Man, my question really took off.
As far as the executive is concerned, I think "restoring" that is mostly a matter of SOP as far as Biden's behavior is concerned. Obviously there is a lot of paperwork involved in repairing foreign relationships but I have a feeling that won't be too difficult. And as far as legislating from the Oval Office, all Biden has to do is not be an overt asshole and avoid unilateral threats to anyone and everything.
This is insane to read from someone who introduced me to the whole idea. Talk about an existential crisis.
I actually am concerned about the future of the Trump cult because frankly it
is a cult, I just can't shy away from that fact. I've never seen such ridiculous fandom from Ohio State or Michigan fans and you know how nuts college sports people can be. Maybe the Bills Mafia could pull it off. Tailgating a sports game is one thing, but gathering thousands of boats and 20-foot tall flags and blasting up and down the shoreline for a game that won't even be played til months from now?
I have a bad feeling that some sort of figurehead will actually maintain the cult and keep them active and in the news. Maybe Trump Jr, just seems like something he would do. This will become a permanent feature of American politics, somewhere, somehow.
Libertarianism does suffer from lack of exposure, and it is unpopular, but I think the reason for these are actually a
lack of authoritarianism in the philosophy. It's terrifying to people.
Authoritarian character traits are human nature. I'd wager the vast majority of humanity expresses it in different ways, some minor, some major, but it's always there. At a macro scale of course modern Republicans are authoritarian but so are Democrats. The Trumps and the Bernies are the extreme examples right now but all of our politicians are authoritarian, and virtually all of the people who voted for them are authoritarian in some way. Just the simple act of voting expresses authority - the entire purpose of voting is to get your guy who will work for you and benefit you. Politicians don't say "I'll fight for you" because it sounds good, they say it because it appeals to the authoritarian nature of virtually everybody, particular those brash enough to bother voting to install their guy into a position which the voters believe they control.
People need to control something, anything, in any capacity, and we're all guilty of trying to do it. Facing the
truth that we're just walking chemical reactions at the mercy of universal physics and can't actually control squat, including our chosen politicians and their billionaire friends, is incomprehensible to people. They're scared of it, so they attempt to control things. That's what humans do. Some politicians want to control you with police and economic servitude while other politicians want to control you by providing universal services in the name of the greater good. Neither of them are "free" in any way. Obviously that's where libertarianism comes in and we're like "But wait, there's a better way, with real freedom..."
And that's when people freak out, immediately label us insane, and completely dismiss the philosophy. They cannot fathom a system where they can't take comfort in either doing the controlling or being controlled. It's an impossible conversation that I've tried to have hundreds of times but only about - what are the voting averages? - 5% of the population gets it. And this is why any form of libertarianism, especially anarcho-whateverism
@Omnis cannot exist here.
So that means we're stuck with a few different flavors of authoritarianism. We got Budweiser and Miller Lite which are basically the same old same old, but we also have a Coffee Stout and a DIPA if you really wanna grab politics by the horns. Pick your poison, because homebrewing is a pain in the ass and nobody wants it.
They're both populists if that's what you're getting at. All of our politicians are. That's another thing related to libertarianism, the sheer lack of populism which is yet another reason why the philosophy is mostly irrelevant.
You bring up a good point. How's this for a hot take: Anybody who became sexually mature before the Me Too movement has committed sexual assault. Sexual assault is almost like a hallmark of humanity. It's an awful thing, sure, but if we really got down to nitty gritty the truth is that a
lot of people have done it, we just got over it. And I mean, hell, if you're 70+ years old its virtually guaranteed because as recently as the 60s sexual assault was a glorified societal norm.
They're definitely authoritarians and most of the people who vote for them are too, like I mentioned above. It's innate. They're literally in the business of making and enforcing rules, there's no way around it. But it's not the loud and boisterous kind where you accidentally tell everybody your actual motivations. Most of us subscribe to this closeted type of authoritarianism. We only
really express it when we're comfy in our cars with the windows up and the person behind is tailgating a little too close. You know what I mean.
