More than I usually excerpt but worth not missing.
Trump has confounded many analysts with his peculiar combination of political positions. While claiming to be a conservative, Trump has nevertheless advocated extreme statism. For example, Trump has said health care and education are two of the three primary responsibilities of the federal government. He is a practitioner and advocate of eminent domain, a system that enriches insiders who can arrange for government action to dispossess ordinary Americans of their homes if that should be required to reap the oligarch’s profit.
Trump is also radical trade protectionist who would destroy the global economic foundation of American prosperity since World War II in order to impose a system enriching insiders who can arrange for government action to block foreign competition. If that were not enough, Trump has stated his intention to implement laws that would facilitate government officials suing critics, thereby chilling the freedom of the press that has been fundamental to American liberty since colonial times.
In addition, Trump openly embraces Nietzschean ethics, in direct opposition to the Judeo-Christian morality conservatives treasure. He spews lies fluently, and when confronted with a request for facts to back up his assertions, brushes it off as if truth does not matter. His general methodology is that of a demagogue, a mobilizer of passion against reason, of the mob against the individual, an exemplar of liberty’s worst enemy.
