How I Haven’t Changed

Why does Trump think this is real? No, seriously, why?

I wrote something a few weeks back about how I’ve changed, the ways in which my views have evolved in response to the events of the Trump era.

Some of those changes are important, but they are the exceptions, and there are many other ways in which recent events have actively vindicated my long-held convictions.

Three of those seem most relevant at the moment.

He Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune

The first is the longstanding fear, shared by many classical liberals and libertarians, of the dangerous, dictatorial potential of Big Government.

A century and a half of chickens are coming home to roost right now. The “Progressives” and the New Dealers and the “liberal” welfare-statists toiled for decades to create a government that taxes more, spends more, and regulates every aspect of life and especially our economic lives. By the mid-20th Century, they became particularly fascinated with using government funding to support art, culture, and education.

At the same time, the liberals were—well, they were liberal. They viewed themselves as advocates of a free society and opponents of authoritarian and totalitarian systems.