Trump just exudes cringe no matter where he goes. He's delusional, he's psychotic, and he's dangerous. He's basically American Hitler, and I dont think that's much of an exaggeration at this point.
On the flip side, the libertarian national convention is kind of a hot bed of cringe itself. In 2008 (when i went through my cringey college era libertarian phase), the phrase that said it all was "bring in the clowns." And then in 2016, we had the naked guy dancing around on stage. Libertarians are known to be a joke, and sadly, their standing hasnt improved much for me in 8 years, if my rant on their perspective yesterday tells you everything.
On the flip side, the libertarian national convention is kind of a hot bed of cringe itself. In 2008 (when i went through my cringey college era libertarian phase), the phrase that said it all was "bring in the clowns." And then in 2016, we had the naked guy dancing around on stage. Libertarians are known to be a joke, and sadly, their standing hasnt improved much for me in 8 years, if my rant on their perspective yesterday tells you everything.
"But outofplatoscave2012", you might ask, "if the libertarians protest and heckle Trump, can't you just let bygones be bygones? I mean libertarians are cringey, but protesting and heckling trump is practically your civic duty at this point!" And you would have a point, but it depends on WHY they're heckling him. Are they doing it because he's a fascist who committed January 6th and the constitution worshippers didn't like that? Are they doing it because of project 2025 or any of that crap? if so, heckling is well justified and well deserved. Well....no. And that's the issue.
Why did the libertarians boo and jeer Trump? Because he supported COVID vaccines and lock downs. Yep. 4 years later and they still can't let that crap go. The one thing that Trump did, that I agree with, Trump's literal broken clock moment, and these guys are booing him for it.
Heck, you might wonder why Trump is even there at the libertarian national convention. it's because he's sweating about RFK and RFK is there. And that's RFK's pitch to libertarians. RFK's entire cult of personality among weird centrist types is mostly about people who cant let covid go. He's an anti vaxxer, he's been outspoken of lockdowns. That's one of his big appeals and most weirdos who like him seem to like him because of that.
Me, I supported lockdowns and vaccine mandates. If anything, as a libertarian myself (although a more moderate, reasonable, social libertarian), let me explain to you in your terms why this stuff isn't bad.
My libertarianism is based on John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle, ie, the idea that youre entitled to do whatever you want until you harm others. You know? Youre free to swing your fist until it hits the end of someone else's nose. The problem with COVID was that in a time like that, with a deadly pandemic killing hundreds of thousands and eventually millions in the US, merely breathing is an assault on another person's security and well being.
The answer to this was to reduce contact between people. Hence why we basically shut down the non essential sectors of the economy. As an anti work libertarian myself, trust me, for capital to shut down the economy like they did, it mustve been seriously, they dont just do that for no reason. Their hand was forced. If they did not, the virus wouldve ripped through our population very quickly, overwhelming our healthcare system, which is only designed to handle so many people at a time, and millions would've died. Yes yes yes, 1-2% fatality rate. That's 3-7 million Americans. And imagine that happening within a couple of months. it could've happened.
So we had to shut down the nonessential parts of the economy, and encourage people to stand 6+ feet apart, and do social distancing, and wear masks, and eventually, get the vaccine so we could go back to normal. Every step of the way, these right libs, these immature right libs decided that they didnt wanna do this stuff, that it was an infringement on their freedom. Well again, youre free to swing your fist until it hits someone else's nose. And during a deadly pandemic, merely breathing is swinging your fist. Of course, we cant stop people from breathing, so we did all the stuff to limit the spread of the virus.
As I said in previous articles, even in natural rights theory, at least my own "unnatural" aspect of it, life is more important in some cases than liberty. Sure, it's a balance, and that's the eternal debate for people who care about both priorities, but libertarians just dont care about life. They dont care if people die because of their ideas. They're like 4 years olds, they just wanna do what they wanna do and they throw a tantrum if you try to stop them.
Now, back to the issue at hand. So they booed and heckled Trump over this. Well, to be fair, they also booed and heckled him over everything he said. They actually had the words "be ungovernable" behind him when he spoke so it seemed like the goal was to get the crowd to give him a hard time. I just don't like the reasons they focused on.
And as for Trump, at one point he fired back and said something like "well maybe you don't wanna win, maybe you're fine with just getting 3% every election", which was a sick burn. I mean, libertarians are the right wing version of the greens. Theyre principled but sometimes they just end up being electorally irrelevant. Worth going that way if the two candidates suck and you wanna make a point, but they ain't gonna win.
In some ways I blame Trump for not even appealing to them on their terms. I mean who goes to the libertarian convention, isnt a libertarian, and then berates them for being losers who never win elections? That guy does.
As such, who won this battle of the cringe? In terms of the cringe, probably Trump. Make no mistake, I have no love for right libs here, but Trump thinking this was a good idea? congrats, he played himself.
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