Luke Ford

From Radix Journal:

A few months ago Richard Spencer noted that for all the hate Libertarianism Inc. was giving Donald Trump, the late libertarian polymath Murray Rothbard probably would have liked him and his candidacy quite a bit. Now that Rand Paul has dropped out, libertarians have largely abandoned electoral pursuits, and their institutions are going a bit schizophrenic, like Students for Liberty palling around with the likes of Pussy Riot and the insufferable George Will. Some of the old figures in what was termed “Paleolibertarianism” are even moving into the Trump camp. In light of all of this, let’s remind them that one of their most adored figures had quite a bit to criticize about the Current Year of his day.

Jews

Trump, despite obviously knowing many Jews in his elite New York City circles and having an adored daughter who converted to Judaism, is not afraid to tell the Republican Jewish Coalition:

“I don’t want your money, therefore you’re probably not gonna support me.”

Similarly, Murray Rothbard, despite being Jewish and having been immensely influenced by many Jewish intellectuals (Ludwig von Mises and Ayn Rand to name just two), delighted in skewering Jewish shibboleths:

Schindler’s List is a movie which has become not only Politically Incorrect but even to be less than worshipful about, since it purports to enable us, for the umpteenth time, to Learn About The Holocaust (the latter term always capitalized to emphasize solemnity and to assert its Absolute Uniqueness in the grisly world historical record of mass murder). And yet anyone who tries to Learn About History by going to a Hollywood movie deserves to have his head examined.

The Rich

Trump has become something of a “class traitor,” (as noted by everyone from the Weekly Standard to the New York Times) railing against the super rich, the job exporters, etc:

The hedge fund guys are getting away with murder. They’re paying nothing and it’s ridiculous. I want to save the middle class. The hedge fund guys didn’t build this country. These are guys that shift paper around and they get lucky.

Murray Rothbard felt the same way. After flirting a bit with Ross Perot’s first presidential candidacy, in no small part because of its Middle American Radical trappings, but more on that later, Rothbard was livid Mr. Perot dropped out (before eventually jumping back in), and noted:

Never trust a billionaire. I have had personal experience of several billionaires, and this was the conclusion that has reluctantly but inexorably forced itself upon me. Never trust them; they are killers of the very dreams they themselves create.

And do not forget, of course, that those “several billionaires” Rothbard spoke of included the infamous libertarian Koch Brothers, who had fallen out with Rothbard decades earlier, and in a state of apoplectic shock of the rise of Trump.

David Duke

The infamous maestro of White identity electoral politics has said some nice things about Trump, much to the media’s delight. And while Trump has disavowed him, the similarities between the two men are undeniably there, and Trump sure was pleased to add Louisiana to his list of victories.

Rothbard in his day defended and even admired David Duke back when he was running for governor of Louisiana, writing in 1992:

It is fascinating that there was nothing in Duke’s current program or campaign that could not also be embraced by paleoconservatives or paleo-libertarians; lower taxes, dismantling the bureaucracy, slashing the welfare system, attacking affirmative action and racial set-asides, calling for equal rights for all Americans, including whites: what’s wrong with any of that?

War

This one is simple, Trump has heroically slammed George W. Bush’s evil and moronic wars on the debate stage with other Republicans, and Rothbard never saw an anti-war alliance he did not like.

White Genocide and the Authoritarian Right

Trump has gotten plenty of flack for retweeting something an account called “White genocide” posted, along with retweeting Mussolini quotes.

Rothbard, it should be recalled, favored the Serbs in the Balkans wars, as a child trolled his Communist family by asking, “What’s so bad about [Francisco] Franco, anyway?”, and admired Joe McCarthy, writing in the early ‘90s:

The unique and the glorious thing about McCarthy was not his goals or his ideology, but precisely his radical, populist means. For McCarthy was able, for a few years, to short-circuit the intense opposition of all the elites in American life: from the Eisenhower-Rockefeller administration to the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex to liberal and left media and academic elites – to overcome all that opposition and reach and inspire the masses directly. And he did it on television, and without any real movement behind him; he had only a guerrilla band of a few advisers, but no organization and no infrastructure.

Remind you of anybody?

Pat Buchanan and the Segregationists of Yore

Trump is constantly being compared to Pat Buchanan, George Wallace, and the like. The implicit smears aside, there is a great deal of truth to this — ever hear about the Middle American Radical?

Rothbard excitedly endorsed Pat Buchanan in 1992 and supported Strom Thurmond in his college days — not to mention his identification as a copper head.

Crime

Trump talks tough on crime — and is willing to talk about the racial and immigration dynamics behind it, do I even need to bother with a link here?

Rothbard wrote:

Take Back the Streets: Get Rid of the Bums. Again: unleash the cops to clear the streets of bums and vagrants. Where will they go? Who cares? Hopefully, they will disappear, that is, move from the ranks of the petted and cosseted bum class to the ranks of the productive members of society.

Conclusion

I would like to say, in sum, the Murray Rothbard was in many ways a lot more of an “alt-right-er” than Trump is today, and probably ever will be. Rothbard personally knew and corresponded with Sam Francis, kept company with Jared Taylor, he endorsed racial separation, and as pointed out earlier, he never disavowed David Duke. Regardless, there can be no doubt that if Murray Rothbard were alive today, he would be happily riding the Trump Train.

If that’s libertarianism, count me in.

David Rosenberg writes:

The Donald appeals to the American underclass that’s been ignored. In Israel, those with grievances are the middle class and they prefer more respectable protest candidates.

Some say Netanyahu is Israel’s Trump. Just like The Donald, Bibi’s been accused of appealing to the voters’ baser instincts, particularly their racist ones. Just like Trump, he is at once part of the establishment and loathed by it.

Trump is promising to build a wall on the Mexican border. Bibi already built one along nearly all of Israel’s borders, although he didn’t get the Arabs to pay for it.

But  even if there are some similarities, Bibi isn’t Israel’s Trump. Israel doesn’t need a Trump.
Israel experienced many of the same economic upheavals America has, but not all of them. Trade liberalization killed off the Israeli textile industry, and unions are much weaker and represent a much smaller part of the workforce than three decades ago.
But that is only half the story. The Mizrahi underclass has made strides over the last decades and is closing the economic gap with the traditional Ashkenazi elite. The monopolies so loathed by the media and policy makers – the banks, Israel Electric Corporation, the ports and so on – have ensured good salaries and job security for a great many blue collar and middle class Israelis. Israel’s banks haven’t been allowed to run wild.
Unlike America, the Israeli economy has made remarkable progress over the last decade generating new jobs. More and more people are entering the labor force, especially people in the lowest income groups, and unemployment is touching record lows. Income inequality has been growing, but interestingly enough, it’s been widening between the middle and upper classes; at the lower end of the spectrum it has been narrowing.
Israel has a big population of poor. But they don’t see themselves as an economic class but as part of their community – ultra-orthodox, Arabs or Orientals. They for parties that represent their communities, not for Trump-like troublemakers.
If there has been anybody suffering in recent years, it’s the Israeli middle class, but it expresses its displeasure in its own, well-mannered way. No bombastic Trumps for them! Israel’s middle class held polite demonstrations in the summer of 2011 to protest the high cost of living and voted for disruptive but respectable politicians like Yair Lapid in 2012 and Moshe Kahlon in 2015. And, unlike the American underclass, Israel’s middle class is slowly getting its way. The cost of living is gradually moderating, and home prices will follow.

I think this is a foolish column. When I think of Israeli politicians, “respectable” is not the first word that comes to mind.

Comments to Steve Sailer:

* Israel’s elite know that their allegiance is to the Israeli people. Immigration, foreign policy, economic policy is is determined by the idea of what’s best for Israel. This is true for the Israeli Left and Right. No need for Trump.

* Gee, it must be nice to have a country governed by those who generally look out for their own people. Apparently none of us are allowed to have that though because it will lead to a new Hitler.

* “Well-mannered” and Jews/Israelis in the same sentence!

* So it’s okay to be a nationalist in Israel. Patriotic even. Here you’re just a dangerous home-grown bigot who should be watched for signs of terrorism. Seems really fair considering who leads the charge against American nationalists.

* Israel does not need Trump because their Parliament is 2/3 Trumps. Every politician in the center/right in Israel speaks and acts exactly like Trump. 2/3 of the people of Israel speak exactly like Trump. There was no controversy over Israel building a wall to stop illegal infiltrators for example (a brilliant phrase we should imitate) – except at Haaretz which is a left wing rag, ignored in Israel itself, although always quoted by the foreign press.

* I am sure a lot of people in Israel have noticed that Trump sounds like an Israeli politician.

Much of what Donald Trump has said and done has struck me as bad. I don’t like it that he takes every criticism personally. He says things that make me wince. He’s often gauche. And yet Trump is sailing to the Republican nomination, so what do I know?

Donald Trump is the prole whisperer (a comment I read on Steve Sailer’s blog). He’s the most Australian candidate I remember in America, perhaps the most Israeli candidate too.

Steve Sailer writes: Another feminine aspect to Trump is that he Takes Everything Personally. Trump’s is an extreme version of this trait that’s actually pretty common among Big Men, who, in contrast to Nerds, are very aware of their individual human relationships.

In contrast, Reagan tended to be focused on principles and used individuals in his speeches as examples of general patterns. A competent newspaper columnist, Reagan was fairly abstracted and disengaged from actual individual people around him (as his children regretted), especially for a movie star. Reagan always regretted losing out to Humphrey Bogart the roles of Rick in Casablanca and Fred C. Dobbs in The Treasure of Sierra Madre, but Bogart was an all-time great at being in the moment with his costars, while Reagan as an actor was a little bit like Ben Affleck: serviceable, but not fully engaged. Reagan was a fine craftsman of acting, but not a genius at it.

I’ve always wondered why the key moment in the 1980 presidential debate was Reagan joshing Carter with “There you go again.” I never understood what was so awesome about it, but I think now that it was the moment when Reagan came down to the man0-a-mano level and exerted interpersonal dominance by dissing the President to his face. But then I’m not a Big Man, so I only understand these things at an abstract/empirical level, while Trump has an extraordinarily intuitive sales talent.

* Yeah, the further up the chain you go, the more petty people become. It’s why all those jokes about losing to the boss at whatever you’re playing with him rings true: bosses aren’t interested in winning fair and square, they’re interested in being the boss. Napoleon used to cheat his own officers at cards, and openly, too, because his ego was so vast that even with all of Europe cowering at his feet, he still needed to win the game in front of him. Or read What Makes Sammy Run? and marvel that the main character, even after becoming a Hollywood producer, still makes his childhood bully work for him as his servant, just for the mental satisfaction of watching his former childhood tormenter wriggle under his thumb.

And not only are powerful people petty, they keep lists about who was wronged them just to get back at them. Nixon was famous for his Enemies List, but all big politicians have them; Obama has been revealed to have one, although the press of course didn’t call it an Enemies List. Sociopathy is what’s needed to get ahead in bureaucratic situations, especially corrupt ones. Or at least extreme narcissism.

Women are better at backbiting politicking, so historically when a civilization gets to a point where it has a top-heavy bureaucracy and a regular army, you see more women gaining positions of power.

* I wrote a post about Trump last summer where I described him as the leverage candidate. He is the most self-aware candidate we have seen since Nixon. Trump thinks about how others hear and see him, even while he is giving one of his off-the-cuff speeches. It’s what make him a great salesman and a great real estate tycoon. He’s always away of the group dynamics and how others are responding to him.

He leverages his assets like no other candidate. As soon as he gets a positive response from the audience. he immediately starts to build on it. He’ll hammer home that idea and own it in your mind, then he starts looking for the next good deal in your head. It’s fun to watch, even for someone like me, who is not a big fan of Trump.