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Despite disquiet on the libertarian right, some #NeverTrump diehards are galloping to the presidents side. Illustration: Rob Dobi

Few will have missed David Frums dystopian cover story for the Atlantic, but many of the people passing it around on social media may not remember that Frum coined the term axis of evil as a George W Bush speechwriter. Backing away from his support for the Iraq war for over a decade, Frum has finally completed the transition from loyal rightwing foot soldier to Trump critic.

Hes not alone. One subplot that has gone unnoticed in this week of outrages is how much discomfort Trumps executive orders on immigration are causing in segments of the right.

In particular, some libertarians are looking queasily at Trumps discriminatory executive orders, his reckless sabre-rattling, and his big-spending plans and venting their concerns publicly. But even diehard religious conservatives and culture warriors are wondering who is in charge in Trumps inner circle, and whether they really know what they are doing.

This may not last already some of the most bitter critics of Trump during the campaign have decided to throw their lot in with him, because ultimately, they hate the left even more.

Publication: The New York Times

Author: Ross Douthat is the conservative voice on the New York Timess op-ed page. Hes also a convert to Catholicism whose conservative zeal possibly outstrips the popes, a master of the upper-middlebrow reactionary style originated by William F Buckley, and the owner of a Twitter account specializing in bad predictions and more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger sermonizing. On the few occasions where all of this isnt simply unbearable, Douthat can surprise his readers by being right.

Why you should read it: Against the apocalyptic grain of so much that has been written since Trump took the wheel, Douthat points to signs of incompetence, unpopularity and instability, and wonders how long hell last.

Extract: But nothing about Trumpian populism to date suggests that it has either the political skill or the popularity required to grind its opposition down. In which case, instead of Putin, the more relevant case study might be former President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood leader whose brief tenure was defined both by chronic self-sabotage and by the active resistance of the Egyptian bureaucracy and intelligentsia, which rendered governance effectively impossible.

Publication: Bleeding Heart Libertarians

Author: Steve Horwitz is an academic economist at St Lawrence University in New York. Along with the Austrian School, Horwitz has long identified as a bleeding heart libertarian, attuned to social justice issues as well as the need to shrink government. This position might be hard for progressives to wrap their heads around, but Horwitz does his best to explain it to a wider public as a contributor to the bleeding heart libertarians blog.

Why you should read it: Horwitz is frustrated, and more than a little alarmed, that his fellow libertarians are not taking Trump seriously as a unique threat to their vision of freedom. He takes the opportunity to offer them a few home truths, and to urge them to at least consider cooperation with the left against a common enemy.

Extract: Too many libertarians hate the left more than they love liberty. One response Ive heard to my pushing back on their take on Trump is that well Obama/Clinton was/would have been worse! No, actually he wasnt and I dont think she would have been. Yes, they might have expanded the regulatory state, but there would be no revival of torture, no wall, no registry, no trade war, no attempt to muzzle the media, etc. Trump is a tin-pot dictator wannabe (and starting to be), without an ounce of knowledge or respect for constitutional limits on government, who threatens the foundational institutions of the liberal order. Obama was not. Clinton is not. I confess to some schadenfreude myself as the left squirms in the aftermath of a defeat they didnt see coming. But every time Trump opens his mouth, the fundamental threat to liberty he and his supporters embody overwhelms that. Now, more than ever, libertarians need good-hearted, open-minded people on the left as allies in an attempt to preserve the things we agree on. We should never let our frustrations with the left become more important than preserving the liberal order.

Publication: Reason

Author: Nick Gillespie is a big wheel in the Libertarian movement. Hes the editor-in-chief at Reason, and is a Daily Beast columnist. Naturally he is on good terms with Reasons backers, the Kochs.

Why you should read it: Gillespie adds to the sense that Trumps recent actions are making libertarians uneasy. Surveying examples of Republicans who have voiced skepticism about Trumps measures, Gillespie makes sure to hammer home the message that Trumps executive orders dont appear to have any connection with the actual sources of terrorism. (Its a similar point that the liberal wonks at Vox appeared to be driving at earlier this week, and in a since-deleted tweet saying he picked the wrong countries). In any case, those looking for slow cracks on the right might start here.

Extract: Criticism is almost always more important when it comes from within a persons political party or ideology. Its a sharp sign that the person being criticized has wandered into some deep and dangerous territory. Thats certainly the case with Trump and his orders on sanctuary cities and on immigration and refugee policy. The laws were not just poorly phrased and timed, they clearly will not work to address the basic issues they ostensibly are meant to ameliorate. As Anthony Fisher noted here earlier today, the US embassy in Iraq has said that Trumps action is a recruitment tool for jihadists, as pro-American Middle Easterners realize theyre being hung out to dry. As for keeping America safe from terrorists entering the country as refugees, the fact is the country has an incredibly safe record.

Publication: Commentary

Author: A couple of months ago we offered some faint praise in our bio of Mr Rothman, and he was kind enough to give us a shout-out on Twitter. Hi again, Noah! Hes still the assistant online editor at Commentary, and hes still not sold on Trump.

Why you should read it: Some viral conspiracy theories suggested that the shambolic implementation of Trumps poorly conceived executive orders on immigration were part of some 11-dimensional chess game. Rothman shows more gorm: sometimes chaos is just chaos.

Extract: The businessman-president is supposed to be, above all else, competent. There was none of that evident in the terrible implementation of the presidents executive order banning entry into the U.S. of not just refugees but visa holders and legal permanent residents from seven Islamic world nations. The merits of this policy are dubious even to those Americans who believe in an abundance of caution when it comes to preventing potential terrorists from infiltrating the United States. Merits aside, the implementation of this policy was stunningly inept.

Publication: National Review

Author: David French bemoaned Trumps nomination, threatened to run as an independent candidate against him, and subsequently complained about his supporters harassing him. Apparently time heals all wounds.

Why you should read it: Read this as a reminder: even when we occasionally agree, most progressives values fundamentally depart from those of conservatives, and they can get over their antipathy for someone on their own side far more quickly than they can get over their suspicion of the left, and their obsessions. French shows us how flexible the meaning of the #NeverTrump movement actually is he celebrates Trumps consummation of one of his key campaign messages, and indulges in some seedy xenophobia, as his publication desperately tries to stay relevant.

Extract: Trumps order was not signed in a vacuum. Look at the Heritage Foundations interactive timeline of Islamist terror plots since 9/11. Note the dramatic increase in planned and executed attacks since 2015. Now is not the time for complacency. Now is the time to take a fresh look at our border-control and immigration policies. Trumps order isnt a betrayal of American values. Applied correctly and competently, it can represent a promising fresh start and a prelude to new policies that protect our nation while still maintaining American compassion and preserving American friendships.

Read more:
Burst your bubble: five conservative articles to read as Trump riles libertarians - The Guardian

Most people have agency. They live in their bubbles, their local municipalities, their facebook shitposting groups, their families. With the emotions and information they absorb in each, from their diapers to their diplomas and onward, they choose pathsthey make decisions. With the number of people rounding 7 billion and the number of possible bubbles rounding even more, its roundly impossible to intellectualize all of it. In fact, it is impossible to intellectualize most of the major parts and sub-parts of it. Even if we squint to try and better understand the behaviors of just our own bubbles, the equations dont exactly pop out.

To humans for whom curiosity and a sense of control are central, this all poses a very big problem. There are now, as its been for a while, too many branches of paths and possibilities to have anything that can meaningfully be called control. Theres too much entropy in society, too much oil on the grip of intellectual comfort.

You dont know if therell soon be a terror attack on your nation-bubbles soil, but its within some realm of possibility that merits concern. You dont know if a self-driving car might wonk out and kill someone, you dont have the resources to analyze the statistics or the software yourself, but you know that faulty systems with the capacity to kill warrant concern. You dont know if youll become ill, if your insurance company will be ethical, if youll have a doctor available, if your doctor will be capable but all of this is cause for concern. The behavior of the millions of people in the organizations whose decisions decide your capacity to commute, known as the fossil fuel industry, are both so sporadic and so impactful that youve probably felt their weight.

Theres too much information, and if you dont have a team of data scientists and access to the databanks of the NSA, JPMorgan, and Merck Pharmaceuticals like Palantir, there really is no control, and within few constraints, anything can happen. And people have a tendency to reduce anything can happen to the worst can happen and act accordingly.

How can this mass upset at entropy be resolved? How can they increase the constraints, at least in their own bubbles? With authority. Authority, whether physical, social, coercive, or economic, imposes agency onto entropy. Agency is sympathetic, agency is familiar. Even if its someone elses, so long as its not obviously opposed to yours, agency is the familiar friend who tames the wild beast of entropy with the sword and shield of authority.

But as you might see, entropy is largely liberty. Its peoples ability to take their unique circumstances, their knowledge and their instincts, and go with it where they please. Its their ability to communicate it to others through whisper or megaphone. Their ability to go on and bond with those others, as friends, colleagues, partners in adventure, or Grindr-bros. Their capacity to mobilize their assets, their land, their cars, their books and notebooks, their microscopes and fishing lures, as their circumstances call for it. And to trade those assets and relationships as they see fit.

These degrees of freedom lead any number of people to generate an enormous number of bubbles and spawn an even greater number of paths for the world to take. Some of those paths are hazard, most uncertain, and few utopian. And because entropy, the collective manifest of liberty, is without agency, its propaganda falls flat of any notions of collective workers paradise or great aryan nationhood.

Thankfully, there are many who find themselves just asif not morewary of authority, of the imposition of others agency, as they are of entropy. And even moreso, there are many, like myself, who see appreciate the necessity of entropy as clearly as the familiarity of agency.

Some, sadly, simply wear the cloak of liberty but retain a hatred of entropy, and develop some pathologies and ideologies. They identify themselves as lovers of liberty and warriors against authority, and end up attacking entropy: they convolute, and to themselves and the world claim liberty is actually a carefully orchestrated plan by a malicious shadow authority, and call for an authority which is more familiar than the supposed shadow authority to take its place. In reality, theyre fighting entropy and calling for authority with the caveat of decoration.

Liberty, to me and many others, is the way to maintain liberty. No amount of conceptual hoop-jumping and redefinition can obfuscate that. That entropy is a necessary consequence of liberty is an important understand that, although uncertain, if accepted, solidifies the notion that for us liberty is more important than fear of probability.

* Ronald Cohen is an organizational sociology student and researcher.

The main BeingLibertarian.com account, used for editorials and guest author submissions. The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions. Contact the Editor at editor@beinglibertarian.email

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Entropy and Authority - Being Libertarian

Wichita Eagle

Libertarian candidates seek Pompeo seat Wichita Eagle Three Libertarian candidates will square off Feb. 11 to be the third choice in the special election to replace former U.S. Rep. Mike Pompeo, who left his congressional seat to serve as CIA director in the Trump administration. But there probably won ...

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Libertarian candidates seek Pompeo seat - Wichita Eagle

Conservative, Libertarian Groups Propose Campus Free Speech Bill Inside Higher Ed Several conservative and libertarian organizations are urging state lawmakers to adopt legislation that aims to "restore and protect freedom of thought and expression" on college campuses. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that ... and more »

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Conservative, Libertarian Groups Propose Campus Free Speech Bill - Inside Higher Ed

For students of political strategy, the 2016 presidential race was a remarkable and informative election. This is especially true for grassroots libertarians who want to learn how to build an electoral coalition capable of winning national elections. It shows why libertarian populism must be the way forward for activists interested in advancing the liberty movement.

Donald Trump or should I say President Trump accomplished something incredible: he methodically took down sixteen of the Republican Partys best candidates in the primaries and then annihilated Hillary Clinton in an electoral landslide, holding on to traditional red states while winning states like Michigan and Pennsylvania that establishment Republicans could never even dream of winning. What made his victory even more amazing was that Trump managed to win these traditionally deep blue states despite being viciously attacked around the clock by the mainstream media, Democratic Party, and neoconservatives (who de facto are the Republican establishment).

Trump accomplished all of this while turning the traditional political strategy of beltway elites on its head. Instead of abandoning his core campaign promises after the primaries and moving to the center or, as beltway elites like to frame it, triangulating between his base and moderates Trump took and then stood by hardline stances on issues like immigration, gun rights, tax cuts, and deregulation. On other hot-button issues, like abortion, he defied political convention even more when he moved further to the right the closer he got to the general election.

While Trump was undoubtedly the most successful insurgent candidate of 2016, he wasnt the only anti-establishment Republican to enjoy success. Neoconservatives like Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and John Kasich all candidates who were treated like top-tier contenders by the mainstream media and the political class in the early stages of the presidential race failed to collectively garner more than a third of the vote in the primaries. This was because, in addition to Trump, another radically anti-establishment Republican, Senator Ted Cruz, dominated these supposedly respectable establishment Republicans throughout the primary process.

Meanwhile, the man whom much of the liberty movement placed their hopes on Senator Rand Paul abandoned much of the radical libertarian platform that his father, Dr. Ron Paul, ran on four years earlier. For example, instead of advocating for abolishing the income tax and ending the Federal Reserve, like his father did, Sen. Paul was content with calling for a 14.5% flat income tax and a mere audit of the Federal Reserve.

Many beltway libertarians thought that this abandonment of libertarian principle, combined with Sen. Paul staffing many of the top positions on his presidential campaign with establishment consultants like Chip Englander and Chris LaCivita, would make Rand Pauls campaign appear respectable to the mainstream media, the Republican establishment, and high-dollar donors. This, they had hoped, would improve Sen. Pauls electability.

But experience proved otherwise. Sen. Pauls supposedly respectable presidential campaign failed spectacularly in the first electoral contest of the presidential cycle, the Iowa caucus: Rand Paul garnered less than one-third of the vote that his radically libertarian father received in 2012 just four years earlier.

So what happened? Why did Donald Trump and to a lesser extent Ted Cruz do so well while neoconservative candidates and the self-described libertarianish Rand Paul crash and burn? All libertarians who genuinely want to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past must also ask themselves: why did Rand Paul perform so miserably compared to his father?

Despite their different ideologies, there is a similarity that Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz, and Dr. Ron Paul all share with each other but are absent from the neoconservatives and Sen. Rand Pauls politics: populism.

Populism is a political strategy that aims to mobilize a largely alienated base of the populace against out-of-control elites. Because of its inherent anti-elitist attitude, populism is often confused with left-wing egalitarian movements but this is not a necessary relationship. Populism can be used just as well by nationalists to displace globalist elites, or by Christians to displace atheist or secular elites, or by free-market capitalists to displace bureaucratic or socialist elites.

What distinguishes populism from other political strategies can be broken down to:

Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Ron Paul all had elements of this populist approach deeply ingrained in their campaigns. For example, Ted Cruz and Ron Paul both were widely lauded for their superb grassroots operations that mobilized volunteers to knock on millions of doors. Also, both Ron Paul and Donald Trump made use of large rallies and alt-media to communicate directly with thousands sometimes tens of thousands of voters at a time.

Crucially, despite their ideological differences, all three candidates synced their message with their issues. They all took radical positions on issues that were vociferously opposed by the ruling classes but garnered strong support from the grassroots, e.g. Ron Paul on taxes and monetary policy, Donald Trump on trade and immigration, and Ted Cruz on defunding Obamacare and religious liberty.

Recent political history shows that Ron Pauls libertarian populist campaign performed much better than Rand Pauls presidential campaign not just electorally but also in terms of fundraising and number of new activists recruited. This, of course, is crucial to any movements long-term success.

More importantly, Ron Pauls twopresidential campaigns which undoubtedly used libertarian populism as a successful tool brought more people into the liberty movement than all other efforts combined. These other efforts pursued by the liberty movement can be boiled down to two alternatives to populism: Hayekian educationism and Fabian incrementalism.

Hayekian educationism, named after Friedrich Hayeks theory of social change expounded in his essay The Intellectuals and Socialism, relies first on persuading a core group of intellectuals to adopt libertarian ideas. Then, according to Hayeks model, those intellectuals persuade a growing number of what Hayek calls second-hand dealers in ideas like journalists, teachers, and politicians to propagate their ideas among the general populace.

Fabian incrementalism, named after the Fabian socialists of late 19th century Britain, relies on a similar group of individuals intellectuals, journalists, and policy wonks to persuade government bureaucrats and politicians to adopt gradual changes in policy. This, performed consistently over a long period of time will, theoretically, lead to the adoption of long-term social changes that the reformers set out to achieve.

Fundamentally, these two approaches differ little from one another which is why both of these approaches are often employed in tandem. The main difference between the two models of social change is simply who will be educated and persuaded and in both models, there is little to no emphasis placed on political technology, grassroots organizing/mobilization, or electoral politics.

Both of these models of social change have been employed for decades in the United States by beltway organizations like the Cato Institute, the Institute for Humane Studies, and others.

Students of political strategy will note that both Hayekian educationism and Fabian incrementalism worked well for the statist left after all, these were the two dominant strategies utilized by the left for the bulk of the 20th century, which saw unchecked growth in government.

So why were these strategies successful for the statist left, but not for the anti-statist right?

The reasons for this are explained in detail in Murray Rothbards essays about political strategy in the Rothbard-Rockwell Report, a newsletter that gained wide traction among grassroots conservatives and libertarians in the early 1990s. Rothbard argued in these essays that Hayekian educationism and Fabian incrementalism do not work well for the libertarian movement for one fundamental reason: both of these approaches rely on winning over the hearts-and-minds of the ruling classes, which will naturally oppose any ideology that threatens their power and way of life.

Instead, Rothbard saw political opportunity in the various populist movements of his time the Buchananite paleoconservatives, the religious right, and the supporters of third-party presidential candidate Ross Perot. All three of these movements utilized populist strategy and tactics to bypass the mainstream media and academia in order to grow and become powerful political forces.

Notably, these movements shared many of libertarians concerns, including state-led social engineering, high taxes, reckless wars, and increasing centralization of power in both the federal government and transnational organizations like the United Nations. Rothbard saw no reason why libertarian activists couldnt capitalize on these movements to roll back state power and establish their own lines of direct communication with the masses.

This anti-establishment right-wing sentiment is exactly what the Ron Paul campaign successfully capitalized on in his insurgent presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012.

Today, in between the religious right, the Tea Party, and the Trump coalition, right-wing populist movements are stronger than ever before. Whatever misgivings some (mostly beltway) libertarians have about them, these movements are largely anti-statist in their nature. The religious right is now almost exclusively focused on fighting to retain at least some of their religious freedoms from the states extensive social engineering programs; the Tea Party is mostly concerned with high taxes, bailouts, and growing corruption; and members of the Trump coalition are concerned about forced integration of culturally-alien immigrants in their communities, endless wars and nation-building overseas, and the increased centralization of power in the United Nations.

More importantly, the means of directly communicating with the masses are more affordable than ever before. When Rothbard wrote his essays on libertarian political strategy in the early 1990s, the chief means of bypassing academia and the mainstream media were direct mail, grassroots organizing, and (in Perots case) late-night infomercials. Today, thanks to the digital revolution, populists can easily communicate with millions of people using email, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other tools at a very low cost. These low-cost digital tools also led to the rise of the alt-media; online publications, shows, etc. by Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, and others who have audiences that range anywhere from the thousands to the millions audiences that populist candidates and organizers can easily tap into. Weve already seen Ron Paul and Donald Trump, for example, go on the Alex Jones show to communicate with his audience of millions.

These two factors the rise of several strong populist right-wing movements and the digital revolution mean that the potential for libertarian populism as astrategy is greater than ever before, especially for grassroots activists and organizers interested in making a serious difference in the political environment. Libertarian activists would be remiss to ignore this successful political strategy in favor of the failed strategies of the past.

Continued here:
The Masses In Motion: Why Libertarian Populism Is The Way Forward - The Liberty Conservative