Look, i think for people that happen to have read articles on my blog it should be clear that i am pretty sympathetic to what Trump is doing on his campaign, and especially sympathetic to the people that support him. Generally, they are angry and desperate people seeing their country go down the toilet, while not seeing that their still existing worship of the state itself is the problem. Most people cannot be reasoned into embracing the stateless society; they will either break free from the indoctrination on their own, of they won’t.
As an anarcho-individualist my enemy is the concept of the state and those who exercise its power to initiate aggression against innocent and non-violent people in whatever way. I am especially hostile in philosophy to statist elites; those who collude to turn even the vestiges of individual liberty that still remain into a heap of crap, while pretending to be there for the people and to respect democracy.
I can therefore appreciate the effect Trump has on the political and media establishment, while completely disregarding, for the moment, the thoughts and desired policies of Trump himself.
But there is a difference between sympathizing with Trump’s supporters, and with the ways in which Trump has the establishment in spasms and fits of hysteria on the one hand, and outright endorsement and votes on the other hand. You can sit back and watch Trump take a sledgehammer to the duopolitical oligarchy, and still understand that Trump is a politician and most certainly not anything close to a libertarian, and therefore not worthy of an endorsement or vote.
Naive “but what else are we gonna do” libertarians like Justin Raimondo and Walter Block cannot seem to help themselves but throw their support behind politicians, as if they’ve never heard of any empirical evidence that as a rule politicians LIE and CHEAT and are by nature unreliable. They look at a politicians’s platforms and at the things they say on the campaign trail and think “well this is something a libertarian should be willing to accept for the time being.”
Sounds reasonable enough, if you actually believe that politicians are paragons of truth. But they are frauds, charlatans and hustlers. How naieve for a libertarian, any libertarian, to still not realize that. I’ve said as much here.
Now a tip of the Trump veil is lifted when it comes to his foreign policy. Does it still seem that he is less interventionist than the rest? Does it still seem that he is less the one taking obvious sides in the Israel-Palestine conflict? At the very least Trump is talking out of both sides of his mouth, leaving people to question out of which side comes the truth.
Well, just take a look at the kind of people he is attacting to be on his team. Enough said? Or still not? Well, just how non-interventionist and “neutral” in the Israel-Palestina conflict are Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani?
As a libertarian, grab a bag of popcorn and whoop and holler as Trump takes his sledgehammer to the current establishment (and yes, that includes charlatans like Ted Cruz). But make no mistake, Trump himself is no answer. He is not “better.” He is merely the crowbar the libertarians currently cannot be, but the crowbar can and will just as easily be turned against you.
Libertarians for Trump are Dummies for Trump.