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monero-xmr | on: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon
I am active in libertarian circles and Ulbricht was a cause celebre. The 2024 election was a game of inches, and many libertarians I know voted Trump purely on this issue. It is possible this was a key way Trump eked out a victory.
dralley | parent | next
Libertarians are very hard to take seriously because of shit like this. Nothing about Donald Trump is Libertarian.
robocat | root | parent | next
They just won something they cared about: perhaps you should be taking them even more seriously than you did.

And even if you are not a fan of a political group, you are the one being judgemental here on a factor that is very unlikely to be universal within the group.

Treating anyone according to political labels is divisive.

rafram | root | parent
They got a single guy out of prison, but pretty much everything else in Trump's platform is diametrically opposed to libertarianism. It's hard to think of anything less libertarian than tariff-funded big government!
floydnoel | root | parent | next
and what would voting for Harris have gotten them exactly?
monero-xmr | root | parent
Tariffs are not good for free market diehards. However the nuance is that foreign countries like China do not operate on a fair playing field, they want free access to our markets but prevent our champions from entering their's. Something must be done here. I'm not convinced tariffs are the best tool, but at least it's something.

In terms of small government, there is news about the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) every single day. There will be a massive downsizing in the federal workforce and the regulatory state over the next 4 years. This move towards small government is the thing that excites me most.

rafram | root | parent | next
> In terms of small government, there is news about the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) every single day.

Just to be clear, all they did is rename the US Digital Service to the US DOGE Service. The Digital Service already existed; it hires tech workers from industry on short-term rotations to work on government projects. Now that thing that already existed is called DOGE, and it will continue to do nothing more than bring in industry engineers to make websites for the government. If there’s a “massive downsizing in the federal workforce,” it won’t be because of “DOGE.”

dralley | root | parent | next
Trump has is proposing a 10% tariff on China, and a 25% tariff on Mexico.

Also he's handing out tariff exemptions to his political allies like candy.

There's not some high minded principal or strategy here. It's graft and spite. Trump even seems to be holding out the tariff threat as leverage to force the sale of TikTok.

Look you can agree with this stuff if you want but none of it is remotely aligned with libertarian principles. Even squishy ones.

NekkoDroid | root | parent
> Trump has is proposing a 10% tariff on China, and a 25% tariff on Mexico.

Wasn't it 60% for China, 25% for Canada and Mexico and 10% for the rest of the planet?

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moogly | root | parent
> our champions

Wait, what?

mannerheim | root | parent | next
Biden could have taken the wind out of Trump's sails by commuting Ulbricht's sentence when he was in office. If you don't think a group's interests are worth listening to, don't be surprised when that group votes for someone who does.
mindslight | root | parent | next
Very little about the Libertarian party is libertarian. Yet another party carrying water for authoritarianism, with the difference being that the implementation is through corporations.
monero-xmr | root | parent
Libertarians are a self selecting bunch. Very few were raised into this philosophy. You can appreciate that my self identification as a libertarian is a careful, reasoned decision and not one that was flippantly made. It is the philosophy that is the most accurate and truthful to me.
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beeflet | root | parent | next
yeah but freeing ross was a key campaign promise made by trump to sway libertarian voters
chromatin | root | parent | next
> Nothing about Donald Trump is Libertarian.

so what? Coalition-building is common in the rest of the democratic world. This is, in my view, a similar thing.

defrost | root | parent
However both Libertarians and Trump are transactional.
ty6853 | root | parent
I don't judge anyone too hard when they're willing to bend a bit to get someone out of jail after the key has been thrown away. I didn't vote Trump but I will admit the possibility of Ross being released made me pause when I marked my ballot, even his mom's image flashed in my mind and I felt guilty for not helping.
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ein0p | parent
[flagged]
simonw | root | parent | next
It was a decisive electoral vote victory, but 2.3 million votes difference works out as 49.8% of the popular vote to 48.3% of the popular vote.

I believe around 230,000 votes across Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin would have made the difference.

I think that counts as eking, personally.

dralley | root | parent | next
Winning by 1.6% is not a massive victory. It's actually a smaller margin than Hillary won the popular vote by in 2016 (despite losing the electoral vote).
| root | parent | next
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bdangubic | root | parent | next
he lost be like 68 that much to grandpa Biden