Again, In The Wilderness

Nestled in the notes file I keep for blog-spirations is an aphorism I attributed to George Will:

It's a lonely time to be a libertarian.

I apparently don't have the quote perfectly quoted, because Google won't provide provenance. Nor do I know how old the quote is.

No matter. It's as true today as it was when I first noted it.

The Democrats have long abandoned the liberty aspects of their platform in favor of authoritarianism, censorship, rewarding rent-seekers, and command economy behavior. "Socially liberal" used to mean "live and let live" in personal matters, but today it means "conform to an agenda."

The Republican have abandoned their long-running free market pretense in favor of outright economic nationalism and protectionism. I see this in the myriad pretzel-logic defenses of Trump's trade war, among other places. While I have taken solace in such Good-Trump policies as pressing Europe to invest in her own defense rather than relying on American taxpayers and seeking to curtail spending via DOGE, many who wear the Team Red pin oppose both these less-government efforts.

The political public - and the press - are rarely able to focus on more than one thing at a time, and currently that one thing is tariffs. This has shunted attention away from other matters of import, including the question of due process for some migrants accused of past or current criminality. While I have no qualms about expelling bad persons - I'm of the Charles Koch "I would let anybody in who will make the country better, and no one who will make it worse" school - if rights are to mean something, they should mean something for everyone. It has also diverted eyeballs from DOGE, and with Musk's tenure as its show runner expiring by statute, I fear that the efficiency momentum might ebb.

When Biden & Co were running roughshod over our rights, the Right made a lot of noise. Now that Trump is back in office, the Left has resumed its Orwellian-sheep-like bleats of "Fascist" every chance they get. Those bleats don't exactly convince, if for no other reason than their complete acceptance with rights infringement when it was their team doing it.

Trump's extremely anti-liberty tariffs - and let's be honest, the pretzel-logic and sophistry behind defenses of "Liberation Day" are more about allegiance to Team Trump than anything else - are, no matter the outcome, an example of Bad-Trump. If the goal is to get other countries to lower their tariffs - and that's the most optimistic goal of many possibilities - there were better ways. If the goal is any of the others - well, there's nothing "liberty" about economic protectionism, mercantilism, and the rest of the -isms that are telegraphed by Trump's words and deeds.

I knew I'd be getting a mixed bag from this administration, and the protectionist proclivities have been there from his first toe-dip into politics, so I'm not surprised. The Great Rejection that was this past election remains a positive in my mind, because (as you will read on Friday) the alternative was worse. That Great Rejection gave me some hope that I'd see some more liberty talk - from both parties - but that hope is so far unrequited.

It's only been a couple months, so I will abide. As if I have any other choice. But right now, my political homelessness persists, with dim prospects for the future.