Faustian Bargain
CrowdSource 11.11.2024
Welcome to CrowdSource, your weekly guided tour of the latest intellectual disputes, ideological disagreements, and national debates that piqued our interest (or inflamed our passions). This week: the ideas driving the Trump coalition, a continuing series.
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“National Libertarianism”
Donald Trump will be the next president. His policies will largely be driven by the ideas informing his coalition. What are they?
Gauntlet, Thrown. Back in the National Conservatism conference in July, Vivek Ramaswamy, former presidential candidate who joined the Trump team, announced that the movement had split into two ideological camps:
The first is … the National Protectionist direction, and the second is … the National Libertarian direction. Both reject the old neoliberal consensus on foreign policy, trade, and immigration — but for different reasons, particularly on trade and immigration, and with very different implications for the future direction of the America First movement.
Libertarians Ascendant. After Trump’s victory, economist Samuel Hammond argued that the National Libertarians have the upper hand:
Vivek’s “National Libertarianism” is much closer to the coalition’s center of gravity than NatCon-style communitarianism. … We’re getting Thomas Massie at Agriculture, a national Bitcoin reserve, a DOGE, the Fauci Files, etc.
Trade, Innovation, Housing. Economist Alex Tabarrok speculates about what a libertarian-leaning Trump administration might do.
So: what is National Libertarianism? Ramaswamy’s NatCon speech outlined a few priorities: rejecting the administrative state as a tool to solve America’s problems; immigration restrictionism; and rejecting “the nanny state.”
Tech, Philosophy, and Libertarianism
Here is a sampling of texts by or about key tech-libertarian figures in Trump’s coalition.
The US Must Lead. Investors Marc Andreesen and Ben Horowitz, who announced their support for Trump in July, regularly publish manifestos. Horowitz has outlined the ways that the United States should seize “global technology leadership.” As Covid hit in 2020, Andreesen announced it was “time to build.”
Free Minds and Free Markets. Elon Musk’s endorsement speech at the October 5 Trump rally in Butler, PA, contains boilerplate libertarian ideas: capitalism works; incentives and freedom drive innovation; the future is ours to build.
Cosmology. In his biography of Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson says: “While other entrepreneurs struggled to develop a worldview, he developed a cosmic view.” Musk’s ambition to send human beings to Mars is part of a greater idea of human destiny.
e/acc. Julia Steinberg describes emergence of a new ethic in Silicon Valley: “effective accelerationism.” Supporters include Andreesen and Open AI CEO, Sam Altman.
Philosophy. Peter Thiel, who supported Trump in 2016 but distanced himself after Trump’s administration was “crazier” than he expected, is the most philosophically prolific of the tech-barons. Key essays include:
“The Straussian Moment” (2004): “Today, mere self-preservation forces all of us to look at the world anew, to think strange new thoughts, and thereby to awaken from that very long and profitable period of intellectual slumber and amnesia that is so misleadingly called the Enlightenment.”
“The Education of a Libertarian” (2009): “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
“Against Edenism” (2015): “Given a choice, it makes more sense to ally with atheist optimism than with atheist pessimism — and we should remain open to the idea that even Faust’s land-reclamation project is a part of God’s larger plan.”
From the Crowd
Max commenting on our latest podcast:
Growing up in Texas, the most offended I ever got at a joke was when a friend joked about my family jumping a fence to get here. My family has been in this country since Abraham Lincoln served his term in the US House. We’ve been here. We didn’t migrate yesterday or 10 years or 100 years ago. Now Democrats can’t stop conflating us with illegal aliens. So I find myself alienated from the Dems and sympathetic to Trump’s immigration proposals.
Also responding to the latest podcast,
:
Just to clarify, Obama's roasting of Trump at the 2012 press gala, was not totally out of the blue. Trump spent years and lots of money spreading a grotesque scandal about Obama not being American, potentially putting him at greater danger. Obama was eventually obliged to release his long form birth certificate. At one point Trump offered money for anyone who can dig up dirt on Obama. That started almost from the start of Obama's presidency and was totally unprovoked.
See you next week!
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In 2018 Trump announced that America is open for business. That was then. This time it is "America is for sale". And he only expects a 30% commission. The Art of the Deal.
Well, Obama had his fun, but not pleased about who’s laughing last.
Ridicule and disrespect ‘arms races’ are not good for US.
We need to try to find the good in most of those who, in the moment, or in the past, out of fear or insecurity, when due to misinformation or ignorance (or mental incapacity), at times have criticized, verbally abused, threatened, or even harmed us.
We also need to draw a clear line well before one gets to Trump or Hitler or Putin.
If we lack the courage, grace, imagination, persistence and other capacities necessary to civilly connect with the majority of people seeing red & wearing red hats, and to find with them many basic common purposes upon which a government and civilization is built, THEN - and only then - we are lost.
If we fail to see our fellow Americans as such, OR they, us, we are indeed ‘divided and cannot stand’, and ‘the center cannot hold’.
The ‘bigger’ person takes the first ‘however many’ steps toward reconciliation with the ignorant and disturbed. This includes examining their own ‘facts’, categorical values, and polemics.
The wise person draws that clear line between that large number of our fellow Americans with whom we must often disagree, and the rare extreme American abomination we cannot countenance… and NOT between US.