Donald Trumps Presidency Is the Libertarian Moment

By Jonathan Chait at NY Magazine

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/donald-trumps-presidency-is-the-libertarian-moment.html?utm_campaign=di&utm_source=tw&utm_medium=s1

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The now-close working partnership is not as surprising as it might appear. Before the election, I argued that the Republican party was evolving into a synthesis of libertarian ends and authoritarian means. The party’s core elites were motivated by an economic agenda that bore little support among the voting public. Indeed, libertarians have understood this problem for decades; many of them see democracy as a process that enables the majority to gang up on the rich minority and carry out legalized theft through redistribution. Their highest notion of liberty entails the protection of property rights from the democratic process, and they have historically been open to authoritarian leaders who will protect their policy agenda.

“The key is the libertarian idea, woven into the right’s ideological DNA, that redistribution is the exploitation of the ‘makers’ by the ‘takers.’ It immediately follows that democracy, which enables and legitimizes this exploitation, is itself an engine of injustice,” wrote Will Wilkinson, one of the dissident libertarians working at the Niskanen Center, last month. “The outsize stakes seem to justify dubious tactics — bunking down with racists, aggressive gerrymandering, inventing paper-thin pretexts for voting rules that disproportionately hurt Democrats — to prevent majorities from voting themselves a bigger slice of the pie.” The Kochs are emblematic of the sorts of libertarians Wilkinson identifies.

The Post notes that Koch officials “now tread carefully” on trade and immigration, policies where they maintain some doctrinal differences with the administration. On these issues — which split the GOP generally — the administration has itself vacillated almost daily, so that neither faction within the party feels alienated. This has enabled them to concentrate on their points of unanimity, especially their broad defense of business and inherited wealth.

You would think a libertarian might have some deep-seated qualms about leaving untrammeled executive power in the hands of an obviously ruthless and autocratic leader like Trump. The only practical way to restrain Trump’s efforts to carry out massive personal corruption and turn federal law enforcement into a political weapon under his control would be to help Democrats regain one or more chambers of Congress, so they could conduct oversight and act as a check on the executive branch. But the Kochs are committed to doing just the opposite: The highest priority of their political action this year is maintaining Republican control of Congress, which will enable Trump to escape meaningful oversight.

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