Monday, July 20, 2020

Trump vs. Biden: What is Best for Libertarianism?



Grant S. comments at the post, This Would Be the Most Dangerous Thing About a Biden Victory in November:
I am curious about what is the better of two terrible options this time around. Even though I had a visceral preference for Trump as compared to Hillary, I think time has proved Wenzel correct, and extremely prescient, in that Trump's election has proved worse for liberty than hers ever could have been.
That said, I am curious what Wenzel's preference will be for this election. Strictly speaking, if it comes to just Trump v Biden, I think a similar recommendation will hold, in that a cronyist like Biden is preferable for taking wind out of the sails of the socialist ascendancy we're seeing. But the problem I'm increasingly imagining is that Biden is just a placeholder for the VP he chooses, and she will probably replace him inside of the first term, if not the first year. So, what are the preferences when it comes to Trump v Warren, Trump v Harris, Trump v ???
RW response:

Grant S. is correct across the board.

Both choices are absolutely terrible. But at this early point, I am leaning towards Trump being the best option.

Biden would be extremely dangerous out of the gate. It is not just that he may not make it through an entire four-year term but as best I can tell (They are hiding the names of the advisers from the public) he is surrounded by extreme left advisors who would immediately start implementing any radical lefty programs they could get away with.

If he chooses Elizabeth Warren as his vice-presidential candidate that would be the signal a Biden administration would be extremely destructive. She is power-hungry and not interested in promoting crony deals other than ones that would advance her power goals. She is probably the most dangerous high-profile politician in America today, even worse than AOC.

If Biden picks Kamala Harris or Susan Rice, either would be terrible but they strike me as both being more on the make and willing to cut crony deals. Their goal would not be to take down Western Civilization but grab as big a chunk of it for themselves as they could get. Not an ideal situation but much better than Warren. Also, there is a tiny plus with Harris, her father was a Stanford economics professor. Nothing much stands out about his career but I have heard Harris speak often enough to detect that she goes slightly off the lefty path when it comes to free trade and some basic economics. I credit this to a slight daddy influence.

As for Trump, it should be clear to all that he has no deep guiding principles and could by accident bring the entire country crashing down, as he has nearly done with the COVID-19 lockdowns that he has let get out of control. A much more astute politician would have known how to shutdown the state and local government lockdown nonsense. Trump is a capable street hustler, and I think he picks things up fairly quickly, but he is up against the establishment and the deep state that is throwing everything at him non-stop. And he is just horrible at picking advisers.

That said, the Left would go absolutely crazy with a Trump re-election. But, I think they have converted pretty much everyone they are going to convert during the first four years of Trump and just may put on display, in another four years of Trump, just how nuts they really are. Which might scare the middle class if Trump can avoid looking like a thug.

More important than the presidential election may be the outcome of the Senate races. If Biden wins the presidency and Republicans lose control of the Senate, that will provide Democrats with an open field to loot and pillage.

I would much rather see two different criminal groups vying for lucre rather than one group in complete control. Two groups will counter each other a bit.

So there are no good outcomes but a Biden victory with Warren as VP and a Democratic Senate would be the worst.

BTW, the astute politico, former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, writes in his San Francisco Chronicle column:
Those of you who think President Trump is politically dead and buried, think again.

By my reckoning, Trump still has a 50-50 shot at winning re-election come November.

Democrats are gleefully quoting a recent Quinnipiac University national poll that showed Joe Biden with a 15-point lead over Trump. An NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll had Biden with an 11-point lead.

Given Trump’s missteps and mistakes on everything from his handling the coronavirus pandemic to his racially charged rhetoric, however, Biden should be ahead by much more.

Plus, as we know, there is often a disparity between what people tell pollsters and what they do when they actually fill out their ballots.

So knock Biden’s lead in the polls down by half.

And Trump’s base is still firm. They voted for him in 2016 when he leaned hard on race, crime and immigration, and they will vote for him again.

Put it together and it’s still a five- to seven-point race.

In other words, a toss-up.
-RW

7 comments:

  1. Please forgive me for being skeptical.

    Based on the lefty commentary, Bernie Sanders was the only one who ever seemed to believe in their preposterous dreams, but even he has turned out to be a weak disappointment to them.

    When Warren was out of the race, she decided not to endorse Bernie Sanders after his critical loss in South Carolina. All of the lefties hate her for this.

    In the last 10 years alone, both Democrats and Republicans have taken a crack at holding the house, senate, and presidency. In the end, cronies always win. The money will always win. Some ideology will fall through the cracks, but it'll be minimal.

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    1. The cronies always win but a big hunk of the most powerful and wealthy cronies are in it to create a company town through the government. To where we all effectively owned by that company town. They want it for not only their wealth and cementing themselves and their progeny on top forever but also for their desire to engineer human society.

      To achieve this they must institute much of the far left agenda if not all of it, but through the details build the company town collective. Their technocratic vision for human society.

      They could create universal "health care" but it will be a crony model where the wealth of the productive is shoveled even more to the cronies. Furthermore it will likely lock productive people into being corporate employed even harder than the ACA did. Even a UBI can be created that serves the cronies just like practically all existing welfare programs ultimately do.

      They haven't conditioned people with a leftist ideology without thinking it through. It's a scam as it always has been, the cronies will win but they already have everything they can get without further collectivization and consolidation.

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  2. Neither is good.
    Biden wants bigger government...but he is a semi-centrist Dem. So he might limit the insanity of progressives these days. But he is clearly mentally limited - probably with dementia.
    Trump has many good ideas - less war, against COVID-19 lockdowns and lower taxes. But he is weak - VERY weak. He put more troops in Afghanistan, he forces the Fed to continue to destroy the economy and he caved on the lockdowns and embraced ginormous, stimulus packages. Plus, even before COVID-19, he was running insane deficits.
    Both suck.
    It's like which is better - pancreatic cancer or a stroke. Both are awful.
    Like I said before - America is screwed until the Fed-propped up economy implodes. Then, sanity can return. Best to put your head down until then and prepare for it.

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  3. I'll still be voting for Trump though I wish he could have kicked out more illegal immigrants and disband the H1 program which is being abused by employers. Of course, we know libertardians truly think of the 80IQ turd world person who is there equal and we should let more of them in to the detriment of what's left of American society.

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  4. Will you be joining Walter Block's Libertarians For Trump this Election Cycle?

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  5. I prefer Woods's law, i.e., that whomever you vote for, you get John McCain (still).

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