These could change between now and November.
1. Voting for Gary Johnson, the libertarian camdidate, is obviously right. Both in terms of policy views and temperament/experience, he is clearly the best person on the ballot.
2. The fact that top Republicans are not endorsing Johnson makes me angry.
3. Let’s assume Johnson has no chance. I still will vote for him, but I will hope that Trump wins. If Trump wins, then people on the left will, at least temporarily, be thinking in terms of restraining Presidential power. If Clinton wins, they will be thinking in terms of maximizing Presidential power.
It’s not clear to me that a President Trump would be easily restrained, no matter what the Democrats would like. His entire political identity thus far seems to be: I do what I want, and I get what I want.
Who in the last century would have been more likely to pull an Andrew Jackson and tell the Supreme Court to enforce its own decisions? Or to revive some kind of Court-packing plan like FDR’s? Presidents already ignore Congress when they think they can get away with it; how much more so will Trump?
Trump is not much like other political candidates. His movement is not much like other political movements. There is little reason to assume that traditional restraints on power will be sufficient to restrain such an nontraditional President.
Now that Obama has demonstrated conclusively that traditional restraints no longer work, why should we expect any future president to respect such restraints?
I think the primary restraint would be the media. Hillary would get a pass on everything up to personally slaughtering starving children in a third world country. Trump’s every move would be scrutinized and shrieked about daily in the press.
Again, that’s normal rules. But Trump’s every move *has been* scrutinized and shrieked about daily in the press, yet here we are.
I’m not saying they would prevent him from getting elected, I’m saying that everything he does would be scrutinized.
If Hillary is elected, every anti-“liberal” thing she did would be Voxsplained to us. Justifications would pour forth from CNN, MSNBC, etc.
Hold on a second, Hillary “personally slaughtering starving children in a third world country” would not only get a “pass,” it would earn democrat points for getting tough.
I wish I were joking.
It’s not clear to me that a President Trump would be easily restrained, no matter what the Democrats would like.
Possibly. But on the bright side, if Emporer Trump wants to build a few gulags, I have a long list of people to fill them with.
Trump winning provides the most humor potential. For example, it will be funny having another country pay gladly for a wall across our border. Of course, I refer to the wall Canadians will be building to keep all the Hollywood celebrities out.
I definitely laughed out loud at this. 🙂
The irony is Canadians would never allow Mexicans while we have half their total population in illegals.
Assuming that Olson’s distributive coalitions (military-industrial, health, banks) don’t gradually dissolve, the two paths are:
A – major disruption and reset, likely from a financial accident (debt collapse followed by hyperinflation), but possibly from some political strife
B – more of the same, slowing of entrepreneurship and dynamism in the economy, but waiting it out until a major growth innovation (AI?) comes along to outgrow existing rentier cobwebs
Assume A is Trump and B is Hillary, which would maximize year 2050 absolute and relative US GDP standing?
“which would maximize year 2050 absolute and relative US GDP standing?”
libertarianism.txt
A nice, orderly bipartisan impeachment might do wonders for congressional morale.
Plenty of fruit to be plucked once they understand the benefits of cooperation.
I dont vote to signal so I am voting for Don, and its not even close. Once Texas turns blue do to our defacto open borders policy the game is up for anything resembling the parts of libertarianism I care about the most.
Seconded.
I’ll third the analysis, but I just can’t bring myself to buy into the logical conclusion because of moral revulsion.
Have you ever heard that thought experiment where a cabal of 5 Supreme Court Justices shuts out the other 4? They can game the system by agreeing to first vote secretly amongst themselves and then to vote as a block to support the outcome of the secret vote.
Elections in a plurality system are kind of like that, except you don’t have to keep it a secret and so you can just call the “cabal” a “political party”. Top Republicans have long been beneficiaries of the Trump demographic holding its nose to vote R, and they don’t want to risk fracturing that, so even though they never really expected to have to take a turn doing the same, they’re willing to.
If anyone wanted to actually fix the too-easily-gameable system, rather than preserve it, the arguments wouldn’t be about whether to support Trump or not, the arguments would be about whether primary elections should be changed to IRV or Approval or Condorcet or what.
Neither candidate thrills me. I’ve wondered if Trump would be easier to remove from office since Republican members of Congress wouldn’t be as hesitant to impeach-remove him. Gary Johnson is the CEO of Cannabis Sativa Inc. so he does have private sector experience (he also started Big J Enterprises according to Wikipedia).
Other points:
1) Well off Republicans like a strong military first and foremost and that is why they don’t like Gary Johnson. I still think the main goal of neocons (with Jeb or Rubio) was to bomb Iran. For all the complaints for a liberal MSM media, they love foreign policy interventions! We still hear how much Obama has failed in the Syria Civil War. We are still going to hear that Obama has not protected us even though no major foreign terrorist attack occurred. (Yes minor ones with US citizens occurred. Note Obama has kept us safe as long as W did after 9/11.)
2) This is shaping up to be the most racially divided election in decades and we will see if Latino voting substantially increases. I think the main thing the Republican base hates most is illegal immigration.
3) Voting for HRC is the status quo and my guess Democrats will fall in line and likely win with ~50% of the vote.
4) I expect the 2020 or 2024 election to be the Party coalitions and look to the Republicans going the way of Buchanan/Douthat (a more nationalist religious party) and Democrats to go Yglesias (socially very liberal,more national economics.)
Your 1) is quite a doozy. Neither of those idiots “kept us safe.” There was one and only one Nine Eleven plot, it happened, without a hitch, then the first idiot used the spectre of a second Nine Eleven to do really dumb foreign policy stuff while the next idiot used it to give us NSA spying, predator drones, and Obamacare. Basically every minor plot since Nine Eleven has gone off without a hitch regardless of the flavor of unconstitutional acts of both the idiots, and despite the second idiot lying to justify NSA spying and drone assassinations.
. Basically every minor plot since Nine Eleven has gone off without a hitch regardless of the flavor of unconstitutional acts of both the idiots
Of course it is EVERY MINOR PLOT has gone off without a hitch. By my count there were three minor plots, Fort Hood, the Boston bombing and San Bernandino. These are minor plots done with US citizens which would have very hard to stop just like far right extreme or school shootings. (There was the underwear bomber and New York bomb that did not go off.)
Personally, I think Obama’s failure was he did too much in the Middle East and he let all nations fend for themselves and that in the long run lowers the chance of a foreign terrorist. Our military can’t solve their political issues.
In what sense did Obama “keep us safe?”
The underwear plot worked. The underwear didn’t.
San Bernardino included a non-citizen whose threats were on facebook.
Obama demands spying on citizens plus Syrian refugees. Stupid.
“Of course it is EVERY MINOR PLOT has gone off without a hitch.”
I’m not sure what point you think you are making. There were no major plots, and certainly none prevented by Obama. There have been basically three types of plots in America: first the minor plots that go off with zero interference from the government- then used to justify unconstitutional powers such as in Boston. Second, major plots that are entirely imaginary but exploited by the government to justify unconstitutional actions that will not prevent plots but are directed against citizens (NSA spying and hopefully not drone assassinations) and foreigners (drone assassinations). And third, the fabricated plots made up by the FBI to justify investigations and unconstitutional powers.
Do you think they distinguish between “major: plots and “minor” plots and then choose not to stop the “minor” plots? While at the same time we prosecute schoolchildren under terrorism laws?
I like a good joke, but I’m not quite getting it if this is some kind of alt humor gag.
Hey I am all dropping the NSA and other FBI programs as there is little evidence they do work with any adminstration. However, if we limit these programs than I do expect a very slight increase in terrorist attacks.
On top of that, I am all for the US completely removing ourselves from all Middle East battles as well. Let Iran, Saudia Arabia and Israel negotiate their peace and leave our nation out of it. It is not our problem and long run that would decrease terrorism in the US.
“if we limit these programs than I do expect a very slight increase in terrorist attacks.”
Why?
I think the best argument you can make for those programs is that they aren’t as easy to show that they cause terrorist attacks as do the foreign interventions.
Glad to hear you are okay with limiting them though, considering they are unconstitutional, evil, have ZERO supporting evidence, and motivated the president to lie for them for undoubtedly corrupt and nefarious motivations. Kudos.
I’ll vote for Johnson and not waste any of my time or mental capacity trying to guess whether Hillary or Trump would ultimately be the bigger disaster.
“I’ll vote for Johnson . . .”
All the Way with LBJ!
Based on your point 3, I take it that you consider the behavior of politicians on the right to be unpredictable if Trump wins? They’re going to retain the House and Senate in all likelihood so the right’s behavior is going to be more important than the left’s.
Gary Johnson, the “libertarian” who thinks Jews should be forced to bake Swastika cakes? It turns out that Liberaltarianism is just Aryanism without the liberalism!
Howard Roark blew up a building rather then let someone else use his work…but you need to BAKE THE FUCKING CAKE YOU BIGOT SLAVE.
Of course no sooner do they cave on this then the left finds something else. It’s not about the specific issues. It’s about power. When you appease them it doesn’t lessen their anger, it emboldens their lust for more power.
At some point you think libertarians would realize that the left isn’t going to leave anyone alone, and that the only way to be left alone is to be more powerful then them so they can’t force their whims on everyone else. That would require organizing though, putting the work in, and acknowledging realistic political, cultural, and social realities.
Easier to grandstand and vote for Johnson. You can talk about how you remained ideologically pure all the way to the social justice gulag.
Politicians aren’t always libertarian theorists,fyi.
It’s the old “if you believe in anything, you’ll fall for everything” phenomenon. Libertarians worship at the altar of liberty, “Liberty” simply signifying an absence of any definite content. That empty bottle is then filled with whatever happens to be available. Today it’s social justice, yesterday it was free market economics, tomorrow who knows what it might be.
While Jews may get special attention, Nazis would not be xonsidered a protected class.
If you hope that Trump wins, then you should vote for Trump. That’s my reason for voting for him. Yeah, in the status quo ante I would have preferred somebody else, but the old days aren’t coming back again.
Why vote for some inconsequential guy?
“If you hope that Trump wins, then you should vote for Trump”
Why?
While its overly simplistic to say the purpose of all actions is to bring about desired outcomes, it’s probably a good yard stick most of the time.
The purpose of your vote should be to achieve some outcome. If you like Johnson’s policies, but voting for him is unlikely to bring about those policies, what’s the point?
I don’t just mean it in the is Johnson likely to win the election sense, but also that the policies themselves might be self refuting. For years libertarians pushed for open borders republicans. Now the demographics are such that only welfare supporting leftists can win. They pushed LGBT, now we are forced to pay for everyones anti-retrovirals and sex changes operations via Obamacare, and those people still aren’t going to vote libertarian ever.
Even if a libertarian was against forcing someone to bake a cake *in theory*, what realistic plan do they have for bringing about a state of society where someone is free to decide whether they bake a cake?
First of all, he is lying about “SWASTIKA” cakes.
Second, your vote doesn’t count either. Except that it counts toward reinforcing the two party system that is THE REASON we have the two worst choices ever offered.
So, again, why? Your vote isn’t going to put Trump in office. And why would you risk leaving your keyboard for what little benefit there is, if there is any, and there isn’t by the way, of Trump over Hillary?
What does Kling find so terrible about Trump? Trump will hopefully be less hawkish on military intervention, and a modest right wing type about domestic policy. Larry Kudlow running economics sounds fairly good.
The election is an A/B test between Trump/Clinton. Why vote for someone else who has absolutely no chance of winning?
1. So that it won’t only he an A/B choice in the future.
2. There is no reason to believe Trump is objectively better than Hillary. For example, you want to hang his hat on that he was like anyone else with a brain in knowing the Iraq invasion was bad? Think about that. It proves nothing about what he will do for different examples in the future.
3. You are worse than wasting your vote voting for Hillary or Trump.
However, I do agree that his tanking the party’s prospects this election are a sink costm
Btw, the one defining feature of Trump is that it is impossible to figure out what he is saying, let alone predict his behavior.
All we have to go off of is extreme narcissism.
You don’t see how abstaining from endorsing either extreme narcissism or paranoid megalomania are a perfectly rational option?
Because your assumptions are based on voting matter ing and math says it doesn’t. And what if Gary Johson actually got to spoiler territory…well…and? Spoil what?
And also don’t discount cognitive biases, either.
Do you think Trump will: build a wall, ban all muslim entry, deport 10 million people, “Take out” ISIS/terrorist family members, bring back torture, “bomb ISIS,” bring back jobs…?
Some of these are difficult to imagine how they could even have any meaning. How do you “bomb isis”? (Let alone carpet bombing, which I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt of having no clue what he is talking about)
But even accepting what Trump might think he means fot the sake of argument, do you believe hr actually intends to pursue all of them? Why or why not? Which ones do you believe? Why?
a) build a wall: definitely. He can’t back off the wall.
b) ban Muslim entry: no but he could make it difficult to get a visa from Muslim countries, that would be easy enough. Just don’t assign consular officers to Saudia Arabia, Egypt, etc. He could also deport all visa overstayers, which is probably the prime source of Muslim illegal immigration. Also restrict refugee resettlement, etc. So he could definitely make a dent in Muslim immigration.
c) take out family members: the DOJ is already going after the SB killers family members. It’s a perfectly reasonable tactic practiced by places like Israel and Russia. The fact the other candidates are unaware just shows that Trump has more curiousity
d)
c) deport 10 million: not every speeder has to be caught, but there does have to be a reasonable threat of getting a ticket. All he has to do is bring back the threat of deportation to a) serve as deterrent and b) encourage self-deportation.
d) bring back torture: remember, it was the “principled,” “morally serious,” “constitutionalist” Ben Sasse who helped John Yoo draft his torture memos. He was chief of staff for the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy, when the department produced the “torture memos” between 2003 and 2005. So if you’re opposed to torture (as I am) keep the neocons from power, and that includes Hillary.
So yeah, Trump will probably make good progress on most of his promises.
Want to lay odds?