20 Reasons Objectivists and Libertarians Should Vote for Trump in 2020

October 24, 2020 • COMMERCE, POLITICS

 

“Simply put, it’s a choice between a socialist nightmare and the American dream.”
—Donald Trump, October 14, 2020

 

I became a tepid Trump supporter early in the 2016 campaign. He did not seem ideological on issues like climate change, energy exploration and fracking, “good” racial quotas, and “reining in” Wall Street—to mention a few. The right ideology is best; the wrong ideology is worst. A businessman unabashedly proud of his wealth, spending guiltlessly, enthusiastically heterosexual, boastful about American exceptionalism, apparently uninterested or excited about identity politics, and snapping the whip at the mainstream media (MSM) seemed good enough for me. What sold me was when the left MSM abandoned all standards of journalism, or even decency, to destroy him. Obviously it was not for his playboy-ish private life. The media pines for neo-Marxist ideology. They use any means, including unjustified personal attacks to advance it. If Trump horrified them, there was perhaps even more potential than I saw.

The Mt. Rushmore speech alone shows his understanding of America’s enemies has progressed and should convince freedom lovers of his value. But actions speak louder than words.

Indeed, there was. Through a campaign about as civil as an Indian gantlet, which made me want to hide in a hole, Donald Trump remained energetic, positive, and incredibly managed to take the media attacks for what they were worth—and solve the problem by … tweeting. When he claimed his stunning upset victory, and I saw the media reaction, I became positively enthusiastic. I published Donald Trump and His Enemies: How the Media Put Trump in Office.

Fast-forwarding, now, as the next four years wore on I published an informal series on Facebook called “The ‘What-Is-Worth-to-You?’ Department.” It featured each action, each comment, of the president that made me even happier that I voted for him. An example not given below, but in the same “Department,” was his speech on July 4, 2020, at Mt. Rushmore. That alone shows his understanding of America’s enemies has progressed and should convince freedom lovers of his value. But actions speak louder than words.
 
So, here are the 20 reasons, based on actions, why objectivists and libertarians should vote for Donald Trump in 2020:

1. To win the 2016 election, he dog sledded through a storm of smears, and every variation on identity politics. He did not falter. He was out campaigning on election eve. At the time, and since, the wild accusations of 2016, one by one, have been refuted. The left liberal press does not care and does not even make corrections, let alone apologize.
2. Arriving in office, he immediately withdrew America from the Paris Accords, the doomsday machine invented by the international anti-industrial revolution. Why didn’t objectivists, who better than any other philosophical group understand climate alarmism’s neo-Marxist roots, rejoice?
3. From 2017, he started to remove constraints on fracking, artic wildlife area drilling, pipelines stalled in regulatory agencies. In fact, he has imposed, in four years, not one new constraint on energy exploration and development.
4. He appointed a Secretary of Education committed to school choice and vouchers and the department has sued universities for racial quotas. The department revoked the Obama era unfair constraints on public school teachers responding to attacks by students.
5. Not one peep has passed his lips about any proposed law or regulation, to “restrain Wall Street excesses.” Wall Street firms are also big contributions for Democratic candidates, while themselves benefiting from the Fed’s excesses. Little wonder then, that they allow the metonym “Wall Street” to be a symbol of evil.
6. Heard about any “bold new initiatives” to regulate anything? (Yes, if you count renegotiating trade agreements Trump justifiably views as one-sided.) After a brief initial plunge driven by state-initiated lockdowns, the stock market has risen to new records throughout the COVID-19 crisis, arguably due to the Fed’s QE expansion. But the markets also hate political uncertainty. Except for renegotiated international trade treaties and COVID-19 rescue packages, Trump has introduced none into the future of business.
7. While paying lip service to the repeal of Roe v Wade—without which you can forget about running for president as a Republican—Trump has nominated and fought for Supreme Court justices who are literalist and originalist about the U.S. Constitution. The record of Trump nominees to the Court is silent on Roe v Wade. Including Amy Coney Barrett. Don’t trust CNN, read Barrett’s responses to Senator Blumenthal on this issue.
8. Trump has declared that his best advisor on Communist China is Michael Pillsbury, author of The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower. That may be the most prescient and promising Trump choice for the future of America. Pillsbury has moved from a China dove to a China hawk. His book, I believe, can convince any freedom lover that the China threat (to America, not just her own citizens), is serious.
9. Faced with the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump chose constraint, not powers under a super-activist national emergency mandate. The champion of activism, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, locked down the state’s economy, devastating businesses. An estimated half of NYC restaurants and bars shut down will never reopen. Yet, with six percent of the population of the United States, New York State has had some 20 percent of COVID-19 deaths.
10. As this most infectious virus since the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918, most likely of Chinese origin, keeps spreading, President Trump is blamed for not assuming powers no president in the history of America has grabbed, in essence, for not being autocratic! He is vilified daily for somehow causing 200,000 deaths in America.

 

11. No political figure yet has spoken to, and treated, the mainstream media as what it has become like Trump has. He ignored advice of those in office to conciliate the media at all costs (“In the end, they will get you!”). Thanks to social media (Twitter), Trump can reach tens of millions of supporters almost instantly, without the mediation of the media. The response of the “free press”? Cries for censorship (a.k.a., “regulation”) of social media. Their efforts have paid off with widespread suppression of the NY Post Hunter Biden story.
12. The left mainstream media proclaimed President Trump an enemy of identity politics: Black Lives Matter, racial quotas in higher education, and excuse-making for riots, arson, and attacks on police as “protest.” He is endlessly smeared as “racist,” “white nationalist,” for “white supremacy …” … He seems unfazed. He keeps tweeting–enraging those from every quarter from CNN to Hollywood who would bury him in opprobrium.
13. Donald Trump is the most consistent ally of the State of Israel since at least Richard Nixon. His actionable steps such moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, have been policy—not rhetoric He is the first president in decades not to pressure­­ Israel to make concessions of territory to the Palestinian side.
14. President Trump is immune to the postmodernism that is pandemic in U.S. colleges, progressively taking hold of new generations. A key tenet of postmodernism is that all politics pits “oppressor” against the “oppressed.” Through the lens of Marxist attacks on capitalism, the oppressors and oppressed are capitalists and proletarians. For the postmodernist/neo-Marxists, the divide is more primitive: race, sex, and ethnicity.
15. Where there is violence, President Trump sees … violence. It is that simple. But postmodern sees the clash of races, sexes, and ethnic groups as the oppressed battles the oppression (e.g., “systemic racism) and so when Black Lives Matter, university students who disagree with speakers, or protestors angry at the election results initiate violence and clash with police, the postmodernists in the media and politics say: well, violence begets violence, you know. President Trump demands law and order, challenges Democratic governors and mayors to restore civility, and sends in federal forces.
16. Political opposition to President Trump since 2016—including, of course, the Democratic Party organs like the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Atlantic—has taken the form of attempts to use the justice system to expel him from office. Attacks on the Electoral College, appointment of a special prosecutor, impeachment hearings, allegations of criminal misconduct (the Trump tax return farce): All are avenues that avoid ideas, political positions, arguments. The attack on the Electoral College gave way to street violence at the inauguration; the special prosecutor did not recommend any prosecution; and the impeachment hearings could not turn a phone call into a conviction for “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
17. Candidate Trump, and then President Trump, staged a dramatic breakout from the president’s symbiotic relationship with the media He seized on internet communications technology to bypass the media monopoly, tweeting to tens of millions of supporters daily. It has almost driven those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome over the edge. “Tweeting! My, God, tweeting! Instead of reading my column in the NYT!” And the other eight columns on the same page creatively varying their daily attacks on the President.
18. And then, President Trump seemed to fall into the pit trap with the sharpened stakes. He and Melania tested positive for COVID-19. Oh, the smug, over-confident, optimistic SOBs! This is their just desserts! And just in time for the election! Gotcha! No masks! The arrogance! No one, of course, should minimize the suffering of Americans and those worldwide who have contracted, and all-too-often died, from this vicious infectious epidemic—and the families who have had to bear the loss. But the cheering of the Trump haters when the President and First Lady—exposed as how many others might be—fell ill was shocking to see. It exposed not political disagreement but a hate utterly visceral. What had Trump done to the media to justify this savage glee? Won in 2016 despite their attacks that in the end jettisoned all standards of journalism, even decency. Remained in office as attack after attack faltered and failed. And, well, remained just “Trump” as four years of attacks that could have smothered him like an avalanche rolled over him.
19. The most crucial thing about Donald Trump are his enemies. You may not admire him like I do, but he is far and away the lesser evil from an objectivist or libertarian lens. Donald Trump is not Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln (still, check out how they were attacked!) But his enemies are the advancing mobs of the Far-Left revolution. They are rising Democratic stars like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Kamala Harris. They are dirty-mouthed Hollywood celebs, one of whom said that when he heard President Trump and the First Lady had tested positive Covid-19, he “jumped in the air and clapped my hands.” We all know this. The obscene late-night comedians. The network news anchors who “lose it” and expose their bias. What do Donald Trump’s enemies have in common? They embrace the “politically correct” as quasi-religious dogma. They hate fossil fuels. They hate America. They are neo-Marxists intent on a fascist, new world order.
20. Last but not the least, Trump has been maligned in libertarian and objectivist circles as an autocrat who attacks free speech. The exact opposite is true. Trump is not bullying social media. He is championing a bill, the intent of which is to stop social media being bullied by the mainstream media to make them conform to neo-Marxist narratives. You may well question the practical and legal effectiveness of this strategy. But Trump’s heart is in the right place. For free speech.

 

You may not admire him like I do, but he is far and away the lesser evil from an objectivist or libertarian lens.

I kept to the positive surprises (for me) in this list. But there have been many, many more. But the list scarcely touches on the point that initially got me interested in Trump. It is expressed in the phrase “Donald Trump and His Enemies.” You look now at the rapidly approaching election and the marquee of adversaries, featuring Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. But look at those others who attack the President, on what grounds, and the level of discourse they permit themselves. It is as though they all have Tourette Syndrome in addition to Trump Derangement Disorder. Increasingly, I believe our President—born and bred in the rough-and-tumble, two-fisted, in-your-face New York real-estate world—has in his own way a kind of dignity, courage, and self-confidence. Can you imagine? A rich, white man … unapologetically patriotic?

Donald Trump: he has his nerve!

 

 

The author would like to thank Vinay Kolhatkar for valuable comments and additions to this piece.

 

 

 

 

 

Donald Trump|Libertarianism|Objectivism|Postmodernism|Trump|USA 2020

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