Libertarians and Conservatives
But not all libertarians and not all conservatives, to be clear
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During the 2024 presidential election there was an alliance of various conservative factions and some libertarian factions to help propel Donald Trump back into the presidency; I, being on the libertarian side, voted for Trump as well, though my sole reason for doing so was to keep the Democrats out of power after they overthrew their own primary election. It’s entirely possible, maybe even likely, that Trump would have won that election without libertarian support, but it certainly didn’t hurt anything for his chances. Unfortunately, the same story that has been happening since William F. Buckley did everything he could to expel libertarians from the official, respectable Right at least has happened once again; conservatives are mad at libertarians for expecting conservatives to govern on the policies they campaigned on while conservatives are more interested in wielding state power for their own benefit and smearing libertarians as enemies.
A tale as old as time.
It’s interesting that they keep declaring that libertarians need to be made to have no influence in the “conservative movement,” as if libertarians have ever had any influence. Sure, conservatives retweeted some libertarians like Dave Smith when he was making the case to elect Donald Trump, but what has the Trump regime done that libertarians would support? President Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht early in his second term, and that’s it. If libertarians had influence in the “conservative movement” or the Trump regime, then Trump would be enacting policies favorable to libertarians, but there’s only one example anyone could point to and, while that’s a something many libertarians were in favor of (I never followed the Ulbricht case and have no idea where I stand on his conviction and pardon), it didn’t fundamentally move the United States closer to libertarianism at all.
It’s interesting to note that the claim is that libertarians are the ones betraying the conservative movement and/or the Trump regime by disagreeing with them. These same people who cheered Trump alongside libertarians during the presidential campaign continue to cheer President Trump now while he enacts policies that are the exact opposite of what he campaigned on, not to mention being completely at odds with libertarianism, with no cognitive dissonance, and while he attacks and backs a primary challenger to the most libertarian member of Congress, Rep. Thomas Massie. Conservatives were happy to have libertarians help them elect Donald Trump, but once they were in power the message immediately became for libertarians to shut their mouths and fall in line, or else. If that’s not betrayal then nothing is.
The real lesson from this episode should be that libertarianism and conservatism are largely incompatible, and libertarians should never trust the conservative movement at large. These conservatives will campaign like libertarians and then govern like Democrats because they have the same political goal as Democrats. Like Democrats, their only interest is in attaining and wielding political power without constraint, while libertarians, largely, want to limit and decentralize political power. These goals are obviously entirely opposed to one another. Murray N. Rothbard, “Mr. Libertarian,” was right when he said the only question that really matters when picking allies is, “Do you hate the State?” The conservative movement, like the progressive movement, loves the State, and libertarians should never again help them gain political power.