The Second Trump Term will be a Moment of Truth for Libertarians
A conversation on the path forward for good faith libertarians
Sophie: Over the past few years, there has been a crisis within libertarianism. In particular, establishment libertarianism, which has long been right-aligned, has been repeatedly challenged by the populist right, with very visible conflicts like the US Libertarian Party's civil war over the influence of the Mises Caucus, and the invitation of Donald Trump to the Libertarian conference this year. I guess the big fear is that the populist right will take over libertarianism, and effectively turn it into its opposite. Now that Trump has won, and the populist right is more emboldened than ever, I think it would be a good time to have a conversation about where libertarianism goes from here. What do you think is the reason for libertarianism going the way it has been in recent years, and how can we turn things around?
TaraElla: I think the ultimate problem is that libertarianism is a small movement in a much larger political landscape. Until libertarianism can attract more supporters, it is going to be pushed around, or even taken over, by larger forces. This is why the purist libertarian immediatists aren't actually going to keep libertarianism 'pure', rather, they are effectively killing libertarianism itself. I also think that, with the populist right fully ascendant at the moment, libertarianism should keep its distance from the right, and emphasize its commitment to independent thinking.
Sophie: I was first attracted to libertarianism because of its respect for independent thinking, but lately, I feel that this has been somewhat compromised. The right-wing propaganda machine is getting to us, I fear. Is this just inevitable, because the Republican-aligned right is so much bigger than the libertarian movement, and they really want to co-opt libertarian language and culture?
TaraElla: I don't think it's inevitable. The right's misappropriation of libertarian language is nothing new. I mean, libertarianism successfully withstood Bush-43's Iraq War, and his intrusion into civil liberties in the name of the War on Terror, even as Bush supporters kept talking about 'freedom fries' and 'spreading freedom to the Middle East'. What is different about this time is the context of the rise of wokeness. The rise of wokeness on the left, and the associated denial of free speech, individual responsibility and agency, and other classical liberal values in the 2010s pushed many libertarians rightward. The anti-woke movement, which took up a lot of libertarian concerns about wokeness, became irreversibly intertwined with libertarianism itself. The trouble is that the anti-woke movement also contains many authoritarian reactionary elements, who want to use the power of the state to suppress what they see as left-wing ideas, and to turn the clock back to the 1950s and beyond, and these authoritarian-right elements appear to be much more well-funded and powerful than the libertarian side of the anti-woke movement. They've also had the benefit of sharing common ground with prominent right-wing politicians like Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump, and we have nothing like that on the libertarian side.
Sophie: Now that Trump is poised to return to power, how do you see the next four years playing out? And what do you think will happen to libertarianism during Trump's second term?
TaraElla: I think there are two possibilities as to what will realistically happen in the next four years. The first possibility is that Trump lives up to the worst expectations of those who are skeptical of him. Without the old Republican establishment around, he feels free to disrespect long-standing conventions and guardrails that protect freedom. His actions would also likely encourage fellow travelers in Europe to do similar things, further normalizing the trashing of classical liberal values across the West. In this case, it would be very important for those who say they are for such values to take a firm and uncompromising stance against Trump's behavior. The second possibility is that Trump's rhetoric in the past two years was just a show, and his second term turns out to be very much like his first, even without the establishment around. Trump's refusal to trash everything would likely disappoint those in the New Right who believe that America and the West need a 'regime change'. They would probably go more extreme in their rhetoric to goad him into doing what they want. In this case, it would be necessary for classical liberals to take a very firm stand against the New Right's influencers and cheerleaders, with the aim of bringing the full force of public condemnation upon them, so as to show Trump that following their ideas would be an unpopular disaster.
Either way, the likelihood that genuine classical liberals will have to face-off in a hostile way with various elements of the New Right, whether we are talking about die-hard MAGAs, NatCons or Catholic Integralists, will be pretty high during the next four years. The days when one could prove their classical liberal credentials simply by taking a stand against wokeness and cancel culture are definitely over. I mean, wokeness and cancel culture are still important issues, but it's really a war on two fronts situation now, with the illiberal right being ascendant.
What I'm most worried about is that, I have the feeling that many of the most prominent figures in anti-woke world will not live up to the aforementioned demands during the next four years. The main reason for this is audience capture. Many of the most popular anti-woke figures appear to have audience bases that are strongly aligned to the right, even if they themselves have generally taken a more centrist line of reasoning. There are two reasons for this: firstly, the woke left had been responsible for most violations of individual freedom in 2015-2020, which led many classical liberals (including myself) to spend disproportionate time criticizing the left during that period. Secondly, with the dominance of woke thinking in many left-leaning circles, left-of-center audiences became less willing to listen to viewpoints that disagree with what they believed in. These two factors combined to cause an inevitable rightward tilt in the audience base of classical liberal writers, influencers and talking heads alike, and also immense difficulty in trying to address this imbalance by cultivating a more diverse audience base. In this context, it became (financially and otherwise) attractive to try hard to please the audience that you have, and try to get more of them to come onboard, and the easiest way to do that would be to refrain from criticizing the right at all. In fact, I've noticed that the popularity of classical liberals who stand on principle and continue to criticize both sides by applying the same standard (like myself) have grown much more slowly than those who decided to just pander to a right-of-center audience.
This has eventually led to the situation where basically all of the most prominent members of anti-woke world are those who have cultivated a very right-leaning audience base. Unlike myself, they don't seem to mind pandering to NatCons, Christian fundamentalists, borderline white nationalists, and those who worship Viktor Orban's Hungary alike. It would be very difficult for these people to take a stance against the illiberal elements of the right without, well, upsetting a large proportion of their audience (who pay their bills) for the very first time. I doubt many of them will have the spine to take such a risk, even in the name of defending classical liberal values.
Sophie: What are the implications of all this for libertarians and libertarianism, then?
TaraElla: In short, I get the feeling that libertarianism will be an increasingly demanding faith, and many prominent libertarian-adjacent influencers will abandon it so as to keep their populist-right aligned audiences on board, if only for the sake of their own finances. It's going to be a time when you can either choose to stand for freedom, or choose to remain popular with the tribe, but not both. It will be a lonely and difficult time to be a libertarian. However, it will also be a real test of who is actually committed to freedom, and who isn't. This means we will at least be able to get rid of the grifters for good, which will be good for us in the longer run.
What Would You Do (if not for the Culture Wars)?
I think a good way to get past the tribalism and polarization of today's Western political landscape is simply to constantly ask yourself: what would you do if not for the tribalist culture wars? What would you have decided was the best outcome, if not for what you have heard about the culture wars, the strange ideological theories, the propaganda of political influencers, and so on? What would you support, if you didn't know a thing about politics before today?
Several years ago, I heard someone say that they were opposed to gay marriage, but only because the so-called 'cultural Marxists' were supporting it. Leaving aside the issue of the validity of their assertions, I think thinking about things this way is very wrong. So you decide to oppose something just because you think your enemies support it. You let this consideration override all your values, and all your decency and compassion as a human being. I think there's something very fundamentally immoral about this. And it doesn't really make sense either. After all, if your enemy drinks water, you wouldn't stop drinking water, right?
The level of polarization and tribalism we now have in Western society is dangerous and unsustainable. If we let this continue, I fear it could lead us to really bad places. It's time to say no to all this.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Moral Libertarian Manifesto and the Moral Libertarian book series, which argue that liberalism is still the most moral and effective value system for the West.
She is also the author of The Trans Case Against Queer Theory and The TaraElla Story (her autobiography).
Thanks for the interview and many good points. What are your opinions about "national libertarians" as presented by Vivek Ramaswamy recently?
Basically, consistent truth regarding the puritanical Libertarians, is the same old same old, which is as great as the philosophy is that maybe there is a reason we get such embarrassing voting numbers. I always vote in for President Libertarian, but I do think we need some modulation. Well maybe this extremism is in the globes water. I dont mean just populists, i meant elites, and the Monarchism, and wokeism, ( i say that gently, always preface its not the issue of gender identity, its the extremism of implementation of it ) It This is where I come back to Libertarian, is that so many of these Social Constructs, are then doomed to failed with using another synthetic Social Construct to correct it. So, my Mantra still remains. the E.R.A. of 1964 and MLK, and Thomas Jefferson, and Mother Theresa and a little Gondi, oh and a little Thomas Paine, sprinkled with John Locke, and you get one hell of a railroad...!!.
I actually really coming around through your writings about pragmatic approaches, and i frankly think this is a problem. I don't just mean in politics. I know its a problem in our psyche. Because I have been on and off again as a cab driver,. And Its no lie that when you're out there in the world on the street you get a feel for things.. And lets just say. that.... this sense of extremism on all levels is extreme even in the traffic..lol the traffic itself and the lack of well "Consensus", even getting from point A to point B can be treacherous. But I hope you get around to reading what I wrote on Consensus and Stupidity. Im not the writer you are, but I am trying to find a way to connect out here and everywhere instead of enforcing disconnection.