I arrive at these conclusions the same way many of my classically liberal friends and fellow libertarians who support Trump do — by evaluating his actions through the lens of limited government, individual liberty, and fiscal restraint:
• DOGE and Fiscal Discipline: The goal of cutting $1 trillion from the federal budget, a major libertarian priority.
• Freedom of Speech: Consistently opposes online censorship. Appointed FCC commissioners like Ajit Pai and Brendan Carr, both strong defenders of free expression. Signed executive orders aimed at ending federal involvement in censorship.
• Deregulation: Slashed hundreds of federal regulations across multiple sectors, reducing government interference in markets and individual enterprise.
• Judicial Restraint: Appointed constitutionalist judges committed to limiting federal overreach and upholding individual rights.
• Non-Interventionist Foreign Policy: Opposed endless wars, pushed to bring troops home, and resisted entangling the U.S. in new conflicts.
• Ross Ulbricht: Publicly pledged to commute the sentence of the Silk Road founder, a major symbolic and substantive gesture for civil liberties and criminal justice reform.
How does one call themselves a classical liberal and not support this?
> DOGE and Fiscal Discipline: The goal of cutting $1 trillion from the federal budget, a major libertarian priority.
Is the result all that matters, and not how it is reached? Life-saving funding for various programs around the world through USAID? Cutting the budgets of the NIH, reducing what the National Cancer Research has to work with by $1B? Suspending student loan repayment programs?
I understand that your belief might be that the US government should never have been doing any of these things to begin with. Fine. But since we have been doing them, often for a very long time, and with so many programs, organizations, and literal lives now depending on them, is just yanking all of it with no notice, no time to adapt, practically overnight, really the ideal way to handle it because it saves more money faster?
> Freedom of Speech
Pulling AP's press credentials for not acknowledging the Gulf of America? Detaining/deporting people in the USA legally for expressing pro-Palestinian views? Suing media companies for coverage that you just didn't like? Punishing law firms for once taking up causes against you or that you didn't agree with?
> Non-Interventionist Foreign Policy
We're going to take the Panama Canal, Greenland, and Canada?
Mexico, Greenland, Canada, ... there's never been a more interventionist US president.
> DOGE and Fiscal Discipline: The goal of cutting $1 trillion from the federal budget, a major libertarian priority.
That doesn't make it align with classical liberal principles - especially when they discard the rule of law and do it as a dictator. Cutting government is an act of Congress, not the executive.
> Deregulation: Slashed hundreds of federal regulations across multiple sectors, reducing government interference in markets and individual enterprise.
Who intervenes more in business than Trump? For example, he is forcing them to abandon DEI and ESG; he is extorting law firms; he extorts funds and capitulation from other companies.
> Judicial Restraint: Appointed constitutionalist judges committed to limiting federal overreach and upholding individual rights.
The judges have eliminated many legal restraints on government, for example fabricating legal immunities for the President that are not in the Constitution.
> Freedom of Speech: Consistently opposes online censorship.
He's forcing independent, private universities to abandon freedom of speech, arresting people based on their speech - extremes never before seen.
People are widely afraid to criticize Trump for fear of retribution - that's never really happened with an US president.
Nice try. We are not at war with these countries and not even close to it either. Trump is the most non-interventionist president of the last few decades. This is an empirical and historical fact.
> That doesn't make it align with classical liberal principles - especially when they discard the rule of law and do it as a dictator. Cutting government is an act of Congress, not the executive.
Obama in Executive Order 13576: "By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to cut waste, streamline Government operations, and reinforce the performance and management reform gains my Administration has achieved, it is hereby ordered as follows..."
Yes which is great - this is an example of reducing the size and scope of government. This amounted to less rules, smaller gov and undoing gov overreach. Again this is measurable and empirical action that proves a reduction in government power.
> extremes never before seen (freedom of speech)
There is a literally an EO on preventing online censorship. I'm not sure if you were in a Coma during Covid, but social media companies were censoring voices that have now shown to be entirely true.
> Nice try. We are not at war with these countries and not even close to it either. Trump is the most non-interventionist president of the last few decades. This is an empirical and historical fact.
Trump has only been in office for two months. He's clearly threatening to take intervention to never before seen levels.
> Obama in Executive Order 13576 ...
Obama's executive order and actions were within the rule of law, "By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America". Very many of Trump's are not; Trump openly challenges and disregards any limit from law or the courts.
> [DEI/ESG:] Yes which is great - this is an example of reducing the size and scope of government.
It doesn't matter if you think it's great. It's stopping private organizations from doing what they choose - that is government using its power to compel behavior.
> There is a literally an EO on preventing online censorship
Human rights - freedom - is universal or it's nothing. It's just Trump protecting his friends and persecuting his enemies - the opposite of freedom.
They are arresting people in the street and deporting them for speech, forcing schools to censor students and faculty, forcing leaders of business and journalism to avoid criticism and even to support him - as just one example, look at the law firms he is extorting for representing parties critical of him.
It's also oppressive to force private companies - social media companies - to adopt policies Trump prefers, including about moderation.
> Nice try. We are not at war with these countries and not even close to it either. Trump is the most non-interventionist president of the last few decades. This is an empirical and historical fact.
This is... not an empirical or historical fact! Trump was not the anti-war president, he presided over US involvement in multiple conflicts with less transparency than any prior president. As of this writing is preparing an EO to increase weapons exports.
> There is a literally an EO on preventing online censorship. I'm not sure if you were in a Coma during Covid, but social media companies were censoring voices that have now shown to be entirely true.
That EO might be what you say it is - but social media companies were hardly censoring voices and that has not been "shown to be entirely true".
I don't see how a someone so clearly deep down the rabbit hole on trumpism could call themselves a classical liberal in good faith!
> Nice try. We are not at war with these countries and not even close to it either. Trump is the most non-interventionist president of the last few decades. This is an empirical and historical fact.
This is... not an empirical or historical fact! Trump was not the anti-war president, he presided over US involvement in multiple conflicts with less transparency than any prior president. As of this writing is preparing an EO to increase weapons exports.
I will leave aside my own judgment of the things you've listed. I don't agree with all of them, but I do agree with some. My exact opinion doesn't matter here.
What matters is this: you can agree that Trump has done good things and still think he's done horrible things as well. A shit sandwich is still a shit sandwich. You shouldn't eat it just because the bread's edible.
