It began early. In a candidate questionnaire in March 2016, Trump answered two key questions presented by the free-market American Energy Alliance:
“8). Do you support a carbon tax? Do you support the Obama administration’s use of the social cost of carbon in rulemakings?
A. No and No.
9). Do you think federal agencies have abused the cost-benefit process to suit their political agenda? Would your administration end the process of underestimating costs and inflating benefits of agency regulations?
A. Yes and Yes.”
And in his first energy speech in May 2016, Trump stated:
…“And if Crooked Hillary can shut down the mines, she can shut down your business too.”
“These actions have denied millions of Americans access to the energy wealth sitting under our feet. This is your treasure, and you – the American People – are entitled to share in the riches.”
” … although Trump was not a libertarian, was his philosophy in energy, environment, and regulation reasonably free market? Were the President’s motivations laudatory? Consumer-, entrepreneur-, and taxpayer-driven? I believe they were, outside of foreign trade policy with certain countries.”
I recently had this exchange with a ideological and personal friend, Richard Ebeling, BB&T Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Free Enterprise Leadership at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, about the civil war within the libertarian movement in regard to the Donald Trump presidency. Always there, the divide boiled over last week with Trump’s last stand. I was part of it.
After reviewing our exchange, I revisited many Trump-related posts here at MasterResource regarding energy, climate, and the environment. (Wednesday’s post will list approximately 30.) The question is: although Trump was not a libertarian, was his philosophy in this area reasonably free market, outside of foreign trade policy with certain countries?…
“And, frankly, libertarians like you who have supported Trump bear blame for this crap too. You have NO ground to stand on today having enabled this seditious shitty excuse for a human being….” (Steve Horwitz to Rob Bradley, Facebook, January 6, 2021)
“For me, one of the most tragic results of the Trump phenomenon has been to cause good, decent, reasonable classical liberals (libertarians, the good ones, not the zealots, you know what I mean) to yell at each other in anger and frustration.” (Peter Lewin, Facebook, January 8, 2021)
Amid the Capitol violence of Wednesday January 6, Peter Lewin, a notable Austrian-school economist and respected classical liberal, posted on Facebook about the “out of control zealots…. Mob Hysteria ready to explode….” Exchanges followed. I asked some rather civil questions including this one:
…I’m not condoning the violence, just trying to put it in perspective…..