Monday, June 25, 2018

Trump Support Among Republicans is at 90%



President Trump's approval rating among Republicans is now at 90% according to Gallup.

I feared this.

Immediately after the election on November 10, 2016, I wrote:
Heading into the election, I felt that for strategic reasons Hillary Clinton was the best alternative for libertarians. Not because she is good on many issues, she is not, but because she would come with a ready-made opposition that would listen to libertarian arguments against her.

It would have been
a great opportunity to reach out to Trump supporters and spread the libertarian message. That opportunity is now gone with the Trump victory. Trump supporters are rabid, they will likely follow him down almost any hell hole.

These people are not going to listen to our arguments for smaller government. Their man is in power...
I also suspect we may lose some libertarians to Trump. Judging from the comments here and at EPJ, there are many supporters of Trump's immigration views. There are many problems with the current immigration policies in the United States but it is a complex issue. Mass government supported immigration should never happen. Workers who cross the border, work hard and live on private property are a different issue. Trump does not make this distinction, but there are libertarians who will support Trump's confused authoritarian view on immigration.
Crony capitalism is bad but trade wars, tarriffs and other protectionist policies are worse. This, though, is the direction Trump appears to want to move in on trade...
He may move in a small government direction on an issue here or there but he will be mostly about expanding the state. As I say, few from the right are going to be concerned about this, their man is in power.

Bottom line: Advancing the libertarian cause just got much more difficult with the Trump victory.
-RW  

18 comments:

  1. RW,

    The Left has gained no ground in the past 2 years. In fact, my opinion is they are more fractured and weaker than ever.

    Nothing the Left has done for the past two years actually addresses why Hillary lost to Trump. Nothing.

    Let's just say for argument's sake that the primary reason that Hillary lost is that lower-middle class whites abandoned her because they were more concerned about jobs and foreign invaders than they were about transgenders and whether or not black non-customers can use the bathroom in Starbucks.....

    Now don't let me confuse you, Robert. I know that NOTHING trump has done has actually made the lives of those folks better or safer. But that's not what THEY think.

    And NOTHING the wacko Left has done since 2016 has done anything but convince that segment of the population that the Left only cares about fringe victimization and blaming those same lower-middle class whites for being white.

    The Left looks even more silly every day. They are not gaining anything. Even in Seattle they can't pass a tax on Amazon without getting smashed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Re: The Contradictor,
      --- The Left has gained no ground in the past 2 years. ---

      You're living under a rock, aren't you?

      --- The Left looks even more silly every day. ---

      Next to Trumpistas and their antics, the left looks like the spitting image of seriousness and level-headedness, which is quite frightening to say the least.

      Delete
    2. Let's be real. Is there a silent revolt brewing? I don't know. But what I do know is every time we've been attacked on gun control over the last 30 years in a public way it's been to our benefit in The Fight 2 stop the gun control.

      Delete
    3. Sorry to disagree, Fransicso, as I suspect you and I would agree on nearly everything of importance. On this point, I have to say that I know many conservatives, liberals, and non-voters. And none of them have changed their minds due to Trump. The conservatives are more insane. The liberals are even more insane. And the non-voters are even more convinced that voting is stupid.

      That's my small sample size take, at least.

      Delete
  2. Best thing about Trump: being able to see the true colors of sniveling asswipe libertarians. Thank God the libertarian moment is a distant fading memory. What has replaced it is far more formidable.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And that’s just what we want, right? More formidable State power.

      Delete
    2. Re: Twerking Spitoon,

      --- Thank God the libertarian moment is a distant fading memory. ---

      Yup. They would have never made the trains run on time, unlike Il Trumpe.

      Delete
    3. “We need a Pinochet.”

      The only good thing about statists is that they can be depended on to wait around for a politician to implement their stupid ideas for them.

      Delete
  3. I would like RW and other libertardians to address race, IQ, and culture. So far, being the morons you are about this, you are unable to. We don't need more dirt world/turd world trash, and I'm thankful Trump is taking a stand to kick out the illegal immigrants. I also think a lot of legal ones should be deported as well. But I'm talking to magic dirt libertardians who won't move to a ghetto neighborhood but want to believe the lie of equality.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think it’s trying to communicate

      Delete
    2. Re: He-Who-Fantasizes-About-White-European-Males,

      --- I would like RW and other libertardians to address race, IQ, and culture. ---

      Yes, meaningless eugenicist pseudoscience. There.

      Are you going to address your homoerotic fantasies about white European males who, you said here, are "FA-BUL-OUS!"?

      Delete
    3. No wops either. They degrade the gene pool. It's why NY needed the Sullivan law.

      Delete
  4. --- Bottom line: Advancing the libertarian cause just got much more difficult with the Trump victory. ---

    Hopefully not, Robert. Libertarians and Independents are, today, situated inside the No Man's Land between the crazy Left and their Antifa goons, and the fascistic Trumpistas and their white supremacist goons. Perhaps there is still something to salvage as the two groups look increasing dangerous to part of the public who are not fully left nor fully the OTHER left --that is, Trumpism.

    Remember that Republican membership actually went DOWN. The 90% who support Trump make the anti-trade and anti-immigration faction that is not as numerous as it used to be either because more people understand basic economics or they don't view immigrants as the acapegoat that explains away their own mediocrity. That particular political breed is dying out. Also, remember that a lot of people voted for Trump because of the empty SCOTUS seat. Those voters went to the polls pinching their noses and pulled the lever for Trump, but that doesn't mean they support all his policies. That kind of support will not be easy to attract in 2020, leaving aside 2018. Read the comments from the Fascist trolls here and ask who would find such talk attractive? I'm still optimistic.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Re: PH,
      --- 80% want secure, not open, borders. ---

      A great majority want free healthcare. Is that supposed to validate the idea that healthcare can be free?

      And when you parse the numbers, what people believe is "secured borders" depends on how they define them. Most of the time, people want more immigration, not less. That translates obly to borders secured from bad people. Trumpistas want LESS immigration. That translates to a police state.

      Delete
  5. On the Austrian border hundreds of mussies shout Allah Akbar and try to force their way in:
    https://youtu.be/5NX_-xzejHk

    ReplyDelete
  6. It’s Trump Derangement Syndrome, or maybe all the rednecks whacked out on opioids:

    https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-24/new-study-finds-geographic-overlap-opioid-use-and-trump-support-2016

    ReplyDelete
  7. How Income Equality Helped Trump
    Working Americans sense that taxes and transfers now leave them little better off than those who work less.

    www.wsj.com/amp/articles/how-income-equality-helped-trump-1529862473

    ReplyDelete