In many or most respects, the pre-inaugural Donald Trump is acting like a liberal hero. And America and the world are treating him as such. But Trump knows little of true liberalism; and he believes in and advocates it still less.
For 2600 years now life has been a battle between the liberals and the illiberals. The philosophy and culture of liberalism rose under Greece and Rome, but it declined under the Christian Dark Age. Liberalism rose again during the Renaissance and Enlightenment, but retreated during the current welfare statist Dark Age. The world seemingly hit its liberal and civilizational nadir in the 1980s.
Then came the liberal champions Deng Shiao-Ping of China, Mikhail Gorbachev of Russia, Margaret Thatcher of Britain, and Ronald Reagan of America. These four remarkable individuals were both products of the partial return of liberal philosophy and society, and drivers of them. Underlying this minor ascent of man were such liberal intellectuals as Frederich Bastiat, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spenser, Ludwig von Mises, Frederich Hayek, and, especially, Ayn Rand.
Now comes Donald Trump. Evidently he’s read a small amount of Rand, and he even likes and agrees with her somewhat. But Trump is very shallow and weak intellectually. His rather primitive, petty, and vulgar lifestyle reveals and reflects this. Strategically and psychologically, Trump may be “playing chess, while everyone else is playing checkers” but on the deep and important issues, Trump is mostly playing tic-tac-toe.
Yes, Donald Trump has a rather dynamic and heroic persona and character. He’s something of an alpha male leader. And it even seems like he might emerge as something of an iconic, historic, and transformational figure. Let's hope!
But Trump is also a considerable liar and lowlife. And his main philosophy – to the extent that he has one – is immensely amoral and unprincipled. Trump is fundamentally a pragmatist and utilitarian.
Donald Trump largely rejects right-wing religious conservatism and left-wing collectivist progressivism. But that doesn’t make him a straight-wing individualist liberal. He doesn’t even know what that is! Generally, Trump leans to the contrarian, subversive right as he keeps his distance from RINO, establishment, country-club, and swamp Republicans. He's generally somewhat virtuous overall, and has good instincts, and is a political natural. He’s also a nationalist, populist, and patriot. Trump also favors and practices non-ideological deal-making, doing what works, and common sense.
When it comes to issues of philosophy and profound intellectualism, Donald Trump rarely or never stands on principle. This is because he doesn’t know many good principles and isn’t much aware of what’s right. But Trump realizes this about himself -- which is a kind of strength. He stands somewhat above Right and Left, and thus he has the ability to pick out what's best from both and to somewhat transcend them. This allows him to sometimes go moderately go in the pro-realism, pro-reason, pro-individualism, pro-liberty, liberal direction.
Ultimately, Donald Trump from January 2025 to January 2029 -- assuming he actually lives that long – isn’t likely to advance liberal philosophy and civilization in America and the West that far. Not even liberal politics. Under him, freedom will seemingly only rise slightly -- if that.
This is because Trump simply doesn’t believe in getting rid of fascist drug, prostitution, gambling, and early-abortion prohibitions. He doesn’t believe in eliminating fascist labor laws, business permits, and professional licenses. He doesn’t believe in terminating socialist Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Food Stamps, and housing subsidies. He doesn’t believe in privatizing socialist roads, parks, schools, mail, and money. All of this Donald Trump sees as a species of madness. Political liberalism and libertarianism are ideals he fundamentally opposes.
At best, Trump might cut crime a bit, somewhat deregulate the economy, partially free up the energy industries, deport a moderate amount of illegal aliens, and occasionally stand up for America against enemies like China, Russia, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. But Trump is a total welfare statist. His foreign policy is one of engaging with and appeasing evil; he doesn’t believe in victory. His domestic policy is one of coercion and regulation; rhetoric aside, he doesn’t believe in freedom. Trump strongly rejects free statism, economic laissez-faire capitalism, social libertarianism, personal liberty, and political liberalism. And he may well spend like a drunken sailor and get us into some pointless wars.
If someone were to walk up to Donald Trump and quietly point out that the purpose of gov’t is to uphold individual rights, establish liberty and justice for all, protect people and property, prevent the initiation of force, and create a socio-economic system of pure freedom...he wouldn’t know what the hell you were talking about. All of this is alien to his notions of gov't.
Still, political leaders adapt. They improvise and adjust themselves to the times, social situations, cultural trends, and changing intellectual beliefs. They tend to comply with what the masses and elites demand of them. Maybe the leading thinkers of America and the West can somewhat force Trump away from Big Brother and in the direction of freedom. By far the best hope for political liberalization on the planet today is Argentina’s Javier Milei. Maybe from afar Trump can observe and learn from him. Or maybe Milei can personally talk to Trump and influence him directly.
Ultimately, it’s up to the intellectual leaders of the Atlas Society, Objective Standards Institute, Ayn Rand Institute, Cato Institute, Reason magazine, and others to get to work and try to intellectually persuade and personally push Donald Trump in the liberal philosophical and political direction. More important than this, liberal thinkers need to continue to try to win the philosophical battles in the intellectual journals, think-tanks, and elite universities. This will eventually touch Trump, and all the political leaders of the world which follow.
