Report Card

What's the problem? So far the Trump administration has been Pretti Good.

TGIF: Inept Con Man in the White House

Trump is hardly the first con man in the White House, but he is by far the most flagrant, and his scale is gargantuan. He's also rather inept. His latest confession came in a recent message to Norway's Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store:

Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.

I've italicized confession. Here is Trump admitting that, in his quest for the Nobel Peace Prize, he prioritized something over "what is good and proper for the United States of America." In year two of his second term, that will change, he warns.

What did he put ahead of America's interest? Peace. There's another confession.

You hear that, MAGA? You got that, America Firsters? Your Dear Leader acknowledges that he has not been an America Firster at all, but a Nobel Peace Prize for Trump Firster. His goal wasn't to Make America Great Again, but to make his White House or Mar-a-Lago mantelpiece great.

Alas, the Nobel committee gave the prize to Venezuela's opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, a deserving recipient. Having lost the prize, presumably out of Norwegian spite, Trump has now reduced the cause of peace to merely one of several concerns.

So much is wrong with what Trump wrote to Store. First, Trump has not been thinking "purely of peace" since Jan. 20, 2025—far from it. He's aided and abetted Israel in its savage battering of the people of the Gaza Strip. His touted ceasefire, which Israel has violated over a thousand times, is a farce. He, along with Israel, attacked Iran while pretending to negotiate with its diplomats. His conduct regarding Russia's war against Ukraine hardly speaks of a person who thinks purely of peace. He invaded Venezuela and kidnapped Maduro. He has bombed boats and executed their crews in the Caribbean. He's bombed Somalia repeatedly, along with several other countries, including Syria. I'm sure I've missed some things.

Don't get me wrong. Trump does not lie. Lying implies one knows the truth and says something else. In contrast, he seems sincerely to believe, or hope, that what he says will shape reality. How can you be lying if your words create the facts? He's the ultimate primacy-of-consciousness subjectivist. As I observed in Trump's first term, the only way to shut him up is to inject him with sodium pentathol, i.e., truth serum.

One may wonder why Trump complained to the Norwegian prime minister. He doesn't pick the Peace Prize winner. Greenland, over which Trump had threatened tariffs against Western Europe, is a territory of Denmark, not Norway (as Trump acknowledged further on). And what does Greenland have to do with the Nobel Peace Prize? At any rate, not winning the prize hardly justified Trump's damaging tantrum, after which he claimed he did not care about the prize, classic sour grapes. Isn't it time he grew up?

Notwithstanding his embarrassing bluster at Davos over Greenland—which he several times called Iceland; could he have meant Graceland?—Trump (for now) has backed down. Europe and the stock market pushed back, and Trump again caved. He says he won't use force. He's cancelled the tariffs, and he claims, vaguely, that he and NATO have worked out a "framework of a future deal" for Arctic security. The top man at NATO says the sovereignty of Greenland, which Trump had insisted was absolutely necessary, was no part of the post-speech discussions.

In other words, Trump antagonized friendly nations and shook the world economy—then settled for the status quo. An open-ended security arrangement with NATO and Denmark has existed in treaty form since 1951! Did no one tell Trump? It must have been a blow to his ego. If he thinks he's saved face, he's pathetically mistaken. He looks like a damned fool, and everybody knows it.

Trump's monomaniacal quest for adoration and gratitude is so warped that he seems oblivious to the harm he does. Noninterventionist libertarians have opposed U.S. membership in NATO since its founding in 1949 because a strictly limited government would not obligate its taxpayers or military to defend other countries. Preparation for war is the health of the state. It's also provocative. So the U.S. should leave NATO. However, gracefully leaving an alliance and nihilistically smashing it on the way out are two different things. While Trump clearly has no intention of leaving NATO, he seems intent on wreaking havoc anyway.

In his first inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson cautioned against "entangling alliances." That was good advice. But Trump is showing that things could be worse than the current alliance system. Presidential pugnacity toward people who bear us no ill will is bad for them and us. Jefferson also called for "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations." Trump must have missed part.

TGIF: The Trumpian ICE Age: The Frigidity of Collectivism

Welcome to the Trumpian ICE Age, a vivid lesson in the frigidity of collectivism. Take note, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Compared to Trump, you're a piker.

We've got a problem, and it's not just Houston's. It's the lawless, authoritarian, liberty-flouting Trump, who on all fronts grasps at maximum power—constitutional and statutory limits be damned. The fronts, so far, include immigration, drug prohibition, trade, corporate ownership, and everyday matters like oil prices, credit-card interest, pharmaceutical prices, and home sales. Trump is also eyeing medical insurance. Heaven help us. The guy doesn't have a pro-market sinew in his body. (For his "progressive" inclinations, see this.)

Most concerning of all is immigration, in which poorly recruited and poorly trained agents of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) conduct a reign of terror in a few selected "blue" cities, with more to come. Of course, the latest atrocity, as of this writing, took place in Minneapolis last week, where Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was executed—there's no other word—for failing to show respect to armed and masked ICE agents, cheerfully starting to drive away from an ICE checkpoint, where random people were being stopped for "immigration  checks." The killer violated ICE's own guidelines in at least two respects: he walked (obviously without fear) in front of Good's car, and he fired at her merely for leaving. Her last words, spoken softly and with a smile, as she began to drive away slowly, were, "I'm not mad at you guys."

“At a very minimum, that woman was very, very disrespectful to law enforcement,” Trump said, characteristically, after ICE man Jonathan Ross fired three shots, in under a second, into her car at close range. (Check the video for yourself.) Before that, Trump and his henchman (VP J.D. Vance) and henchwoman (Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem) had called Good a "domestic terrorist" and a "high-level agitator." The government later said Ross suffered internal bleeding and a bruise, supposedly from being bumped by Good's vehicle, but the video provides good reason to doubt that story. Trump and his people's reputation for veracity is negative. However one views the killing, we can be certain that it would not have happened had it not been for Trump's demagogic crusade to deport millions of people, the vast majority of whom live and work peacefully, because they lack government papers.

TGIF: "We're" All Neocons Now

Apart from a few details, I never saw much difference between Trump's America First shtick and MAGA's chief foe, the neconservatives. It appeared to be merely a squabble over details, such as whether democracy or strongman rule abroad best served the so-called national interest. No one believes in America Second, Third, or Nth.

Trump's action in Venezuela confirms my impression. Beneath the surface, the contrast between Trumpian America First and neoconservatism disappears. At his news conference after the Venezuela invasion and decapitation, Trump was asked, "Mr. President, why is running a country in South America Ame- -- America first?" To which he replied,  "Well, I think it is because we wanna surround ourself with good neighbors. We wanna surround ourself with stability. Uh, we wanna surround ourself with energy. We have tremendous energy in that country. It's very important that we protect it. We need that for ourselves. We need that for the world, and we wanna make sure we can protect it."

Abolish Draft Registration, Mr. Trump

During Friday's famous White House meeting, VP Vance criticized Ukrainian President Zelensky for his government's abduction of men from the streets to fight against Russia. Good for Vance. Conscription is one of the worst things a government can do, especially during a war. As a form of slavery, it goes against every libertarian, or classical liberal, principle. It's indecent.

Presumably, President Trump shares Vance's horror. So this is a good time to abolish draft registration here. The penalty for not registering is a maximum five years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000. President Carter should never have imposed it, and presidents from Reagan onward should have scrapped it. Shame on them for not doing so.

Well, Mr. Trump?

TGIF: Why McKinley?

Now what will hasten the day when our present advantages will wear out and when we shall come down to the conditions of the older and densely populated nations? The answer is: war, debt, taxation, diplomacy, a grand governmental system, pomp, glory, a big army and navy, lavish expenditures, political jobbery—in a word, imperialism. —William Graham Sumner

In his inaugural address on Monday, Donald Trump paid tribute to only one former president, William McKinley, No. 25, who Trump said "made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent." He praised the Republican McKinley in touting his plan to take control, militarily if necessary, of the Panama Canal. McKinley, who was assassinated in 1901 and succeeded by Theodore Roosevelt, began the expansionist process that led to the canal's construction. (No doubt Greenland was on Trump's mind too.)

Perhaps Trump's choice of a president to honor was revealing for another reason. McKinley took America to war against Spain in 1898. As the late historian Ralph Raico wrote, the war against Spain was "our first engagement with a foreign enemy in the dawning age of modern warfare. Aside from a few scant periods of retrenchment, we have been embroiled in foreign politics ever since." It was the war that inaugurated the American empire and made the United States a Pacific power. The U.S. government took possession of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, where it savagely repressed an independence movement from 1899 to 1902. It established influence over but did not annex Cuba.

The country burst with pride over America's new world-power status. Well, not everyone. Some advocates of the old republicanism, with its pillars of individual liberty, free enterprise, and barely noticeable government objected. One of the best-known among them was William Graham Sumner, the Yale professor of sociology and laissez-faire liberal. In 1898 Sumner delivered a lecture at Yale with the shocking title "The Conquest of the United States by Spain." After the stunning and quick military victory over the old Spanish empire, what could Sumner have meant?

He started by giving a preview:

Spain was the first, for a long time the greatest, of the modern imperialistic states. The United States, by its historical origin, its traditions, and its principles, is the chief representative of the revolt and reaction against that kind of a state. I intend to show that, by the line of action now proposed to us, which we call expansion and imperialism, we are throwing away some of the most important elements of the American symbol and are adopting some of the most important elements of the Spanish symbol. We have beaten Spain in a military conflict, but we are submitting to be conquered by her on the field of ideas and policies.

Sumner was asking: for what shall it profit a nation if it shall gain the whole world, and lose its own soul?

Sumner drew the stark contrast between Spain, "the first, for a long time the greatest, of the modern imperialistic states," and the United States, "the chief representative of the revolt and reaction against that kind of a state." Empire versus Republic. Which way, America?

I intend to show that, by the line of action now proposed to us, which we call expansion and imperialism, we are throwing away some of the most important elements of the American symbol and are adopting some of the most important elements of the Spanish symbol. We have beaten Spain in a military conflict, but we are submitting to be conquered by her on the field of ideas and policies.

Sumner was a secular prophet who respected the law of identity. A republic can not take on the features of an empire and remain unchanged in other ways.

Expansionism and imperialism are nothing but the old philosophies of national prosperity which have brought Spain to where she now is. Those philosophies appeal to national vanity and national cupidity. They are seductive, especially upon the first view and the most superficial judgment, and therefore it cannot be denied that they are very strong for popular effect. They are delusions, and they will lead us to ruin unless we are hard-headed enough to resist them.

He warned of the perils to liberty from the unintended consequences of foreign adventurism.

We talk about “liberty” all the time in a big and easy way, as if liberty was a thing that men could have if they want it, and to any extent to which they want it. It is certain that a very large part of human liberty consists simply in the choice either to do a thing or to let it alone. If we decide to do it, a whole series of consequences is entailed upon us in regard to which it is exceedingly difficult, or impossible, for us to exercise any liberty at all. The proof of this from the case before us is so clear and easy that I need spend no words upon it. Here, then, you have the reason why it is a rule of sound statesmanship not to embark on an adventurous policy. A statesman could not be expected to know in advance that we should come out of the war with the Philippines on our hands, but it belongs to his education to warn him that a policy of adventure and of gratuitous enterprise would be sure to entail embarrassments of some kind. What comes to us in the evolution of our own life and interests, that we must meet; what we go to seek which lies beyond that domain is a waste of our energy and a compromise of our liberty and welfare. If this is not sound doctrine, then the historical and social sciences have nothing to teach us which is worth any trouble.

But that was not all.

There is another observation, however, about the war which is of far greater importance: that is, that it was a gross violation of self-government. We boast that we are a self-governing people, and in this respect, particularly, we compare ourselves with pride with older nations. What is the difference after all? The Russians, whom we always think of as standing at the opposite pole of political institutions, have self-government, if you mean by it acquiescence in what a little group of people at the head of the government agree to do. The war with Spain was precipitated upon us headlong, without reflection or deliberation, and without any due formulation of public opinion. Whenever a voice was raised in behalf of deliberation and the recognized maxims of statesmanship, it was howled down in a storm of vituperation and cant. Everything was done to make us throw away sobriety of thought and calmness of judgment and to inflate all expressions with sensational epithets and turgid phrases. It cannot be denied that everything in regard to the war has been treated in an exalted strain of sentiment and rhetoric very unfavorable to the truth.

Sumner was pointing out that the war had not been a policy freely chosen by the American people. They were stampeded into it by glory-seeking, even if well-intended rulers supported by romantic newspapermen with their tales of horror, who do their best to manipulate public opinion and suppress dissent. Sound familiar?

At present the whole periodical press of the country seems to be occupied in tickling the national vanity to the utmost by representations about the war which are extravagant and fantastic. There will be a penalty to be paid for all this. Nervous and sensational newspapers are just as corrupting, especially to young people, as nervous and sensational novels. The habit of expecting that all mental pabulum shall be highly spiced, and the corresponding loathing for whatever is soberly truthful, undermines character as much as any other vice. Patriotism is being prostituted into a nervous intoxication which is fatal to an apprehension of truth. It builds around us a fool's paradise, and it will lead us into errors about our position and relations just like those which we have been ridiculing in the case of Spain.

So what do Americans, who prosper through freedom, get out of the gore and glory?

Let us be well assured that self-government is not a matter of flags and Fourth of July orations, nor yet of strife to get offices. Eternal vigilance is the price of that as of every other political good. The perpetuity of self-government depends on the sound political sense of the people, and sound political sense is a matter of habit and practice. We can give it up and we can take instead pomp and glory. That is what Spain did.... She lost self-government and saw her resources spent on interests which were foreign to her, but she could talk about an empire on which the sun never set and boast of her colonies, her gold-mines, her fleets and armies and debts. She had glory and pride, mixed, of course, with defeat and disaster, such as must be experienced by any nation on that course of policy; and she grew weaker in her industry and commerce and poorer in the status of the population all the time. She has never been able to recover real self-government yet. If we Americans believe in self-government, why do we let it slip away from us? Why do we barter it away for military glory as Spain did?

Unless the nation changed course, the future would be bleak, despite the promise of glory.

The most important thing which we shall inherit from the Spaniards will be the task of suppressing rebellions. If the United States takes out of the hands of Spain her mission, on the ground that Spain is not executing it well, and if this nation in its turn attempts to be school-mistress to others, it will shrivel up into the same vanity and self-conceit of which Spain now presents an example. To read our current literature one would think that we were already well on the way to it. Now, the great reason why all these enterprises which begin by saying to somebody else, We know what is good for you better than you know yourself and we are going to make you do it, are false and wrong is that they violate liberty; or, to turn the same statement into other words, the reason why liberty, of which we Americans talk so much, is a good thing is that it means leaving people to live out their own lives in their own way, while we do the same. If we believe in liberty, as an American principle, why do we not stand by it? Why are we going to throw it away to enter upon a Spanish policy of dominion and regulation?

He concluded:

My patriotism is of the kind which is outraged by the notion that the United States never was a great nation until in a petty three months' campaign it knocked to pieces a poor, decrepit, bankrupt old state like Spain. To hold such an opinion as that is to abandon all American standards, to put shame and scorn on all that our ancestors tried to build up here, and to go over to the standards of which Spain is a representative.

Sumner insisted that America could not be made into a great empire—with all the brutality and presumptuousness that implied—without killing what was best in America politically. The figure who signed the death warrant was President William McKinley—the man Trump would presumably nominate to the next vacancy on Mount Rushmore.

TGIF: That Was the Election that Was

One can be overjoyed by the repudiation of a candidate without being pleased with the opposing candidate's victory. This election is an occasion for that reaction. An American (or anyone actually) is perfectly justified in taking pleasure in Kamala Harris's humiliating defeat while anguishing over the intemperate Donald Trump's impressive win. As I like to say, every election has good and bad news: the losers lost but the winners won. That's where I am today if anyone cares to know.

I rejoice at the defeat of Harris and virtually all that she stands for, while also realizing that some of the grounds for that defeat are themselves to be repudiated. Most Trump voters seemed to have had "the economy" uppermost in mind, with immigration a distant second. That's sort of good news, except that most people think tariffs are a big solution for our economic woes. (In fact, there's no "economy." There are only cooperative interacting individuals deploying material factors and human effort to improve their conditions.)

Trump's defects have been widely discussed here and elsewhere. No need to rehearse them now. (As Yogi Berra said pre-internet, "You could look it up.")

One of Harris's problems was that while there was no there there, she was likely surrounded by the condescending woke set whom she would have wanted to please. This held the potential for outright violations of freedom and impediments to advancing prosperity. It may well have aggravated tensions between people of different skin tones and ethnicities—something no advocate of social cooperation through the market economy should take lightly. We must be wary of those who seek to undermine domestic peace, especially when the cause is not justice, but trivial natal characteristics (like where your parents were born). (For an account of the dangers of a Harris administration, see Gene Healy's "Fear and Loathing at the Ballot Box.")

Trump was called Hitler, a Nazi, and a fascist, which was not only ill-defined and absurd but malicious. The people who trafficked in such charges, including the top of the Democratic ticket, deserved to lose just for using such tactics. Warnings that he would establish a dictatorship were hollow and not really believed by many who issued the warnings. Remember that a partly Democratically controlled Congress reauthorized horrendous surveillance powers for this "worse than Hitler" figure during his first term. How are we to explain that? Politics, that's how.

We have to discount much of Trump's flamboyant rhetoric because we know that he loves to play to his core audience, which in turn loves to see the woke progressives sent into rage on MSNBC, CNN, etc. His core audience called on candidate Trump in 2016 to "lock her up," meaning his rival, Hillary Clinton. Did his Justice Department bring a case against her? No, it didn't. He didn't try to lock her up.

When Trump partisan Sean Hannity asked him during the latest campaign if he would abuse his power to retaliate against his enemies, he smiled and said he would, but only on day one. What would he do? "Seal the border" and "drill, baby, drill" for oil. When Hannity said, "That's not retribution," Trump ignored him and kept talking. That did not keep his opponents from "reporting" that he said he would be a dictator on day one and beyond and would punish his opponents. The Democrats' implicit message all season seemed to be this: "He's really not so bad, so we have to make up stuff."

I'm not defending his "seal the border" promise or his promise to round up and deport millions of people for lacking government permission papers. Those would be terribly unjust policies. Tragically, however, a president probably has decades-old congressionally delegated powers to do such things. So technically Trump wouldn't be acting like a dictator. The same is true for oil drilling. We don't know exactly what he means, but if he intends to free producers to bring more oil and gas to market, then yay! If he intends to direct an effort to create energy independence, then boo. We'll have to wait and see. The point is that any president would probably already have congressionally authorized powers to loosen restraints on oil producers. His promise does not imply dictatorship.

But let's consider the possibility further. Would there be no checks on his power if Trump tried to be a dictator? Would the military obey orders to arrest, say, Supreme Court justices or recalcitrant members of Congress? Would the courts support him? Unlikely. How would he enforce orders no one obeyed? He'll have no guns.

America still has a legacy of liberalism in the best sense, which includes deep-seated attitudes about government power, as well as an independent judiciary and a Constitution-bound military. This limits what even a dictatorial-minded president could get away with in America. In a sense, it really can't happen here. At least it's highly unlikely compared to other places without our traditions.

My old friend the historian Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, who has thought much about the role of ideology in society, used to say that if a Soviet ruler had magically appeared as the president of the United States, he could not have ruled in the Soviet style. Likewise, if a libertarian had magically become the head of the Soviet government, he could not have governed like Ron Paul would have. History and tradition—ideology—would have prevented it. The result is a sturdy, albeit not indestructible set of taboos.

Even Trump is probably not blind to what is unique about the American liberal legacy (including freedom of enterprise) and what makes for legitimacy. Ideas, not force, rule the world, Hummel says. "Ideas ultimately determine in which direction [people] wield their weapons or whether they wield them at all," he writes.

This does not mean we will be able to sleep soundly from Jan. 20, 2025, through 2028. Guarantees are not to be found in such things. But we need not run around like our hair is on fire. I question the claim that Trump will be a dangerous freer agent in his second term. As self-centered as Trump is, he will surely have an eye on the mid-terms; he won't want to lose the House or Senate in 2026. Moreover, he won't want to hamper J. D. Vance or another would-be successor for 2028. He won't be free to offend those who still are connected to America's pro-freedom legacy.

In foreign affairs, if Trump means to get and keep out of other people's conflicts, then good. But he gives us no reason for confidence. Look at his first term. Look at his unwavering support for Israel's violence against the Palestinians. (No defense of the brutal Hamas is hereby implied.) Look at his belligerence toward Iran. Look at his acceptance of the expansion of NATO. To state the obvious, Donald Trump is no Richard Cobden, even if we ignore the tariffs, which we cannot do.

So I'm not optimistic about foreign policy, though Harris would have been worse. (Did she push her boss to reinstate the nuclear deal with Iran that Trump canceled? We have no evidence of that.)

None of this is amenable to mathematical or scientific proof. How could it be? We're talking about the always-uncertain future and individuals who have free will. On this day, however, this is how I see it. It seems reasonable

Then again, what the hell do I know?

Right Diagnosis, Wrong Prescription

The populist Sanders-left (which is actually broader because it includes Tucker Carlson and others called rightists) is partly correct and partly incorrect about what happened to the Democrats last Tuesday.

They say correctly that the Democrats failed because they have taken non-elites for granted, patronizing and subsidizing some (minorities, for example) and disparaging and penalizing others (regular bourgeois working Americans of both sexes and all skin tones and ethnicities). This is usually stated as "The Democrats have betrayed the working class."

This is good as far as it goes, but it goes not far enough. The elites have taken some Americans for granted. Meanwhile, a large swath of Americans, especially those between the coasts, have been treated like outhouse-using country bumpkins if not outright racists and patriarchists. Remember Obama's sneering reference to people who in troubled times seek refuge in their guns and bibles?

It was only a matter of time before an officer-seeker would voice the concerns of the disparaged. It happened in 2016 and again this week. Enough of those people struck back on Tuesday, benefitting Trump and humiliating Harris. People will take only so much abuse or condescension before shouting, "Cut it out!"

Where the Sandersnistas go wrong is in prescribing a warmed-up Marxism. Not full-out nationalization of the means of production, mind you, but heavy government interference with everyone's market relations: a minimum wage, rent control, price ceilings, usury laws, tariffs, product regulation, immigration barriers, etc. They think this is what the "working class" needs. (Ironically, government control of nominally private enterprise is an essential feature of fascism.)

But no, intervention is not the answer, though class bigotry blinds the Sandersnistas to that fact. The same could be said for the MAGA architects. These measures have long harmed people, especially the intended beneficiaries, and they will do so in the future. But you have to know something about economics to understand that. They don't.

The first thing the "working class" needs to do is reject the Marxian notion of an inherent class conflict between business and employees. The market economy—the profit-and-loss system void of government regulation and subsidy—is good for all because, as Ludwig Mises spent his life teaching, we all have a deep harmony of interest in freedom, social cooperation, and rising living standards. Surface disputes are insignificant compared to that deeper compatibility.

The industrious "class"—all contributors to the creation of wealth (which excludes politicians and bureaucrats)—should reject the "left" and the "right."

The Morning After

The fear of dictatorship is absurd.