The current presidential election has been somewhat of a nightmare for Libertarians, such as myself and others who would fall under the third-party realm. Although Bernie and Hillary’s horrendous economic agendas make me cringe, it is the ignorant and uncanny totalitarian mannerisms of Donald Trump that I fear more than anything else.
Now do not get me wrong: I am used to losing when it comes to politics. Libertarians rarely “win” anything because, unfortunately, classical liberal policies do not fall under the “right” or “left” categories but instead stick to the original foundations of our country: that the strict role of government should be to protect the autonomy of each and every citizen, nothing more, nothing less.
However, I feel like Libertarians are losing more than ever before. It is as if we are currently fighting Mike Tyson with both hands behind our backs and feeling each “Yuge” punch every time we hear mindless cheer from Americans that are rallying behind a political sociopath, who uses fear, aggression and authoritativeness to win over the hearts of any people foolish enough to believe that he is a just and qualified candidate. Yeah, we are losing badly.
If you go back 15 years, back to the days where the name Trump meant nothing more than “that guy who likes to fire people” and you told someone that he would be the frontrunner in the Republican nomination, you would get a laugh because, simply speaking, you made a funny joke.
But this “joke” is now a scary reality. For someone whose political beliefs centralize on the ideas of free will, peace and liberty, I have a hard time wrapping my head around the restrictive policies that Trump has proposed.
He wants to “build a wall” between United States and Mexico, like a child who thinks he is playing with a bunch of Legos. He wants to place extremely high tariffs on goods from out of the country, without realizing that this protectionist measure will subsequently result in overall high prices and poorer economic conditions. He wants to ban Muslim families from entering the country, stereotyping an entire peaceful ideology with a small violent and radical faction.
Donald Trump’s policies are built off of fear and hate, but this just a manifestation of his personality. A Libertarian who supports him cannot be considered a Libertarian. We support the policies that are empirically backed, while being conducive to liberty, and do not support fearful policies that are unfounded on any sort of knowledge.
Part of me wants America and the GOP to lay in the toupee-stuffed bed that they made, but the rational part of my mind knows that America would not be better off supporting an ignorant and intolerable man.