Libertarians Owe Reason Magazine No Explanations

Michael Rectenwald

Nov 04, 2024

I’m not going to make the libertarian case for Trump on the eve of the Big Day. But I am going to refute a “libertarian” case made against Trump, one that essentially favors Kamala Harris. In “The Peculiar Phenomenon of Libertarians Supporting Donald Trump,” published on Reason.com, Brian Doherty refers to Trump as an authoritarian and suggests that since there is little to no daylight between Harris and Trump, the true libertarian response is to support neither.

Well, not exactly, because at the end of the article, Doherty suggests that of the two candidates:

… [O]nly one [Trump] has a short-term promise to assault and kidnap and ship out millions of residents who have harmed no one’s life or property, and in doing so destroy huge chunks of America’s productive economy, disrupting the lives of the other millions of legal citizens who hire them, work for them, depend on their services, or rent and sell to them.

Doherty refers to Trump’s promise to deport millions of immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally. To suggest that Trump intends to “assault and kidnap” them is not only unfounded, it is hysterical and indicates that Doherty does indeed suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome, notwithstanding his disclaimer to the contrary.

Doherty claims that such residents “have harmed no one’s life or property,” an astoundingly ill-informed and disgusting suggestion. As I argued in a previous article, U.S. taxpayers and consumers have been robbed to support illegal immigration to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. In fact, the total government spending on illegal immigration, including both state and federal funding, amounted to $150.7 billion in 2023 alone.

Doherty conveniently ignores the violent takeover of apartment complexes by an immigrant Venezuelan gang in Aurora, Colorado, and the violent takeover of a hotel by a Venezuelan immigrant gang in El Paso, Texas.

He also fails to mention the horrific crimes attributed to illegal immigrants during the Biden-Harris administration, or the finding that over 425,000 convicted criminal immigrants are currently roaming the U.S., owing largely to the combination of the Biden-Harris administration’s open borders, its social welfare largesse, and its catch and release policy. Nor does Doherty note the rise of violent crimes committed by immigrants during the Biden-Harris administration:

On the personal liberty front, Doherty conveniently omits mention of the collusion between the Biden-Harris administration and Big Tech to censor speech—in direct violation of the First Amendment—as evidenced in Missouri vs. Biden, Kennedy vs. Biden, and “The Twitter Files.” He also fails to mention the vaccine mandates issued under the Biden-Harris regime. Instead he blames Trump for the “Covid tyranny.”

On the foreign affairs versus domestic affairs front, Doherty makes no mention of the fact that in February 2024, the Biden-Harris administration committed over 95 billion dollars in aid and arms to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, or that in the throes of the Hurricane Helene disaster, the Biden-Harris administration approved military aid packages for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan totaling over 17 billion dollars—with $8.7 billion earmarked for Israel, $8 billion for Ukraine, and $567 million more for Taiwan. As of May 10, 2024, at least $175 billion in aid had been allocated to Ukraine.

After Hellene struck seven Southern states and damages had been estimated at over $100 billion, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) “does not have the funds to make it through the season.” Kamala Harris soon promised those affected a paltry $750 per family, reputedly for food, hotel rooms, and other immediate needs.

FEMA diverted funds allocated for existing U.S. residents to incoming and undocumented immigrants; FEMA’s own webpage for the immigrant Shelter and Services Program suggests as much. Two days after Mayorkas cried poor mouth, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on X an aid package for Lebanon:

The U.S. is at the forefront of humanitarian response to the growing crisis in Lebanon, announcing nearly $157 million in assistance today. We are committed to supporting those in need and delivering essential aid to displaced civilians, refugees and the communities hosting them.

The U.S., we should remember, supplied the bombs dropped on southern Lebanon and Beirut. Now we must also pay for aid to the “recipients” of said bombs. And to the cost of these can be added that of maintaining additional U.S. ships, troops, and fighter jets deployed to the Middle East.

Doherty does not mention Harris’s claim that Iran is the U.S.’s greatest adversary, while Trump explicitly stated that he opposes attempting regime change in that country—the latter a distinct departure from the neocon “Clean Break” policy for Israel. Harris’s claim would be laughable, if not for the fact that it signals that a Harris regime would continue to fund and arm Israel (no matter what it does) and might drag the U.S. into a war with a nation that poses no threat whatsoever to the United States. Nor does Doherty make anything of the fact that Trump has said he would end the war in Ukraine before his inauguration, while Harris would continue it to the bitter end. Nor does Doherty mention that Harris has been endorsed by the likes of neocon warmongers Dick and Liz Cheney and has welcomed their endorsements with alacrity. (Dick Cheney’s endorsement should have been issued from a prison cell.)

In short, Doherty goes out of his way to find Trump “un-libertarian” while giving the most authoritarian regime in my lifetime a veritable pass. And he does this while claiming that we have no history to draw from:

Fear about the wild evils the Other Side will commit if in power are a very strong motive power in American politics today. It’s rhetorically effective because you can’t win an argument about how some group in power will behave with reason or evidence; such claims can only be judged with common sense and ratified by time.

We have plenty of evidence for how the group currently in power will behave if Harris is elected—by dint of what they have already done. The same is true of Trump, of course. Doherty cherry-picks evidence against Trump and excludes mountains of evidence weighing against the Harris regime and how it would continue, if not accelerate, current policies—including its immigration, warfare, lawfare, censorship, DEI policies, and more. His “peculiar” ire is reserved almost exclusively if not entirely for Trump, despite the fact that Harris is a proven totalitarian.

Brian Doherty’s attempt to obscure his TDS is an abysmal failure.

*Thanks to Lori Price of CLG News for sourcing help.