Two Kinds of Libertarians

You can divide self-described libertarians into two camps, and the point on which they diverge goes a good way towards explaining why some libertarians have talked themselves into supporting Trump, or enthusiastically embraced him, while others view Trump (and Trumpism) as the gravest threat to liberty in America in any of our lifetimes.

If we want a rough definition of libertarianism, “skepticism of state power” is a good start. Libertarians want a smaller state, or no state at all, and pursue policies that reduce the reach of government, and limit the range of activities it has a say in. That’s rough, and leaves a lot out, but it’s good enough to get at the basic point I want to make.

The key to the divide is to ask “Why do you oppose the state?” What is it about state power that you find objectionable, or dangerous, or immoral, or unjust?

The first sort of libertarian, and the kind that ends up deeply opposed to Trumpism, views the state as the primary tool people with power use to reinforce their power, to remain at the top of artificial hierarchies, to circumscribe the liberty of others for their own gain. These libertarians oppose oppression and hierarchy, they oppose the powerful suppressing the weak, and, whatever good it might do, granting an institution the authority to exercise violence means that institution will exercise that violence to the benefit of the powerful and against the powerless. Everyone is equal in deserved dignity and rights and autonomy, in other words, or ought to be, and the state is a grave threat to that.

The second sort of libertarian, and the kind who you now find out there arguing that Trumpism is good actually, views the state as the primary means by which natural hierarchies (typically with themselves at the top) are interfered with. The state, by this view, enforces an unjust equality. Hierarchies (men above women, whites above blacks, “the West” above the rest) are natural, and so would emerge or persist in a state of perfect freedom. Thus, if those hierarchies are seen to fade, or if people are arguing against their persistence, the only way that can be happening, or the only way those people can achieve their flattening aims, is if liberty is somehow interfered with. And the mechanism by which liberty is interfered with is the state.

Both sorts of libertarian, in other words, want to shrink state power. Or, at least, say they do. Both, unless they are anarchists, will allow some state action in the cause of justice. But what that cause is differs greatly. The first group sees Trumpism as a far-right movement, fascist and authoritarian, aimed at rebuilding and reifying “traditional” hierarchies by dramatically curtailing liberty, and using state power to terrorize and oppress. The second group sees Trumpism as a liberatory movement aimed at preventing other sorts of power from deconstructing “traditional” hierarchies that aren’t just traditional, but natural facts of the world. For them, Trumpism isn’t an abuse of power, but its exercise in the name of protecting ways of being and ways of life unjustly threatened by diversity, by cultural dynamism, and other forms of non-state change.

Of course, from the perspective of libertarian principles, the first sort sticks to its guns, while the second sort is contradictory and incoherent. You can’t make the world freer by making it less free. You can’t turn America into a land of liberty by putting troops on street corners, kidnapping peaceful immigrants, imposing protectionist policies, threatening media companies, and interfering in elections. But, if you genuinely believe those are the only means that can possibly maintain hierarchies you benefit from, and if you genuinely believe those hierarchies are necessary and natural features of the world and so any amelioration of them, even through freely chosen actions, is unnatural and so unjust, you can at least talk yourself into papering over that incoherence.