by Chuck McGlawn 02/02/2020
It
wasn’t too many years ago that Conservatives and Libertarians were in agreement
on most issues. During that time Conservatives overlooked some minor
differences that libertarians held. Conversely, Libertarians tolerated some slight
differences that conservatives advocated. But the bottom-line at the time was
that Conservatives and Libertarians were allies. Less than 10 years
ago Conservatives that I know generally voted a straight Libertarian ticket.
I was drawn into the
“Freedom Movement” by a line in The Blue Book of The John Birch Society written
by Robert Welch, “the goals of the JBS could be summed up with just five
words, less government, and more
responsibility”. I joined because I saw the DC Government causing more problems
than they cured. I 1972 after six years I became
inactive. When I rejoined the Society in 1985, I discovered
that Robert Welch's goal of less government had become LESS important. Now
they favored programs calling for more government. More
government to stop immigration, more government to make abortions illegal, more government to make stem cell research illegal. They even called for the President to use
the Federal Registry to make partial-birth abortions a crime.
It wasn’t just the JBS, many of the stalwarts of the freedom movement began
embracing similar “more government” advocacies.
In 2016 a Republican
candidate for president broke ranks with all previous candidates. Instead of
appealing to the educated middle class fraught with the small business owners,
professionals, middle managers, homeowners, in short, the voters that paid 80%
plus of all the US taxes. Candidate Trump decided it was time to
borrow a page out of the Democrat Party Playbook by appealing to the less
educated. This was a growing pool of voters that were denied any real education
in “government schools.” Ill-prepared to understand the exodus of higher-paying
manufacturing jobs forcing many voters to take two and sometimes three jobs in
the service industry in order to make ends meet.
Candidate Trump’s
promise to “Make America Great Again” covered promises to negotiate from a
position of power trade agreements that would put America first. He
promised to return to America the jobs lost through multi-national corporations
out-sourcing manufacturing to third-world countries, but most of all he would
"Build that Wall" and stop the rapist, smugglers, murders, and
illegal immigrants from entering the US. Trump must have garnered millions of
votes by promising that Mexico would pay for the wall.
Trump dismantled one by
one all of the other candidates. Over a dozen Republican candidates were making
Republican-type promises to cut taxes, reduce spending, pay down the National
Debt and dismantle Obama Care. The most libertarian and the least conservative
of the candidates began dropping out. The candidates that hung on the longest
did so by evolving their rhetoric to a more anti-immigrant and less free-market
position. All candidates that didn't take-on the anti-immigration position were
gone.
The Anti-Immigration
virus began spreading. Any talk-host on the radio that even hinted at a free-market
approach to immigration began losing listeners and sponsors. Any Think-Tank
that didn't jump on the bandwagon began losing contributions. The virus spread
to major conservative spokespersons and authors. They gave up free-market
speeches and books in favor of anti-illegal immigration rants. And everyone
began sounding like Candidate Trump. And he pulled off the biggest electoral
upset in modern times. No political pendant, no political prognosticator, no
political pollster predicted a Trump victory.
The end result is a conservative movement, on the issue of immigration, has become less free by
abandoning free-market liberty in favor of more government Central
Planning. And in the process, this stand has converted conservatives and
libertarians from allies into enemies, a loss for both groups.
