WatDabney

Trump is a perfect example of a bit of... let's call it *psychology physics*. Just like a balloon, the more an ego is inflated, the more fragile it gets.

I have to push back a bit that the core of the proper definition of libertarianism is freedom from the state. I’m not sure why you feel a need to push back against something I didn’t say.

Depends on how it’s defined. Current libertarianism is just rebranded reactionary conservatism. Classically though, “libertarian” simply referred to someone who advocated for maximum individual liberty and minimum state intervention. The term first gained popularity in the US in the wake of the New Deal, when the term “liberal,” which had up until then referred to that position of maximum individual liberty and minimum state intervention, was coopted by leftist authoritarians. Since the classical liberals needed a new term, they shifted to “libertarian.” And notably, at that point, libertarians were at least as likely to be left-wing as right, with the two groups merely splitting on which specific government services should be counted among the minimum. That started to go wrong when the Libertarian party was established, and finished going wrong when the Tea Party was transformed from a series of protests against the Wall Street bailouts to a traveling carnival of hate. And there’s also the political compass sense of “libertarian” as simply the opposite of authoritarian, by which I’m as “libertarian” as it’s possible to be. It should be noted though that in recent years, mostly through meme communities, even that conception of “libertarian” has been increasingly characterized as more of an alternate authoritarianism. So there’s a conception back behind each use of the term “libertarian” that is at least close to mine (I’m actually an anarchist). But IMO not coincidentally, the term has been in all cases warped to refer to some form of authoritarianism, which I unequivocally oppose.