever assume the Presidency. Sure, maybe it is a historical election. But for whatever reason it creeps me out that it was framed this way. Historic why? Due to the amount that it was a joke with characters playing different roles, and yet everyone went with it? I guess so. Or, does the media know something we don't?
Many were caught off guard. Many are in disbelief. Many are shaking their heads still, having always known things would turn out this way. There is a general shock among the populace that such a feat has been pulled off.
Upon his "win", it had me asking myself "why do we need the Presidency again?" I won't lie, I thought Trump was the character sent in to ruin things to give an edge to the Democratic candidate. As a buddy of mine put it:
"I would've bet the farm that it was rigged and that Clinton had this in the bag."
That was my view all along, and politics proved it inaccurate. Apparently it was the other way around. Either way, I am not dumbfounded it happened. We're talking about statism after all.
H.L. Mencken once said
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents,
more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some
great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their
heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a
downright moron.”
Today is that day. When it was confirmed Trump, I kept the same straight face I had all night. In fact, I felt freer than ever; liberated inside in a reconfirmation that these people don't own me. I went about my day with a smile. I asked my boss how his day was, and he too said "I've just been smiling a lot, actually." Seeing frowns on other's faces, tears even, it was a truly liberating moment for me to feel my self-ownership, and to at least be emotionally-detached with the State. Of course, it's danger is very real, but I did not experience surprise; and I wasn't overcome with rage. Another coworker said "I can't believe this", to which I replied in my head, "...I can."
It's always weird watching whoever ascend to the Presidency. The atmosphere was odd, i'll say. I was working. There were no televisions around, thankfully. No one wanted to know who it would be anyway. The air, though, was somber. The bar seemed sober, even; gloomy in its prospects. A look of being cheated, of disbelief, had set in, and there was scarcely any enthusiasm for what's to come.
Will it shake things up a bit?
I imagined a Clinton Presidency would have been a "thank God" moment for the Left, and things may have gone on unquestioned as always. Whereas the Obama Presidency, essentially just Bush 2.0, was able to keep on the cover of legitimacy for the State, since it was operating under the Democratic banner, I don't think it will be the same now. With Trump, it's all the more likely those who vehemently support the idea of government may give up on it entirely. Doubtful, but much less so supported than if their candidate had made it. It would have been a sigh of relief at worst, but surely would have been a moment to cheer and celebrate should Clinton have made it.
The baby boomers, even, long supporters of the paradigm, more so than ever see now there's essentially no difference in either of the Parties, and the lines should be blurred more than ever before for those with common sense. They both—the Democratic and Republican Parties—believe that government, on a fundamental level, has a right to steal your property; differing only in what the use of that property should be, typically whether welfare or warfare, respectively. You will get, from both of them, calls to "leave the country if you don't like it!" They both necessarily believe in the idea of a "social contract", binding and obligating everyone to partake in the plundering of each other. They're identical in those regards.
Some might say we have a "racist government" now, or a "sexist" one, but that would be missing the point. Government should be judged, and opposed, for its aggression; it's hierarchy, institutionalized racism, bad people elected, etc., are just additional problems. Maybe this will be found-out, and government will be discovered as unfixable by those usually set on reforming it.
This Presidency will not be without controversy, and this is good thing. What we need is for people to question the government for the first time; to find it completely unacceptable and to not give legitimacy to the new administration's rule; to see that they don't represent us anymore and that decentralization of government is necessary if to recover some degree of expressing our wishes through a government. Not that I propose government on any level, but the less powerful and broad government is, the more preferred is it to centralized, top-down rule.
If we can get people to oppose government on a fundamental basis, that they have no right to do these things no matter what they do, since it's founded in aggressive violence against peaceful people, the liberty movement will begin to take hold outside of libertarianism alone. Men and women with two eyes everywhere will see the system for just what it is.
"Democratic-socialists" seem to only like their own system when their guy gets elected; it's hardly acceptable when when the opposing candidate does. They should concede indeed that he's their President now. They played the stupid game, and they got the stupid prize. So really, I don't see why they could oppose Trump; he's the logical conclusion of their own system. It is they who claims "if you don't like the government, then you can have your chance next election to try and have your voice heard. But for now, you have to accept it the way it is."
How could the Left oppose Trump? This is what they get for believing government has these rights. So much for Democracy anyway, a large majority of the voting population (some 76%) didn't vote for Trump; he took the win with a minority (some 25%) vote from the eligible voters. Even smaller are his margins (18%) if the population as a whole is considered.
The libertarian has all the more reason to oppose Trump, and we'll show them how to do it. For this reason, I think it's necessary to paint the Republicans as socialists to show the clear difference between them and libertarians. One problem, though, is that "democratic socialist" types get it that Trump is, to some degree, a socialist. This is why they think "libertarians are worse than Republicans"; we want to get rid of everything whereas they at least want to keep some government.
If "socialism really isn't that scary of a thing", then why are they scared of Trump? He's a socialist. Maybe not to the degree of Bernie Sanders, but a socialists to some extent nonetheless.
I don't care too much to get overly emotional about it all; this is how politics plays out, and so I'm not baffled it culminated in a total fool taking the top post of the U.S. Government gang. "Ha!, a bunch of suckers", I thought, seeing the people who play into this. Surely many thought Trump wasn't even a major player within the Republican Party, but he happened to beat out all the other big names.
Is the Trump Presidency a response to the rise in political correctness and "social justice" from the Left? Is it because the Right was always racist and put in someone that would embody their bigotry? I don't know. I can't make a sweeping critique of Trump, which i'll leave for others to do, but i'll make some comment on his victory speech and "the issues" as he's presented them from his campaign.
The victory speech
He really didn't say much in his victory speech, and there isn't much to cover. I thought his calmness was interesting, actually. There was no personality portrayed as "I'm so happy I've been elected to save my country." It was as if he knew he would get in, having bought his way up, and was only continuing to play the part.
A quick look at the issues section page of his personal website reveals his general love for government; thus a fondness for socialism/collectivism. Again, it's ironic his adamant support from the Right, since he is not drastically different than Clinton. They're both statists nevertheless.
In his opening call, acting as if the goal of the State isn't to create animosity among the people, he tells the American people that:
"Now it is time for America to bind the wounds of division..
..to come together as one united people."
If individuals coming together as "one people" isn't collectivism then I don't know what is. United under what? Statism? The idea that the national interest, or commonly-held or aspired-toward goals, come before the individual's liberty should be practiced, i.e., the individual must be taxed to give his property to society for it to do things with it, is the very idea of socialism.
I guess, like good Communists, we need to
"..work together and unify our great country."
Trump's victory speech may as well have been spoken by Bernie Sanders. His campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again", may as well have been "A Future to Believe In", "Change We Can Believe In", or "Stronger Together." They're all saying the same thing with a different tone, acting in a different personality, using different rhetoric. Here is Trump, like any other socialist:
"Working together, we will begin the urgent task of rebuilding our
nation...rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools,
hospitals. We're going to rebuild our infrastructure...we will put
millions of our people to work as we rebuild it."
It isn't "jobs" that we desire in the economy per se; it is increased production. Banning capital-goods would "create jobs", but this would do nothing to boost our overall output of economic goods. Labor-saving inventions are essentially the goal in human progress, used in increasing our standard-of-living beyond what would be attainable without such devices. They just can't see through it. They make no thought of the opportunity costs occurred by taking labor from one area where it is more productive to an area of production where less value is created. At best, all they could do is reallocate, say, 100 million dollars worth of jobs to another area and make 50 million dollars worth of jobs. But government doesn't create anything without first destroying something.
Here Trump, and likely his supporters, hold this old and tired economic fallacy of "jobs." In fact, it would seem they might even hold the Marxist "Labor Theory of Value", that if there were more jobs – and more time spent in making things – that more value for the economy would be produced, but that's a different story.
This focus on "jobs" in a name, and not the purpose of a job, is a timeless line of the politician who must appear as an economic magician. There are many other problems with the government "creating jobs." Indeed, if they pass a piece of legislation deemed a "Jobs Bill", you can assure it is anti-jobs.
From his website, he confirms his socialism toward these "public goods", saying we need
"..policy that supports investments in transportation, clean water,
a modern and reliable electricity grid, telecommunications, security
infrastructure, and other pressing domestic infrastructure needs."
He also thinks that, again from his site, "all of which will generate new tax revenues." Somehow government spending money creates more money for the government to spend. You got me. It sounds like the old claim that minimum wage laws will give government's more revenue. They forget that an arbitrary minimum-wage law doesn't create new real wealth in the economy in the form of goods, but only raises nominal wages. For wages to be raised on average, that is, real wages, this must be accomplished by increased production and lower prices overall. If nominal revenues were increased, this doesn't mean there is any more real wealth being taken in or to go around. This would be the same as thinking government can inflate prices and therefore take in more real wealth. Indeed, they do rob the economy through the inflation tax, but printing money does not create new things.
To be sure Trump is a transportation socialist, he desires to
"Implement a bold, visionary plan for a cost-effective system
of roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, railroads, ports and waterways,
and pipelines in the proud tradition of President Dwight D. Eisenhower,
who championed the interstate highway system."
Those who admit "the infrastructure is crumbling" is never due to it being socialist, but I suppose just insufficient funding. Just as with Keynesian economics policies, there just wasn't enough of it. If only there was more, then it would work.
Trump on "the issues"
The only way we would be at least twice as wealthy would be without government. Trump believes it's the opposite:
" We have a great economic plan. We will double our growth
and have the strongest economy anywhere in the world."
He speaks of all the far-fetched things government can achieve as casually as any other socialist dreamer. Trump claims to have a "7 Point Plan To Rebuild the American Economy by Fighting for Free Trade", but he can't be said to be a supporter outright of free-trade. Free trade doesn't require legislation, first off. Anyone serious about free-trade should make a unilateral declaration of it, not waiting on others to join in or accept deals and such.
Why don't they just say: We don't have tariffs, quotas, taxes, regulations on cross-border trade anymore, i.e., free trade?
One of his points is to
"Appoint tough and smart trade negotiators to fight on behalf of American workers."
So, free-trade, or special one-sided protectionist rules that are said to help America? Trump is a protectionist, not a fan of laissez-faire.
He's of course bad on the economics of immigration too, aside from being bad news to immigrants.
"[reform] visa rules to enhance penalties for overstaying and...
ensure open jobs are offered to American workers first."
"Jobs" are not just in some fixed supply where Americans take immigrant jobs one for one. Surely Republicans don't understand that even if nominal wages fall from immigration, thinking this hurts American workers, but production rises, and therefore real wages rise, that immigration can be a good thing. It can make us richer than we otherwise could have been. They probably do not understand either that Mexican labor is more valuable in the U.S. because there is an increased amount of capital. So much for Trump's bachelor's degree in economics.
Ignoring that the U.S., via the Federal Reserve, deliberately devalues its forced, fiat currency, he's somewhat obsessed with criticizing China for things that American do. He would
"Instruct the Treasury Secretary to label China a currency manipulator."
He says
"China's unfair subsidy behavior is prohibited by the terms of its entrance to the WTO."
But what is wrong with a foreign government subsidizing their exports? That would just mean that we get more, cheaper stuff. I don't see the problem here.
He doesn't think taxation is theft, and neither did Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party nominee, but he does at least promise to reduce them.
"Americans who will receive a massive tax reduction."
Doubtful, as he immediately turns around, making the typical claims of democratic-socialists that we must
"ensure the rich will pay their fair share."
What is a "fair share", and who decides that? A fair-tax in my mind is zero-percent.
He acknowledges the negative economic effect of taxation, which discourages production, but then he says that we just need to make sure that
"no one will pay so much that it destroys jobs or undermines our ability to compete."
But what amount is just right? What amount of taxation doesn't destroy production, or, "jobs" as he puts it? All taxation necessarily prevents one from privately keeping their money, and saving it, investing it, or spending it to suit their own interests; sequentially to the "social utility" of everyone. As Henry Hazlitt titled a chapter to his famous book, Taxes Discourage Production.
Like Gary Johnson, the "libertarian", he says we need to
"Eliminate special interest loopholes."
Ah, yes: prevent people from coming up with ways of being stolen from less. Sounds socialist to me.
Republicans are socialists. They agree with the premise that invasions of property rights by governments are moral. While they may oppose the egalitarianism of the political Left, they no less think they have a right to do other things with your property. And not necessarily even other things. Through and through, there is no difference between them and Democrats on what has come to be accepted as "essential government services", such as: roads, schooling, etc. They're both in agreement that lists of socialized services are needed.
He wants to
"Increase the size of the U.S. Army...Grow the U.S. Marine Corps..
..Rebuild the U.S. Navy.."
The military is of course socialist, and quite in resemblance of one giant welfare program to boot.
Don't think he's for a free-market in health care either. While saying we should repeal the Affordable Care Act, he's not opposed to the socialist idea of positive rights. What the government should do is provide
"...block grants so that local leaders can design innovative Medicaid
programs that will better serve their low-income citizens."
Like any other socialist, citing other real-world example, he says of universal health care
"As far as single payer, it works in Canada. It works incredibly well in Scotland."
His view, in 1999, was that
"“If you can’t take care of your sick in the country, forget it, it’s all over...
...I believe in universal healthcare.”
On education, while speaking of "choice" (although not privatization which would actually be choice), he's socialist too, albeit remaining quite vague in his idea of a mix of public-private schooling. What about ending the Department of Education? Guess there are no Ron Paul's among Republican ranks anymore. Ending government departments is too radical.
On economic issues, they always bust out with some arbitrary numbers on what they believe can be accomplished.
"For each 1 percent in added GDP growth, the economy adds
1.2 million jobs. Increasing growth by 1.5 percent would result in
18 million jobs (1.5 million times 1.2 million, multiplied by 10 years)
above the projected current law job figures of 7 million, producing a
total of 25 million new jobs for the American economy."
These are all just made up numbers. What we he actually do to create economic growth?
"Boost growth to 3.5 percent per year on average, with the potential to reach a 4 percent growth rate."
"Boost growth?" How, with Keynesian economic policies? The only way to do it is by rolling back the government, a prospect that is not in sight. If he says he wishes to cut taxes, and anti-growth regulations, then we'll just have to hold him to it. Remember, though, your Ronald Reagans said all the same things and proceeded to double up on the government.
Since violations of property rights are what constitute socialism, his praise of eminent domain is decidedly socialist. Besides in not seeing how something could be offered without people being stolen from, the typical socialist question of "who would build the roads?" is only leaving out without eminent, i.e., with no one to infringe upon property rights. These people are virtually indistinguishable from one another.
He didn't say much else aside from thanking a list of other awful politicians, like Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christi, etc. So much for being anti-establishment, he thinks are these fine folks are wonderful public servants.
Who are our allies now?
The "Old Right", which used to be anti-New Deal and anti-war faded; now we have the neo-conservatives, bent on war. There's little remnants of an anti-war Left, seeing as they rallied behind Clinton who never wanted to pass up on a good war.
I tend to agree with Jeff Deist's analysis, the President of the Mises Institute, that much is lost on reasoning with the leftist-socialists.
"One thing is certain, and this is where so many libertarians go wrong:
the overwhelming threat to liberty today is from the Left, not the Right.
It’s frankly silly to pretend otherwise, much as we correctly insist that we
are not conservatives. The existential threat to liberty is not posed by 5
skinhead idiots running around in the woods somewhere wearing
bedsheets, it’s posed by millions of progressive authoritarians who are
everywhere— like the one teaching civics at your kid’s school. But
they’ve overplayed their hand in the 2016 election and awakened
millions of Americans as a result."
Someone tell Jeff, by the way, that Skinhead is not racists in the woods wearing bedsheets, but a real subculture. Mistake aside, perhaps reasoning with the Left is lost. Anyone wishing to accept libertarianism though, people of all lifestyles, gay or anti-gay, willing to subscribe to non-aggression, is welcome and invited to come stand with us.
The sentiment appears to me that the Old Right in the Republicans Party is totally gone, replaced for what is now called neo-conservatism or the "alt-right." We must capture those who have been failed by the GOP too in electing Trump. It would appear to me that the average person on the Left who is discontent, not just due to their "loss", but because of the dirty tricks pulled by their own kind, the Democratic Party, and who may come to hear out libertarians more than ever before. They can agree, with us, the Trump is "Not My President." Socialists of both sides should be our target.
If the Right is just confused, and settled for a less-than-desirable candidate, i'm just not seeing it. "Will Muslims be banned now that Trump will be President?", a 'friend' shamelessly posted. An adamant Trump supporter replied "let's hope so." Their bigotry is real. Their racism and sexism is real. While against the political correctness with us, they will present no attractive image worthy of following. That will have to be left for us.
In politics, it's not usually that anyone actually likes "their" candidate, but that they hate the other more. However, Trump's support seems largely genuine from what I've personally witnessed. It's hard to say, but it seems they [leftists] supported Hillary Clinton as a lesser evil than Trump; and Trump supporters believed that what he has to offer is actually just what this country needs. They of course hated Clinton, but weren't pro-Trump for this reason alone. The "right" in this country actually thinks Trump will live up to his campaign slogan. They're a threat, too.
Perhaps for the power elite to be successful, the types most likely to be "free-market" oriented need to be turned into statists without realizing of themselves that they're thereby socialists.
Those who voted for him don't understand it all either. The "Right", whatever that means, is unwittingly rallying behind socialism. You'll get things like "at least Donald Trump is not a socialist", in preferring him to Clinton. And now, others are already clamoring for us to begin making America great again; using the State of course. This is why we need to expose all statists as socialists, since conservatives want to be anti-socialists yet don't realize the only ones are us libertarian-anarchists.
Now that the Republican Party has the Presidency, and controls the Congress, winning the House and Senate, let's see if Republicans are really anti-socialists or not. The test will be to see if we get less government in our lives. Until it all fails, mark my words that we won't. Republicans are status-quo statists.
If Trump had not made it to the Presidency, his supporters would have been safe in their ideas; they would have been able to claim they were never implemented, and so if only they could have been then would the disaster that would-be Hillary Clinton have been staved-off. Thankfully, they can't. They [the Republicans] have to live up to their ideas or the GOP is totally done.
Will he put his friend Hillary in prison, as was [what I believe jokingly] promised during their debate? Will government decidedly shrink? Will we get back to a gold standard and end the Fed? Probably not.
Libertarians now need to lead the way in opposing Trump, showing democrats how it's done. Having more in our arsenal than "the Orange Fascist", or whatever personal attacks they have against him, we need to show that the State is unworkable. Maybe a resurgence in the anti-war Left will appear. Maybe they'll see the State is always inherently expansionary, and that it means inevitable war. Maybe.
The shake up this election provided may come to set everyone's politics straight, but I wouldn't be so sure. The future is uncertain, and so we don't know what might happen. At least, perhaps, the "democratic socialism" couldn't catch on for America, and now our task is to turn disaffected conservatives into libertarians. We need the Republican "Never Trump" crowd to drop their personal morality as the centerpiece of their political philosophy, shutting up about gay people and drugs, etc., and accept libertarianism.
Do we attempt to convince the hard-Right that Trump is a socialist, and they're wrong; or do we form an alliance with the Left in opposing him? What we do is accept among us anyone who is willing to reject institutionalized aggression. Our most likely candidates happen to be the conservatives.
To conclude, as my friend Pete Earle said:
"What I appreciate about the Trump victory, above all,
is the potential for widespread discontent: disgust with
democracy, politics, and government in general."
Will it finally be that time when the aggressionists of both Parties are exposed for the frauds they always were? Don't hold your breath. The veil has been lifted for all to see, though, and certainly millions more are ebbing toward libertarianism than they are socialism.
Funny the only non-emotional ones about all this, who remain rational and calm because we understand exactly how it all works, are the anarchists. While we may all equally be slaves on the same farm, we've already found and experience more liberty of the mind.
Honestly, i'm conflicted. A part of me wants everyone to full-time hate the State now so that it will continue to lose its legitimacy; the other part, having dealt with the heavy politicization of society over the last couple years, wishes for people to go back to doing the things they love, sharing petty media with their friends and family. In a perfect world, I'll take the cat videos. But I do feel I want to closely follow a Presidency for the first time, since I hardly listened to a thing Obama had to say. It should be fascinating, to say the least, to witness the demise of the American Empire.
Hate the State, for sure. But don't forget to do things you love, too.