Reason: Trump 2.0 is A Libertarian Nightmare

[Winehole23]

Reason has been trying not to go too hard on the old man for 10 years

So much for that

A decade into his capture of our political attention spans, there is no longer anything new that can be said about Donald Trump in a big-picture way about his nature as a person or his larger meaning as a political phenomenon. His audacity, so bold at first, and so lubricated in his second go-round, can no longer shock or surprise; his crudeness, so initially colorful, just fades into the dark background of his actions; his bottomless sea of toddlerish willfulness and grievance, so curious and compelling in 2015–16, becomes as notable as water to a fish. We all swim in Trump now, surrounded by his turbulent, turbid murk, descending to fathomless depths, his surface marking the end of what we can know.


Near the end of the first full year of his second administration, Donald Trump has demonstrated his core authoritarianism so completely and consistently that his personal character and comportment peculiarities lose significance.


Just in the past week, since his piratical and uncons utional imperial conquest of Venezuela, he's declared that he, from his own personal ukase, is taking command of a dizzying range of economic and foreign policy matters, from his planned further imperial conquest of Greenland (accompanied by declarations from his satrap Steven Miller and himself that no external force or authority holds back his powers to conquer and wreak destruction on the world) to dictating how weapons contractors can compensate their executives or deal with their stocks, the interest rate credit card companies can charge, and whether certain companies can buy houses.


While he's gone hog wild so far in 2026, the pattern of his core authoritarianism was already well demonstrated in 2025. Trump wielded state power to punish enemies and reward friends, sent the military into city streets under bogus pretenses and over the objections of local elected officials, authorized masked cops to enforce "papers, please" policies on U.S. citizens moving in public (the loosing of such largely undisciplined shock troops in American cities where they are not wanted has predictably resulted in the unconscionable murder of a citizen), ordered the serial murder of suspected drug smugglers, and disrupted the global economy by making Americans pay sharply increased taxes on imported goods, for starters.


He has concentrated what was supposed to be the competing branches of the federal government into the whims of one man, and erased distinctions between federal and state, public and private. America has never had a president who acted more like a monarch.

His specific, do ented exertions of state power over the past year should be enough to declare him a dangerous foe of American liberty.

https://reason.com/2026/01/12/trump-...ian-nightmare/

[Winehole23]

Tyrannical government behavior tends to inspire violent reaction, which then occasions the imposition of still more tyranny. Some of Trump's invasions of U.S. cities were purportedly inspired by protests against the most damaging and cruel policy initiative of his second term, the campaign to deport millions of immigrants who haven't met government paperwork requirements.


In their immigration raids, Trump and henchmen such as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller behave with intentional and gleeful cruelty, sending masked bully boys throughout the land to snatch people from their workplaces and government appointments, then ship them to overseas (and domestic) torture chambers. Bereft, separated families are often left without any means to learn what has become of their loved ones. The administration routinely lies about its actions, about who is being detained and why. Meanwhile, federal officials and departments regularly churn out vicious cartoon memes mocking those whose lives they are ripping apart.


Those targeted are not generally "worst of the worst" illegal immigrant criminals; halfway through the year only around 7 percent of those detained had been previously convicted of any violent crime. And some aren't even non-citizens; as ProPublica reported in October, "Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten,tased andshot by immigration agents. They've had their necks kneeled on. They've been held outsidein the rain while in their underwear. At least three citizens were pregnant when agents detained them. One of those women had already had the door of her home blown offwhile Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noemwatched….About two dozen Americans have said they were held for more than a day without being able to phone lawyers or loved ones."

[Winehole23]

The people who have thrilled to the 45th president's frenetic exertions and nonstop insult comedy will not soon rediscover the values of aspirational virtue, of venerating the Cons ution, respecting limits on federal power, acknowledging the fatal conceit of would-be central planners, eschewing war, avoiding cruelty, treating human beings as if they had rights, privileging rule of law over rule of man. These very concepts now strike his MAGA movement as risible, foolish, outmoded, hopelessly naive, a sign that one doesn't know what time it is.

Which is why it's more necessary than ever, despite what a banal and overdone truism it has become, to say, however repe ively, that Donald Trump is, at least until he no longer holds office, a menace to the liberty and peace of America and the world.

[Millennial_Messiah]

My crypto portfolio has been down over 60% since October, and that's most of my money. That's worse than the interventionist war hawk crap.

[Winehole23]

how about the ethnic cleansing?

you like that, right?

[Winehole23]

My crypto portfolio has been down over 60% since October, and that's most of my money. That's worse than the interventionist war hawk crap.

Bitcoin got dinged last night by the interventionist war hawk crap

[Winehole23]

[Winehole23]

KARL: He was an ICU use who worked for the VA and there's no evidence he brandished the gun whatsoever

BESSENT: But he brought a gun

KARL: I mean, we do have a Second Amendment

BESSENT: I've been to a protest -- guess what? I didn't bring a gun. I brought a billboard

[Winehole23]

BRENNAN: You have been a supported of the Second Amendment. Do you believe Americans have the right to bear arms while they're protesting?


SCALISE: In most states you are not allowed to carry a gun while you're committing another crime, and interfering with law enforcement is a felony

Scalise is mistaken, most states allow firearms to be carried at demonstrations and Alex Pretti wasn't interfering with anyone

Sixteen states currently prohibit either concealed carry, open carry, or both at demonstrations, protests and licensed public gatherings. Twenty-three states currently prohibit firearms to some degree within state capitols, state houses, or state offices, compared to 21 states with government-owned building prohibitions and 17 states with restrictions for local government meetings and meetings of the state legislature.

https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-l...ing-democracy/

[Winehole23]

[Millennial_Messiah]

Bitcoin got dinged last night by the interventionist war hawk crap

And now it's down to 60K and oscillating between 60K and 70K, absolutely pathetic.

Never before has Bitcoin breached any past election day price until February 2026.

Thank you for ing up my financial freedom, Donald Dump. Get ready for a blue no matter who avalanche this fall you Trump for not passing the Clarity act

[Millennial_Messiah]

Trump is the opposite of a libertarian. He's a wannabe fascist who can't even do that very well. He's a 14 year old rage tweeter more so than an actual president.

[Winehole23]

welcome to the resistance, Andy