How libertarians sold their souls to Trump

The Lowdown podcast

Vicious movements do not come from nowhere. It was not the case that one minute all was well on the Western right and the next it was overwhelmed by a contempt for democracy and the rule of law.

Nor should we fall for the Great Man Theory of History, or in our case the Great Bad Man Theory of History.

Whatever power Donald Trump possesses, and however servile the personality cult that surrounds him, he did not destroy the old world on his own.

For the latest Lowdown podcast I wanted to interview Quinn Slobodian, professor of international history at Boston University, and a chronicler of the strange journey of the radical right. His latest book Hayek's Bastards: The Neoliberal Roots of the Populist Right tells the extraordinary story of the libertarian movement’s shift from defending freedom to promoting autocracy in the United States and beyond.

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The arguments for free markets and minimal states of Friedrich Hayek and other members of the Austrian school inspired Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. But almost as soon as the Cold War ended fear of feminism, minorities and the environmental movement pushed supposed libertarians towards thuggish authoritarians.

We are now in the absurd state where Peter Thiel and once freedom loving tech billionaires are supporting Donald Trump as he tears up free trade and a free society.

Fear of the left and the love of power will make them abandon every principle they once held.

Below is a long read from me on the contortions of the radical right. It’s paywalled (but with a free trial).

If you will forgive the hard sell, I need paying subscribers to help me keep writing without having to fall back on advertisers or overbearing proprietors. The cost of an annual sub is £1.15 ($1.40) a week –a pretty good deal, even if I say so myself!

The right’s dark turn

If a President Kamala Harris or President Bernie Saunders had crashed the markets on an arbitrary and oppressive whim, America’s libertarian movement and the billionaires who support it would be screaming their protests from the rooftops. But because it is Donald Trump who is destroying trillions of dollars of wealth, they stay silent. They bite their tongues because they sold their souls to the far-right years ago. Now they are paying the price – and so are the rest of us.

Photo by DJ Paine on Unsplash

On the face of it there are no people on earth more ridiculous than America’s libertarian billionaires. And there is no American billionaire more ridiculous than Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal and cheerleader for Trump and Vance.