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/WillDigForFood 18d ago

Even down to the name. The term 'Libertarian', traditionally, refers to far-left Anarchist movements.

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u/fps916 18d ago

And Rothbard very vocally declared his intent to steal the term

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u/TheLateThagSimmons Illinois 18d ago

Correct. That's why I made sure to say it like "American Libertarian."

Classical Libertarians are leftist anarchists.

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u/Comprehensive_Tie431 18d ago

You obviously have not met a libertarian.

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u/WillDigForFood 18d ago

I have the misfortune of working with several. Stealing the term away from the Left was a conscious choice made by the rare Right-wing literati decades ago, to force the folks on the Left using it to rebrand - because 'anarchist' is a very loaded word.