Former president Donald Trump disseminated on social media on Friday an image of President Biden with his hands and feet tied and his mouth gagged, the latest example of the Republican candidate’s use of increasingly violent rhetoric and imagery this campaign season.
The image can be seen about halfway through a 20-second video that Trump posted on his Truth Social site. The post says it was recorded Thursday on Long Island, where Trump traveled this week to attend a wake for a recently killed police officer.
In the video, two trucks decorated with giant Trump flags and altered American flags are driving on a highway. On the tailgate door of one of the trucks is the image of Biden lying horizontally, bound and gagged.
Trump has a history of sharing and promoting violent images featuring his perceived enemies.
Yeah, definitions can be a bit squishy, and I have a lot of respect for those you mentioned. My concern, however, is that they’re courting people who may not actually support the NAP, which just gives a platform to the wrong sorts of people. But since they’re relatively new, all I have to go on are anecdotes about isolated units.
Some specific things I’m worried about (warning: No True Scotsman arguments):
Both can arrive at similar policies, but they come from very different sets of principles. Also, courting those on the right often means not courting those on the left. For example, I mentioned safety nets, which those on the far right are opposed to (taxation is theft), whereas those more on the left justify under the NAP (e.g. libertarian justification for Basic Income; similar program NIT is supported by Milton Friedman). So I’m worried that the more libertarians court those on the right, the more of our principles we’ll have to sacrifice or downplay to appease those newcomers, when there could be a workable middleground that goes in a common direction (e.g. replacing all welfare with Basic Income/NIT can reduce taxes and the scope of the state without screwing the poor/minorities). But that upsets those on the right (dislike cash handouts) and the left (want Basic Income in addition to current welfare programs).
Anyway, I guess we’ll see if the Mises Caucus can walk that tightrope.
I think you analysis seems to be accurate, it seems to well encapsulate the problem. I remember Milton talking about the negative income tax and I think it probably its probably the most pragmatic way to get out of our current welfare dependence issue.
My theory is that the libertarian party should be the party of “Hey, government takes your freedoms and your money, lets have less government.” I might want to federal government to be 1/10th the size, but thats not really a winning argument when most people have Government Stockholm syndrome and believe the government helps them, and it kind of does for some people.
I see what you are saying about how the libertarians are courting the right, but how do you believe that winnng over people on the left is actually viable? I feel like many of them are so far into the marxist and authoritarian camp that there really is no bridging that divide, and maybe the only way is influence them in our direction.
There’s no way any third party is going to get any interesting number of seats until there’s significant election reform, so that’s what I’d do. That resonates with any minority party, and hopefully enough voters in the majority to get it through.
So focus less on winning seats (though candidates should still run) and focus more on the message. Join up with other third parties and the minority party and do a big, focused push for voting reform. My ideal scenario is proportional representation in the House, but honestly, anything that eliminates FPTP gives third parties a shot.
So then focus on the things we would agree on like being anti-wars? It just seems like most of the other third parties are too far off. Like RFK, he seemed anti-authoritians and just different, but then his VP is a SF tech person whom I would guess is pretty much a leftist.
Yeah, focus on things that helps third parties in general, such as:
And so on. Basically don’t push anything too controversial, and focus on things that the major parties so poorly and that most third parties and independents would agree on. That would show voters that having more choices is valuable.
I see three possibilities with this strategy:
The Libertarian Party should transition to an advocacy organization instead of trying to get people elected. Basically, “policies before politics,” which should improve the perception of the average person of the LP.
I think it is essentially a advocacy organization, I do wonder if they could get a lot more influence if it were possible to get someone onto the debate stage so that everyone could see their opinions.
Yeah, but that’s not happening until the rules of the debates change or voting reform to eliminate the spoiler effect happens.