One thing that makes me super happy these days is the number of people who sent me a note alerting me to a New York Times article discussing how my beloved Huntsville, Alabama is getting screwed over by the Trump administration.
I love my readers, who are totally the best.
Donald Trump, not so much.
Granted, he gives zero fucks what I think of him. That’s generally been his approach to life and so far it’s hard to deny that it’s working for him. He’s the same old jerk with a lot of power to hurt the very people who voted for him more than everyone else. Which is about as despicable as it was predictable.
Yes, I’m happy to explain that. But first, more evidence.
This Rachel Maddow segment on how Republican areas are feeling the bite of government efficiency is also making the rounds. I am not an expert on the size of typical congressional phone town halls, but I’m pretty sure elected officials aren’t used to having quite this many people call in. Over 20,000? That’s a lot of people on the line. And they wouldn’t be calling if they were happy.
As well, this Politico piece on how Republicans are trying to push back on indiscriminate cuts to people and institutions that directly benefit their constituents is interesting for some of the details it provides.
You get the idea.
I studied libertarianism pretty seriously in the 1990s. I got paid to sit around posh campuses such as Bryn Mawr and Georgetown with very inebriated people debating the relative subversiveness of The Simpsons vs South Park. I also read Ayn Rand and pretended I understood fuckin’ F.A. Hayek.
In all my years of covering politics I have yet to meet anyone who wins votes by saying they’re in favour of more government waste. Nobody likes it. Most grown-ups are prepared to tolerate a smallish amount of it provided government spending mostly does what it should. Like, governments are big, man. It’s very hard not to lose track of small sums here and there.
Scandals, we all hate. But errors and inefficiencies are hard to root out entirely in machines this enormous.
That’s why libertarians advocate for reducing the size of the state to nearly zero. Army, justice system, internal commerce, weights and measures, and central banking — they’re usually OK with. Other than that, as far as libertarians are concerned, everything should be free and private. Including health care and environmental protections, yes. Culture and national parks, too. Debatable whether they’d have governments handle navigable waters or the interstate system.
Social programs should be left to private enterprise, who will naturally make a profit offering good services to deserving people at prices they can afford, while at the same time benefiting society at large. That’s textbook Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” theory. Which you should know is a great theory. One that’s never been shown to work, except in theory. You could almost say it’s the most perfect theory.
For sure there is room for people to argue that citizens might benefit from being a little more self-reliant and arrange their affairs so that their need for social supports are minimal. I used to make that case regularly myself. And to be sure, that’s how I’ve structured my own life. But I have advantages that not everyone has, including being highly educated and unusually able-bodied. I worked for both. It wasn’t just luck that got me to where I am. But how I differ now from back when I argued for extreme self-reliance is that I have more empathy in my heart for people who’ve hit rougher patches than I have.
Also? I understand that providing a decent social safety net and investing in the social determinants of health is much cheaper than total laissez-faire policies. Just read Dickens if you don’t believe me.
Could we be more efficient in how we provide those services? Duh. Yes.
Libertarians are popular when they talk about eliminating government waste, in good part because — here’s another dirty secret about politics — absolutely nobody thinks they personally represent the swamp that needs draining. Certainly not the fellow who earns $52K a year preventing tourists from being eaten by bears at your local national park. Elon Musk disagrees, so off he goes. Tourists should know better than to let bears eat them. Right?
And that’s where I begin to hope again.
What the Trump/Musk administration is doing is not libertarianism. It’s just more selfishness and greed disguised as kinetic god-n-country-savin’ with zero regard for other people’s rights or, indeed, for democratic institutions. They signalled this plan very clearly during the campaign, and anyone who claims to be surprised now can shut up. Starting with GOP politicians who campaigned for DOGE.
Libertarianism properly understood isn’t just cutting waste. It’s also encouraging community-wide self-reliance in ways that don’t involve the coercive power of the state. If you’re in the mood for a little torture, you can watch this famous interview of Ayn Rand explaining it. It’s a great theory that, to my knowledge, has never worked in practice. But still, it’s a theory that can be defended, at least up to a point.
What Donald Trump and Elon Musk are doing is not libertarianism. It’s pure chaotic destruction. It’s a dog’s breakfast. Nothing but me-first absolutism. Toddler-grade economic tantrum.
Cutting jobs and funding indiscriminately is not efficient and it’s not cost-effective. Just wait until the social costs of all this economic havoc start to come in. Who’s going to be there to catch the folks who fall through the gigantic holes in the fast-disappearing social safety net? Yes, their own community members. Because no matter how MAGA-washed people are, they can’t witness human suffering right in front of them and just ignore it.
What will ruin Donald Trump is the good at the heart of the humans he thinks are as mean as he is. He doesn’t give a shit about hurting the very people who trusted him, and that’s going to be his downfall. It can’t come soon enough.
