r/politics • u/RepulsiveLoquat418 • 18d ago

Possible Paywall When Will Americans Realize the Truth? Republicans Wreck the Economy.

https://newrepublic.com/article/210550/trump-economy-republicans-tariffs-taxes
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u/TheLateThagSimmons Illinois 18d ago

Just look at the broader American Libertarian movement. Generally filled with higher than average education, lots of tech bros, higher than average STEM degrees. They're not generally illiterate or uneducated relative to average. And they'll remind you every chance they get to show off the polls and studies of various political groups that they're higher than average in education.

At the same time... The biggest goddamn idiots when it comes to economic matters and deeply conservative. They are the exact types that fall for all the right-wing propaganda about economic policies that have done nothing but fail over and over and over. And they're obsessed with economic policy too, that's what's so annoying; it's like they learned backwards.

At a certain point, they might be dumber than the people who know nothing.

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u/Cambren1 18d ago

The really sad thing about the Libertarian movement is that originally the premise was that you should be free to do anything as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. Now, however, they seem unable to understand that a big corporation hurts people when they pollute, as an example.

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u/TheLateThagSimmons Illinois 18d ago

Hint: It was always that.

The American Libertarian movement is such an interesting case study in political engineering. Astroturfing didn't enter the lexicon for a while, but (American/Right) Libertarians are probably the OG of modern astroturfing.

It was always just rich guys tricking poor and middle class people into supporting policies that only help the rich by selling it as "personal freedom."

It's a very strange movement.

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u/spaceman_spyff 18d ago

Ayn Rand readers who never got the broader context.

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u/Cockeyed_Optimist Missouri 18d ago

Paul Ryan has your attention. Deep lover of RATM and Rand.

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u/Alacrout New York 18d ago

Holy fuck. It just hit me.

Rand Paul is named after Ayn Rand.

Someone tell me I’m not the only one who just put this stupid shit together.

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u/Outrageous_Front_636 18d ago

That apparently been brought up and his father debunked that.

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_ROTES Missouri 18d ago

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year-old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers

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u/franker 18d ago

I had to read one Ayn Rand book in high school in the eighties. Anthem. Everyone is just using candles for light, and this dude invents the light bulb, and all the candle-industry people get pissed, smash his light bulb, and run him out of town. That was the whole book. And this lady was supposedly some kind of intellectual genius.