http://www.nationalreview.com/node/437967/print I Told You So
How’s that ‘libertarian moment’ working out?
By Kevin D. Williamson — July 17, 2016
Las Vegas — Yeah, I told you so.
As the presidential campaign season kicked off, many of my friends and colleagues insisted that the United States was having a “libertarian moment.” I thought otherwise, and argued (in Politico) that the admirable Senator Rand Paul, the closest thing to an out-and-out libertarian with any currency in mainstream political circles, would have a hard time seeking the Republican nomination not in spite of his libertarianism but because of it. The idea that Americans are closet libertarians who desire a regime of economic liberalism and a hands-off approach to social questions is not supported by the evidence.
In the event, the two presidential candidates Americans got most excited about were Donald Trump, a nationalist, and Bernie Sanders, a socialist. Between the two of them, they make a pretty good national socialist. Trump won his party’s nomination and Sanders ceded his to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is (arguably) a little bit more of a nationalist and (arguably) a little bit less of a socialist but in many ways a much better distillation of the partnership between big government and big business that characterizes our current political moment.
How’s that libertarian moment working out for you?
more
