My sense, coming away from FreedomFest, is that the libertarian-minded attendees this year were straining to celebrate some genuinely encouraging signs, mostly on the state level, but with deep foreboding about the future of free-market economics, limited government and individual freedom on the national stage. Especially if you listen to the current crop of Republican presidential candidates.
Libertarian values, traditionally at least conservative-adjacent, are another casualty of the Republican Party’s scorn for classic conservatism since the rise of Donald Trump.
But first, the good news, coming out of state legislatures.
Gun control is in retreat, and in states with heavily GOP legislatures, recent “gun reform” legislation means easing restrictions on purchasing and carrying firearms.
At the state level, as my National Review colleague Dominic Pino recently put it, “the U.S. is in the middle of a tax-cut revolution,” with the past three years bringing the largest wave of state-tax cuts in the modern era. That’s in addition to federal income-tax rates that are already low by historical standards.
Not in Wisconsin.
Parents have never had as many options on where to send their children to school, another libertarian priority, as they do now — even if that effort hasn’t advanced as far as school choice advocates would prefer.
Libertarians, generally bigger fans of marijuana legalization than conservatives are, can claim widespread victories — as will be familiar to anyone who sniffs the air while walking in just about any major American city. Weed has never been more legal or more easily accessible.
And, hey, in Oregon, you’re finally allowed to pump your own gas now. That just leaves you, New Jersey.
The legislative wins at the state level arrive alongside the full consequences of a new, right-leaning Supreme Court majority. With the glaring exception of abortion, this court is likely to look skeptically at expansions of the state’s ability to restrict and regulate citizens’ choices. At least for now, five and perhaps six justices warily eye proposals to expand federal or state government power.
That’s the glass-half-full libertarian perspective. But the outlook darkens dramatically if you consider the rhetoric in the 2024 presidential race.
Trump, who currently appears to be the most likely GOP nominee, has never been particularly focused on terms such as “liberty” or “freedom” that are prized by conservatives and libertarians alike. He barely seems interested in policy anymore, focusing instead almost entirely on the “stolen” 2020 election, pledging to smite his enemies and declaring to his supporters, “I am your retribution.”
Trump’s idea of crime-fighting is promising to “send in the National Guard until law and order is restored.” He wants any police force receiving federal grant money to employ “stop-and-frisk,” and he vows to use the death penalty for drug dealers and human traffickers.
And, beyond Trump, it’s clear that promising to reduce spending and cut regulations doesn’t thrill the crowds on the campaign trail anymore. From the Iowa stump speeches to the Fox News studios, these days it’s all culture war, culture war, culture war. It can be disorienting to hear politicians who might have once extolled limited government now eagerly embrace a big and powerful federal government as a tool to punish those they deem culturally wrong. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is leading that charge.
Alas, the Democrat incumbent also won’t appeal to the libertarian-minded. The Biden administration and its allies seem bent upon monitoring, restricting and punishing anything they choose to define as dangerous “misinformation,” a stance utterly incompatible with First Amendment values. President Biden and his team also appear to have no interest in changing the current intelligence community programs that include surveillance of Americans. And where Democrats have replaced the GOP at the state level, they’re undoing their predecessors’ hard-won victories. In March, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and her Democratic legislative allies repealed the state’s right-to-work laws.
A libertarian could take comfort in arguing that their wins on the state level outnumber their losses, and that matters more than any grandiose campaign trail promises that are unlikely to ever be kept. But the GOP’s declining interest in shrinking the size, scope and reach of government represents dark storm clouds on the horizon for libertarians and, they believe, for Americans generally. Liberty will be the biggest loser if Republicans embrace big government as a cudgel in the culture war.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 
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