Trump- the lesser of two evils?

 

With the dust beginning to settle on Trump's impressive political comeback across the pond and Labour's embarrassing u-turn reaction at home, we can begin the business of taking stock and looking forward to what is ahead.

Unfortunately, our Libertarian namesake in the US polled poorly. A quick browse of American Libertarian social media reveals a party divided over both policy and their choice of presidential candidate. Whatever the reasons, it was clear many would-be Libertarians voted for Trump- many party members publically endorsed him.

So how Libertarian is Trump? On the face of it, considerably more so than The Democrats:

Harris' proposed tax hikes were truly socialist by American standards. Tim Waltz's view that the First Amendment makes allowances for government censorship of "hate speech" and "misinformation" is in itself a prime example of the latter. Harris has labelled unregulated social media as "a threat to democracy." No Kamala, it is those who think along such lines who are themselves a threat to democracy.

Trump has demonstrated a much clearer understanding of the First Amendment and consistently championed free speech. Musk's refusal to bend to authoritarian demands for regulation of his platform has wound up all the right people. As Libertarians we accept and celebrate the fact that, on occasion, freedom of speech leads to the sharing of content some of us may find to be unplatable.

A potential case in point is Donald Trump Jr's recent X post ridiculing Zelensky as being "38 days from losing his allowance," - arguably in poor taste on the same day a Russian missile passed through Ukraine's rapidly depleting air defence and killed a 4 year old child in Zaporizhia.

The incoming Trump administration also appears to be confused as to the distinction between NATO and the EU (membership of the former of which, unlike our American brothers, the UK Libertarian Party is willing to tolerate). Vance has threatened to withdraw American support for NATO if the EU pushes forward with regulation of Musk's platforms. While it is important to remember that NATO was founded to protect Western liberalism from Soviet authoritarianism - and those who would regulate speech and the media (i.e. The EU) ideologically align themselves with the latter - one struggles to see what Brussels' authoritarianism has to do with defence policy in London, Oslo or Ankara.

Economically, Trump's obsession with tarrifs will serve only to increase prices for American consumers. Domestically, many have conveniently forgotten Trump's imposition of draconian lockdown measures and his borrowing of trillions of dollars, forcing the taxpayer to pay for the economic inactivity of millions as The State shuttered businesses. The supposedly freedom loving president even extended his lockdown measures for a month in March 2020. Just like Johnson, when fortitude mattered most, Trump sacrificed individual liberty on the altar of collectivist authoritarianism.

Regardless, if Trump became a Covid authoritarian, one shudders to think what The Democrats would have done. Trump then, is the lesser evil of the two candidates, as most American Libertarians clearly felt as he hoovered up two thirds of their vote compared to 2020. (One might be hopeful that on this side of the pond, a Libertarian would choose to vote Libertarian rather than Reform, however much more palatable Farage might be to most of us than Starmer.)

There is finally the small issue of the events in January 2021, when a group of Trump supporters, some affiliated with the far-right, stormed The Capitol, threatening lawmakers and riding roughshod over the Rule of Law. While a president-dictator Harris would restrict speech, President Trump was silent for hours during an attempted coup d'etat, as his advisers and even his children begged him to act. Choosing to forget this questionable conduct would set a dangerous precedent.

Does this mean the tax-loving, speech-restricting, Democrats were the better choice? Of course not. However, at the risk of disappointing a number of Libertarians, but in the spirit of free discourse upon which we can all agree:

Lets give Trump the benefit of the doubt and see what he achieves in his next term, but, while doing so, we would be well minded to remember: Libertarianism has not won the White House.