> What still baffles me is how people act like this was some kind of thoughtful decision.
I'm afraid it is. An unholy coalition of capitalist-anarchists and ultra-conservatives is the driving force behind it. They both want to reduce the influence of the government to a level as small as possible. That can only be done by dismantling the current federal government.
The next step is to cut income tax for under $150k/yr earners. Tariffs raise prices by 20%, tax cuts let you keep 20% more earnings.
This would make the federal government dependent on tariff income, and, as the theory goes, diminish the funds the government has as American industry grows to avoid tariffs.
Probably not going to work out as it is only a first order effect view, but that is the idea they are chasing.
Trump has explicitly stated he wants to eliminate income taxes for people earning under $150k.
Ironically (but not really if you can clearly understand his platform, any why so many bernie bros became trumpets), Trump is doing a lot of ostensibly good things for the uneducated working class at the expense of American "elite" class. The autoworkers union president literally spoke yesterday at Trumps event cheering the tariffs. A union, cheering Trump.
The stock market is off a cliff, but how many factory workers actually have an appreciable amount of stocks? Poor middle America doesn't give a fuck about that. They give a fuck about having a place to go to work and make a good living.
Trump is doing what he was elected to do. Whether or not it is possible without making things much worse seems like a long shot, but his core base has a "I don't care if we destroy the system, the system sucks!" attitude, awfully similar to Bernie bros.
While you're not wrong, the two sides (Trump vs Sanders) do have entirely different approaches to reforming the system. The latter would (probably) like more control over production means in the hands of laborers, and sees progressive taxes as a way to support a social state. The former wants top-down control through laissez-faire, and sees reducing taxes as a way to get rid of the state.
Trump has explicitly stated a lot of things he has no intention of doing. Look at what is _actually_ in the bill the republicans are pushing through congress. Where is "no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no income tax on earners under 150k". It's not there.
This is a very strange view of it. Anarchism is extremely far from liberalism. "Anarcho-capitalists" are more or less just extreme libertarians, they share no history or ideology with any other anarchist movements, no other anarchist movements recognize them as anarchists.
The far left and the far right are not the same either where do you even get that! A far left party in the american context is something like democratic socialism, or sure why not actual marxist-leninism. While the far right is proud boys, groypers, literal neonazis, christian integrationists. You may have equal distaste for both but that doesn't mean they share anything else.
"no other anarchist movements recognize them as anarchists."
Once you go down the rabbit whole of trying to define 'anarchist' , there are actually dozens of definitions, and they all argue about who is really anarchist. So, that they don't agree that some other group isn't 'really anarchist', I take it with grain of salt .
These extreme Republicans want to get rid of government. I'm using the highest level gloss over, that No-Government is Anarchism.
I'm sure in reality, humans would re-coalesce up in communes/tribes/feudal groupings, and thus re-form local groups, and is that still Anarchism? At what point of organization do we stop saying something is 'anarchism'. I'm just saying, when the US breaks up because there is no government, it will be anarchy, and that seems to be what Republicans are shooting for..
> Once you go down the rabbit whole of trying to define 'anarchist' , there are actually dozens of definitions
Which is why I avoided providing or using any definition of anarchism, instead describing the actions of people who consider themselves anarchists.
> and they all argue about who is really anarchist.
Yes, but there is only one group who consistently considers themselves anarchists but who exactly zero other anarchist groups recognize as anarchists. All other anarchist movements have at least one mutually-recognized peer movement. I'm not saying this is an absolute or the only definition, but it's very useful in this context. There is something different about ancaps.
> These extreme Republicans want to get rid of government.
They do not! They are not proposing an elimination of the military or police departments or prisons, for example. They are using the DoJ to pursue political enemies, the executive branch to enact and enforce tariffs. In fact exactly the parts of the state that are used to create and enforce hierarchy. I do not know any anarchist movements, other than anarcho-capitalism, that has this goal.
I understand why your view of it is alluring, I find it to be so as well. But I have found that it simply has very little explanatory power for this situation.
The only thing the far left and right truly share I think, is radicalism. By which I mean an intention or acceptance of rapid and comprehensive change to the dynamics of daily life for the whole population. But the actual changes they want have virtually no overlap.
Peter Thiel most definitely wants a form of kingship though he professes to be a libertarian
I believe it means libertarian in the context of present systems. In their new system, they no longer need to be libertarian. Just absolute ruler. King is even the wrong term.
Anarchism is not just “no government”, but rather “no rulers”.
Leftist anarchists are acutely aware that power and capital accumulation go hand-in-hand.
Extreme libertarians are perfectly fine with the unfettered accumulation of capital and seemingly ignore that that results in unchecked power. Or they have faith that a “truly” free economy would somehow check itself before becoming effectively neo-feudalistic or dictatorial. As if the lion would fear the zebra.
Leftist-anarchists want to keep power to an absolute minimum. Usually relying on a combination of culture and group action to wield just enough power to prevent the growth of unchecked power in the hands of a few.
In my mind, culture is the key element. The capital-worshipping, me-versus-all culture we live in would fit quite well into extreme-libertarianism and then it would devolve into defacto rule by a few. (As seems to be happening anyways. Because, again, capital accumulates, protects itself and takes power where it can when no one is willing to or allowed to work together to stop it.)
Leftist-anarchism requires a more mature, selfless, introspective, cooperative culture. Anathema to the “United” States of America.
> Leftist-anarchists want to keep power to an absolute minimum. Usually relying on a combination of culture and group action to wield just enough power to prevent the growth of unchecked power in the hands of a few.
Most anarchists, just like hard-line communists, seem totally opposed to the idea of private capital at all. To me this seems just as bad and unworkable as allowing unchecked use of capital accumulation for political gain.
They are opposed to private capital such as the private ownership of the means of production, eg land and infrastructure.
They are generally not opposed to personal property, especially if the property is actively used.
Extreme libertarians, “anarcho-capitalists”, do not distinguish between productive and nonproductive property. And so they ignore the end result of private ownership and accumulation of the means of production: new rulers in some form.
Opinions on money and currency vary.
Similarly, opinions on wage labor vary, but generally they expect a laborer to receive their full worth, ie wage labor would not see profit extracted from it.
How do you get libertarians mixed in there? Libertarians want freedom from government, not the consolidation of power nor levy of new taxes (which tariffs are). Apart from downsizing select government organizations, what the current administration is doing is the exact opposite of what libertarians would want.
Tariffs are only part 1 of the plan. The next step is cutting income tax entirely for most people. Trump has said this, and even yesterday called on congress to pass his "Big Beautiful Bill".
This would severely hamstring the government, and make it incredibly difficult to reverse (you would need to re-implement income taxes, while removing tariffs, and hope to god that trading partners have mercy and forgiveness (unlikely))
Reagan’s administration was very corrupt. So that law and order evidently didn’t apply to them. It was also very profligate. So that fiscal conservatism didn’t apply to them. I don’t see a lot of difference between the actor Ronald Reagan and the actor Donald Trump. Maybe in degree but not in kind.
I’ve been a left liberal my whole life. We haven’t gone anywhere.
It’s not “anarchism” it’s simply rolling back the bad parts of Reagan’s legacy: free trade, immigration/amnesty, and foreign empire.
When Democrats embraced free trade and globalism with Clinton, most of the liberal Reagan republicans and neocons became Democrats. What MAGA is today is what the bulk of the GOP has always been: a coalition of social conservatives and business owners.
Isn't competition in free markets something Republicans believe in anymore?
Because forcing Americans to buy inferior locally-made products at a premium through artificial restrictions surely isn't that.
Free trade and globalization are also a pacifying force, by creating mutual dependencies between countries.
No but the point is valid. Say country A decides to protect its environment and hence imposes costly pollution control measures on its manufacturers. Country B meanwhile pollutes to the max. Country B's products are going to be cheaper than country A's. Therefore country A imposing a balancing tarrif on Country B (until they stop polluting) seems at least potentially reasonable.
No, I agree with you. My point is that Democrats embraced it in the 1990s as well. So the Republicans who were otherwise liberals but just in the GOP for the cheap foreign labor switched sides.
> What MAGA is today is what the bulk of the GOP has always been: a coalition of social conservatives and business owners.
I'm skeptical of this historical analysis.
The two major political parties fundamentally realigned during the civil rights era of the 1960s. Before then, Democrats controlled the south. Strom Thurmond switched from Democrat to Republican in 1964. George Wallace ran for President as a Democrat 3 times before he became an independent. Robert Byrd was a Democrat until the end. Who were the "social conservatives"? Both Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon (Californians, by the way) made their names as staunch Cold Warrior anti-Communists during the McCarthy era.
I don't think there's any such thing as what "the GOP has always been", or what the Democrats have always been, for that matter. I'm old enough to have seen the parties change several times, and the definitions of "conservative", "liberal", "left", "right" morph into something unrecognizable to former adherents.
> The two major political parties fundamentally realigned during the civil rights era of the 1960s.
This is an incorrect analysis looking at the wrong causal factor (civil rights rather than economics). Even in 1976, Carter did great in the deep south. The realignment happened in the 1980s, due to economic growth in the south. The south went from being poor and agrarian in the 1930s to being newly industrialized in the 1980s.
> Who were the "social conservatives"?
The 19th century GOP was a coalition of religious conservatives and protectionist industrialists. MAGA is a coalition of religious/cultural conservatives and protectionist industrialists.
> Even in 1976, Carter did great in the deep south.
Carter was a southern conservative, deeply, overtly Christian, whereas Ford, the accidental President, was a northerner and social moderate.
In any case, Presidential elections are not necessarily the best indicator of political alignment. After all, some were blowouts, such as 1972, 1980, and 1984. On other other hand, note that Lyndon Johnson lost much of the south, except his home state of Texas, despite winning big elsewhere in the country. But for political alignment, you also have to look at local elections, such as state houses.
> The realignment happened in the 1980s, due to economic growth in the south. The south went from being poor and agrarian in the 1930s to being newly industrialized in the 1980s.
This makes no sense, because first, the south is still poorer, and second, the political correlation you're implying simply doesn't exist. Why would wealth and industrialization turn a state Republican when that doesn't appear to be the case anywhere else in the country? To the contrary, at present the rural areas are solidly Republican and the urban areas solidly Democratic.
> The 19th century GOP was a coalition of religious conservatives and protectionist industrialists.
I can't say I'm very familiar with the 19th century GOP, and neither of us was alive in the 19th century, but I don't think you've correctly characterized the 20th century GOP. Moreover, I don't think you can characterize "the party of Lincoln" as socially conservative either.
In any case, it's a red herring, because again, "the political correlation you're implying simply doesn't exist."
> For most of the 20th century, that was exactly the political dichotomy. Democrats were the party of the urban and rural poor, and urban social liberals. Republicans were the party of business and industry, plus religious conservatives.
This is merely a stereotype, an overgeneralization. The reality is much more complex, and inconstant.
But there's an interesting overlap in your claim: "plus religious conservatives". So what happens when "the urban and rural poor" happen to be religious conservatives?
> In states like Georgia, the first places to turn red where affluent educated collar counties around Atlanta, which were benefitting from metro Atlanta’s economic growth.
Given my skepticism of everything else you've already said, I'm not inclined to take anything without proof, but that's not really the issue here. My objection to your theory is not whether it can explain the political situation in the south but rather whether it can explain the political situation in the rest of the country, and I don't see any evidence that it can. Otherwise it's just cherry-picking.
> Abolition was driven by fundamentalist Christians, especially in the midwest.
Not all religion is socially conservative. There are various sects of Christianity in various parts of the country, each with their own social and political tendencies. The civil rights movement also came out of the church, e.g., the Reverend Martin Luther King, the Reverend Jesse Jackson.
> Remember that we didn’t have DNA in the 1850s, so the notion that the races were equal was a moral assertion, not a scientific one.
>> The two major political parties fundamentally realigned during the civil rights era of the 1960s.
> This is an incorrect analysis looking at the wrong causal factor (civil rights rather than economics).
Boy, is THAT ever a contrarian take, verging dangerously close to crank theory. Economics was distinctly in third place as a factor in the political parties' realignment. In first- and second places were the Vietnam War (nationwide) and civil rights (in the South, with race riots and black militarism being a factor nationally).
1. VIETNAM: I came of age during that era. I was very politically aware. My family on both sides had been Democrats for decades. Most of my family switched to the GOP in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Their main driver was dislike for the Vietnam War protestors (and for race rioters).
Most of my family regarded support for the government's war policy as a patriotic duty, even if they happened to harbor doubts about the merits of specific policies. That was true during both the LBJ and Nixon administrations. (The men on both sides of my extended family were pretty much all veterans, from WWII, Korea, and/or the Cold War.)
2. CIVIL RIGHTS: I grew up in various southern states during the 1960s and early 1970s (my dad was military, we moved around). You need to read up on the GOP's so-called Southern Strategy, starting with Nixon's courting of George Wallace voters and continuing with Reagan's dog-whistle support for "states rights," Lee Atwater and the Willie Horton campaign ad for GHW Bush, etc.
A signature moment was when arch-segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond switched from being a southern Democrat to the GOP — and was welcomed. Sure, other reasons were cited for these switches, but those were mostly window dressing.
The race riots of the mid- to late 1970s, and the publicity attending the Black Panthers, were also a factor in my extended family's switch to the party of "law and order" (the GOP). Example: During the rioting after MLK's assassination in 1968, my dad carried a .45 pistol on his commute to work in downtown Washington D.C. And in our suburban Maryland neighborhood — populated largely by military, CIA, Air America, etc. — my dad and other men on the block loaded up their hunting rifles, put them close to the front door, and gave us kids strict instructions not to touch them. They did that because of rumors that carloads of black rioters were roaring down the streets in white neighborhoods, throwing Molotov cocktails. (That certainly never happened in our neighborhood — or anywhere, AFAICR.) My family members weren't racist, but they regarded obeying the law as paramount.
It's because the far left and the far right are both made of up of people deeply disaffected by the status quo, and when those people talk they often find that at the very least many of their grievances overlap.
In terms of today's landscape there is a list of things like LGBTQ issues, race, gender equality, abortion, religion, etc., and if you avoid things on that list you'll find a huge overlap between the views of the far left and the far right. Both are broadly opposed to what's popularly called neoliberalism, the post-Reagan/Clinton post-cold-war order, and the reasons for this opposition overlap quite a bit if you again avoid the topics that I listed. From that perspective, blowing up the system is the goal. When they see trade policies like these crash the present system, they view that as a success because they think the current system is such a mistake that it must be smashed.
(I am not making a judgment in this post, just explaining the landscape.)
Correct. The left and right seem like a circle because Pat Buchanan and Bernie Sanders long had a large overlap on issues that have become highly salient today: immigration and free trade.
Capitalist-anarchists are certainly opposed to tariffs - after all, tariffs are just taxes that expand government influence. Protectionism is a left-wing, big-government policy.
The goal would be dismantling the state, and hence (national) tariffs, for good. The people behind it are quite well off, and can bear the tariffs for now. And it's not just capitalist-anarchists. This is a cabal of spiteful people with different goals, but some shared ideas about the scale of government, prepared to use as much force as necessary.
> Protectionism is a left-wing, big-government policy.
It isn't left-wing. Just check the US history of protectionism. Or Germany's. Or the France's. Even the UK's. Or even simpler: look at what happened just now. How can you call Trump left-wing?
Fair point, but America is getting rid of the parts of government that provide stability across the country and world. I don't see any major changes to the US war machine.
Shutting down USAID, cutting education, health benefits and dismantling the checks on executive power do nothing to curb what criticize. These actions actually destabilize and only give greater chance that what you dislike becomes more prevalent.
A front for destabilization operations by whom? By the NSA, FBI and CIA is who. And no, none of those organizations will be held accountable for their abuses of international aid. Instead, we'll throw the baby out with the bathwater and blame the second-degree manslaughter on "state department" operations.
USAID is not a shadowy cabal, it is not an element of the deep state. It can be corrected, even isolated from harm, by reorganizing their leadership to a board instead a administrative seat. You're just not arguing in good faith, and I really have to wonder why you're falling for talking points aimed at the lowest-intelligence voting bloc.
Even if without cover CIA involvement, they operates parallel social services that don't answer to a foreign government to advance a foreign governments priorities.
Every Pakistani I talked to (living in Pakistan) has a negative view USAID and foreign NGOs. Why do you think that would be?
And that was after the US supported Pakistan against Bangladesh. Now you know why my Bangladeshi family isn’t torn up about USAID closing even though we immigrated to America thanks to USAID. India doesn’t seem upset either.
Don’t accuse me of “not arguing in good faith.” My family has vastly more investment in and knowledge of USAID than most of the people reflexively defending “the institutions.” And finding out about its political activities has been red pilling.
It’s naive to think we can clean out the NSA, FBI, and CIA. I’ll take what I can get.
> It’s naive to think we can clean out the NSA, FBI, and CIA.
It's naive to shoot the messenger and think you've killed the message. If USAID is a conduit for the FBI and CIA's wrongdoing, then we haven't actually punished anyone responsible. We're cheering on our own ineptitude, patting ourselves on the back for dismantling a "deep state" on paper, one that still exists with the exact same motives.
If you have any privileged knowledge of USAID that proves me wrong, I welcome you to share it. It sounds like we both agree that the real problem is intelligence agencies that would disguise themselves in a Red Cross truck if given the opportunity. But sure, let's demonize the Red Cross instead of the people ignoring the conventions of lawful warfare. They are the issue.
That's why the public should demand their politicians to choose a better path for them and not fall for “we need to destroy the enemy”. When you close your eyes to your country's foreign “misbehaviours” (put it lightly) don't feel shocked when that comes back to you.
When you dismantle a government, which does include judiciary/legislative powers, who is gonna counterweight the executive branch?
I'm afraid it is. An unholy coalition of capitalist-anarchists and ultra-conservatives is the driving force behind it. They both want to reduce the influence of the government to a level as small as possible. That can only be done by dismantling the current federal government.