The Vanishing Libertarian
“We're all victims. Everybody here, all these thousands of people here tonight, they're all victims. Every one of you." -Donald Trump, in 2020
Out of office, Donald Trump sounded much like the rest of America’s conservative movement.1 Taking a page from the “victimhood culture” they often lament, they saw their persecution hidden behind every government policy no matter how innocuous. COVID vaccine mandates (and other anti-pandemic measures) were a form of social control that was just the first step in an elite domination of our lives.2 The FBI’s cracking down on nationwide threats to teachers and school boards was a maneuver to lock up conservative parents for exercising their First Amendment rights in speaking against Critical Race Theory.3 Armed IRS agents were going to come and beat down your door.4 And of course, there was the Great Replacement Theory, that our country was being intentionally flooded with criminal migrants in order to change the electoral calculus of America.5 Donald Trump, and conservatives, spent the last few years arguing that they were all that was standing between these demonic forces and you—representatives of those normal people who just want to get on with life—live and let live.6
Readers of this blog likely found these conspiracies ridiculous when they came out. Several months into the second Trump administration they are even more so. We’re left to ask several questions. Why were there no examples of parents arrested by feds for opposing Critical Race Theory, and if there are any, why hasn’t Donald Trump bothered to pardon them? Why did the elites give up on their COVID-inspired attempts at social control, and did this project begin under Trump’s first term—the only presidential term where lockdowns ended up being widespread? And lastly, why didn’t those illegals turn out to vote in 2024? Why didn’t the mass importation of “criminals” lead to a prolonged upsurge in crime? The only response to any of these questions comes from claims that Trump’s election victory was “too big to rig.” But this explanation is obviously silly. He won by a small margin in a handful of swing states. The rigging need only have been small and in the most predictable of states.
But addressing these questions in the year 2025 feels quaint. The truth is nobody cares anymore, and nobody in conservative media bothers to debate these questions on the facts. But why should they? The sense of aggrievement that these conspiracies fostered certainly helped them on their path to power, and now that they have that power, they can exercise it as cruelly as they wish and employ a dull whataboutism in their defense that will be lapped up by credulous mainstream media: The Democrats are accusing us of abusing our power? Curious! We made the same accusations against them!
All of these conspiracies are tied together by the libertarian impulse to simply be left alone. People just want to live their lives without being constantly threatened by a bogeyman federal government’s IRS agents and COVID bureaucrats. Less conspiratorially, they don’t want to pay taxes, encounter crime, or go to war. Just a few months ago, Trump was campaigning as the candidate of peace, reducing the deficit and lowering taxes, and deporting criminal illegals.
Since then, he’s gone from saying that he could end the Russian onslaught in Ukraine “within 24 hours” to saying that was just a joke. Asked if he could end the fighting, he replied, “I don’t know.”7 Similarly, the Trump-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas crumbled after Israel broke it. Trump is simultaneously trying again (with little success) and continuing, much like Biden, his unconditional support for Israel even as they undermine his deals.8 This is, however, reminiscent of his campaign’s opportunism, where he branded himself pro-Israel in heavily Jewish districts and pro-Palestine in heavily-Arab ones.9 Trump also started a new conflict with Iran, but promises this isn’t like the other Middle Eastern conflicts you’ve heard about. JD Vance explained the difference for MAGA world:
I simply empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East…I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents, and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America’s national security objectives.10
Trump is making war great again! But you can’t call it war with Iran. Explaining to ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, Vance further explained, “No, we’re not at war with Iran, Jon. We’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program.”11 The hastily-negotiated ceasefire between Iran and Israel has also faltered after…you guessed it; Israel broke it. That’s not to mention Trump’s air campaigns against Somalia and Yemen, countries that enjoyed a relative reprieve from bombing under the previous administration.12 Thankfully, none of this has stopped noted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu from nominating Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize.
On the fiscal side of things, the “Big Beautiful Bill” did provide a massive tax cut, though predictably sixty percent of its benefits will be reaped by the richest one-fifth of Americans. The bottom half of Americans will see their post-tax income rise by roughly one percent, though this isn’t including the income they’ll lose due to cuts to Medicaid and nutrition assistance.13 Trumps advisers claim that his tax bill will “pay for itself”—the same lie that was told about Trump’s first tax bill. Though even Elon Musk doesn’t seem to be buying it. In Trump’s first term, he nearly doubled the annual budget deficit before COVID. We’ll see if he can outdo himself.14 Trump has claimed his economic policy (and particularly his mass deportations) are good for American workers because blue collar wage growth is higher in the first few months of his term than in the first few months of several other presidents. But there’s a major problem. The rate of blue-collar wage growth was nearly twice as high in the middle of last year!15
Trump’s tax bill isn’t the only means by which he is showering gifts upon the rich. Silicon Valley megadonor Chamath Palihapitiya has gone on record bragging that it’s easy to call in favors. “There’s not a single person there [in the White House] you can’t get on the phone and talk to,” he explained, noting that “The Trump administration is totally different” in this respect than the Democratic administrations he used to give to. Trump has also made tech oligarch David Sacks his cryptocurrency czar, opening the door to all sorts of new financial scams. Trump himself has even launched a token ($TRUMP) from which he’s reportedly earning hundreds of millions of dollars. The president's sons are traveling the world promoting the family’s crypto exchange, World Liberty Financial. We don’t know who all is buying in, but Middle Eastern dictatorships are investing hundreds of millions of dollars, and based on recent weapons deals they’re certainly getting their money’s worth.
We’d better talk about immigration too, where the president’s authoritarian tendencies are on full display. When talking about immigrants, every other word out of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s mouth is “criminal.” Perhaps it's not surprising then that when Trump first took office, ICE prioritized (like it had under Biden) deporting undocumented immigrants with criminal convictions. But by May it was clear that this wouldn’t be enough to achieve the promised mass deportations. It turns out that too few migrants are criminals!16 This prompted a tantrum by Stephen Miller. One ICE official quoted him in a meeting: “You guys [ICE] aren’t doing a good job. You’re horrible leaders…Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?” When an ICE official told Miller that their focus was on criminals, he exploded: “What do you mean you’re going after criminals?”17 Since this outburst, Miller has gotten his wish. ICE agents have been staking out Home Depots, schools, and even immigration hearings to scoop up immigrants who are abiding by the legal process. To justify these acts, the government has engaged in a series of lies and unsubstantiated accusations. A gay makeup artist was alleged to be part of a homophobic gang18; a student was accused of supporting terrorism for protesting against bombings19; and the latest, an immigrant, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, was deported to a foreign prison where he was allegedly tortured by way of an “administrative error.” Once Democrats criticized the “error”, the administration baselessly claimed that Garcia was a member of MS-13, though no evidence in support of this claim has ever been furnished.20 The government’s modus operandi is to arrest first and try to fabricate a reason for doing so after the fact; the result is that innocent people lose weeks or months of their lives in jails only for the media to later discover they had done nothing wrong. The government is so careless in this behavior that they’ve repeatedly arrested American citizens who upon being detained tried to present ICE agents with their identification.21 We’re just scratching the surface here. The tactics of ICE have also become more authoritarian. In California, they’re insisting on their right to conceal their identities from the public (while insisting the public not conceal their identities from them). While ICE contends this policy is for their own safety —there is no evidence of ICE agents being stalked and hunted— it also lets them avoid accountability.22 Their aggression against civilians is well documented. Even the conservative New York Post had to take a quick break from cheerleading ICE after one of their photographers was intentionally targeted and shot with a rubber bullet by an ICE agent.23
The people who once saw elite plotting and weakness behind every war are now its biggest champions. The people who once saw authoritarianism behind even the most routine law enforcement activities now justify arbitrary arrests and swallow even the most obvious deceptions. The people concerned about an unaccountable executive branch now believe that the president shouldn’t be bound by the rulings of federal judges. The people who spent the last years fear-mongering about the long reach of federal law enforcement and government surveillance of normal people are championing those very powers on college campuses and at anti-ICE protests. The people who reviled massive government deficits are now championing them. The people who thought Hunter Biden’s gifts were determining federal policy are now silent as the entire Trump family bathes in crypto money and gifts from foreign governments that are illegal under the Constitution's emoluments clause. The people who were once concerned that Obama would use the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to build concentration camps are now trying to direct FEMA funds to build a detention center in Florida (the famed “Alligator Alcatraz”) while taking away FEMA’s resources devoted to natural disasters—all while Texas floods.24 The people who wanted to be left alone now want to bother everyone else.
This isn’t a story of libertarians turning fascist after acquiring power, nor one of oppressed becoming oppressor. These people were only ever victims in their own minds and they’ve been this way long before Biden was president.
Now that we can call their bullshit for what it is, let’s also remember the loyal opposition that continues to abet them: the Democratic leadership who told members of Congress not to visit Abrego Garcia in prison, who spent years mocking calls to abolish ICE, and who spent the last year decrying every anti-genocide protest as anti-Semitic. They have paved the way for all of this, and they too deserve our scorn.
The quote in the subtitle is from a 2020 Trump campaign rally. Quoted in: Benen, Steve. “'We're all victims': Trump pushes persecution complex to supporters.” MaddowBlog on MSNBC.com, December 7, 2020. https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/we-re-all-victims-trump-pushes-persecution-complex-supporters-n1250206
It’s worth remembering that conservatives spent 2021 insisting the Biden would restart Trump-era Covid lockdowns. Of course, these never came. Smith, David. “‘Fascist and tyrannical’: US vaccine mandates induce rightwing hysteria.” The Guardian, September 16, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/16/vaccine-mandates-rightwing-hysteria-joe-biden
Schemmel, Alec. “'No legitimate basis': Biden admin blasted for directive telling FBI to investigate parents at school board meetings.” KATV News, March 22, 2023 https://katv.com/news/nation-world/no-legitimate-basis-judiciary-committee-blasts-biden-admin-directive-telling-fbi-to-investigate-school-board-meetings
Hussein, Fatima. “Republicans once railed against armed IRS agents. Now they want them for immigration enforcement.” AP News, February 11, 2025. https://apnews.com/article/armed-irs-agents-immigration-enforcement-0065756e7e44b0de2027d5a6f60e60a5
The Republican version of the Great Replacement Theory suggests that immigrants will replace native born Americans. The original variant argues that non-white residents will replace white ones. The two theories often get messily conflated, like when Tucker Carlson contended that “legacy Americans” were being replaced and suggested the fact that the non-white share of the population was rising was evidence of this. Pengelly, Martin. “Fresh calls for Fox News to fire Tucker Carlson over ‘replacement theory’.” The Guardian, September 25, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/sep/25/tucker-carlson-fox-news-anti-defamation-league
"In the end, they're not coming after me. They're coming after you — and I'm just standing in their way," -Donald Trump. This quote comes from one of Donald Trump’s first post-indictment speeches and was widely cited in the press.
See Dale, Daniel “Fact check: It wasn’t ‘in jest.’ Here are 53 times Trump said he’d end Ukraine war within 24 hours or before taking office.” CNN, April 25, 2025. https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/25/politics/fact-check-trump-ukraine-war and Johansen, Ben. “Trump on if he can end fighting in Ukraine: ‘I don’t know’.” Politico. July 5, 2025. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/05/trump-russia-ukraine-war-00440027
Baba, Anas & Kat Lonsdorf. “Trump says ceasefire deal is near as Israeli strikes kill 138 Palestinians in Gaza.” NPR, July 4, 2025. https://www.npr.org/2025/07/04/nx-s1-5456983/trump-says-ceasefire-deal-near-israeli-strikes-kill-138-palestinians-gaza
Deutch, Gabby. “Trump sends mixed messages on Mideast policy in final days of campaign.” Jewish Insider, October 31, 2024. https://jewishinsider.com/2024/10/trump-pro-israel-conservatives-america-first-isolationists-arab-voters/
Gomez, Henry. “Iran strikes push Vance, a foreign intervention skeptic, into the role of salesman.” NBC News, June 22, 2025. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/jd-vance/iran-vance-intervention-skeptic-role-salesman-rcna214345
Source: ABC News interview with Jonathan Karl. This quote was widely circulated in the media.
Gabobe, Mohamed. “Under Trump, US strikes on Somalia have doubled since last year. Why?” Al Jazeera, June 24, 2025. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/24/under-trump-us-strikes-on-somalia-have-doubled-since-last-year-why
Estimates are from the Tax Policy Center. A simple writeup is: Waldvogel, Miriam. “How your income taxes will change after Trump signs the ‘big, beautiful bill’ into law.” The Hill, July 3, 2025. https://thehill.com/business/personal-finance/5384586-trump-bill-tax-cuts-medicaid-snap/
On Trump’s advisers see: “Will the tax cuts pay for themselves?” in NPR. https://www.npr.org/2025/07/08/1255321731/will-the-tax-cuts-pay-for-themselves. For Elon, see his terrible X feed.
Blue-collar wage growth is in quotations because the metric Real wage growth under Biden was lower during the first few months of his term due to post-pandemic, which recent research has found was primarily attributable to global supply shocks. See: Neil, Irwin. “What to know about the Trump administration's favorite economic data point.” Axios, June 20, 2025. https://www.axios.com/2025/06/20/trump-inflation-wage-growth and Bernanke, Ben, and Olivier Blanchard. "What caused the US pandemic-era inflation?." American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 17, no. 3 (2025): 1-35.
This was not shocking news in the real world. Undocumented immigrants, once in this country, commit crimes at a much lower rate than native-born citizens and only a tiny fraction of them have any kind of criminal record. See both: Caro, Patricia. “Trump says he’ll deport criminal migrants first, but who is he referring to?” El Pais, September 16, 2024. https://english.elpais.com/usa/2024-12-16/trump-says-hell-deport-criminal-migrants-first-but-who-is-he-referring-to.html and Contreras, Russell. “Why Trump won't be deporting "millions" of criminals.” Axios, January 27, 2025. https://www.axios.com/2025/01/27/undocumented-immigrants-crime-deportations-trump
Anderson, Stuart. “Stephen Miller’s Order Likely Sparked Immigration Arrests And Protests.” Forbes, June 9, 2025. https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2025/06/09/stephen-millers-order-likely-sparked-immigration-arrests-and-protests/
Phillips, Tom & Clavel Rangel. “‘He is not a gang member’: outrage as US deports makeup artist to El Salvador prison for crown tattoos.” The Guardian, April 1, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/its-a-tradition-outrage-in-venezuela-as-us-deports-makeup-artist-for-religious-tattoos
Florido, Adrian. “Mahmoud Khalil had hoped to walk free today. A federal judge said no.” NPR, June 13, 2025. https://www.npr.org/2025/06/13/nx-s1-5432706/judge-orders-release-of-columbia-activist-mahmoud-khalil-detention
Just last night, Fox News shared obviously staged photographs from the El Salvadoran government which depict Garcia participating in activities like fishing and gardening. They believe this counters Garcia’s claim that he was subjected to torture. Garcia says these photos were taken weeks after the alleged abuse at a different facility where he was temporarily treated somewhat better, likely for the purpose of this very exercise in propaganda. Neuman, Scott. “Abrego Garcia says he was severely beaten in Salvadoran prison.” NPR, July 3, 2025. https://www.npr.org/2025/07/03/g-s1-75775/abrego-garcia-el-salvador-prison-beaten-torture
Two prominent examples are Job Garcia and Andrea Velez though there are many more across the country. Also see Olivares, Jose. “US citizen detained by immigration officials who dismissed his Real ID as fake.” The Guardian, May 24, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/24/us-citizen-detained-ice-real-id
“ICE agents forced to wear visible ID under new bill.” Newsweek, July 8, 2025. https://www.newsweek.com/ice-immigration-agents-forced-wear-visible-id-under-new-bill-visible-act-2096010
It’s worth noting that this photographer was not caught in any crossfire. Two relevant quotes from him: “Where I was hit, I was the only person overlooking the freeway. I wasn’t surrounded so I was an easy target.” and “It’s a real shame. I completely understand being in the position where you could get injured, but at the same time, there was no justification for even aiming the rifle at me and pulling the trigger, so I’m a bit pissed off about that, to be honest,” Source: Propper, David. “Post photographer shot in the head with rubber bullet in LA anti-ICE riots — and he caught the terrifying moment on camera.” New York Post, June 9, 2025. https://nypost.com/2025/06/09/us-news/post-photographer-shot-with-rubber-bullet-in-la-riots/
See Dixon, Matt. “Despite promises of FEMA funds, Florida has so far received no federal money for 'Alligator Alcatraz'.” NBC News, July 3, 2025. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/florida-no-federal-funds-alligator-alcatraz-rcna216758 and Wolf, Zachary. “Trump’s government cuts and the catastrophe in Texas: Here’s what we know.” CNN, July 7, 2025. https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/07/politics/noaa-nws-fema-layoffs-cuts-texas-floods
Well said. If the Democrats are going to challenge fascism, they will need new populist leaning leadership.
I think this note misses the mark. Besides pointing to cases of Republican hypocrisy, a type of argument very much in their mold that lends itself to a muddle of mutual accusations, the main argument that Republicans see themselves as victims is neither new nor revealing or insightful. It doesn't lead you to much analysis and the obvious questions it raises seem to escape you (if "people [Republican politicians] were only ever victims in their own minds and they’ve been this way long before Biden was president." how do they convince voters who might themselves not see themselves as such ? Or are the voters made of the same mold ? etc.). Pointing to instances where you seem to disagree with the Democrats and arguing that it lead to "this" (without argument mind you) just disappoints. Please focus on the pertinent analysis that drives this substack!