Hey lithy, how many people that you thought were libertarian have gone all in on this President's tariff-bailout command economy?
The tea party already did a pretty good job of demonstrating this, but if anyone still needed proof that zealous!=doctrinaire, here we are.
Meanwhile, evidence of enlightened self-interest remains elusive.
I think the continued support from the base for the continued Iraq/Afghanistan involvement under Obama and expansion of the use of drone strikes showed the same for my personal experience as the Tea Party effect. My memory at least is that 2008 was dominated by foreign policy, my memory sucks though. In 2020, would truly leftist candidates unseating establishment Democrats produce a similar result?
Honestly, I know very few self-described Libertarians. One I do know would probably more accurately ascribe to some variety of anarchism, but he is willing to suffer the abuses of a libertarian government I guess. He has been pretty stable in his continued criticism for both sides.
However, I also know very few unabashed Trump supporters. Pennsylvania is weird with its open racism combined with ultra-hardline union-driven Democratic straight ticket voter. These are the same people that voted GOP in Tennessee, but I guess they don't see it. There are a few I have talked to and I get the impression that the #winning is the primary reason for their continued support. He is doing 'something' and then at press time it can be looked at as putting the screws to China or California or just about any of the rest of the world because America First. Net effects aren't as important as sending a message. Like most people left and right as long as the Federal Government is doing 'something', then you can react, little consideration for whether or not action was needed in the first place.
Most of my social circle are pretty typical under 40 middle-class, (sub)urban, white, so prime Democratic voter. Most of what I hear isn't interesting enough for me to want to engage, but I also don't think they were swing voters in any previous election either. Trump has just made it easier to talk from a position of morality (moral authority? not sure if what I mean here comes across with those words).
Do you think political identity has really become so ingrained that policy is secondary (maybe even tertiary or lower)? It certainly does seem that most people react to the noise and not the signal (to steal Bannon's line).
Basically, no one wanted to talk about Kavanaugh (because they didn't have anything to talk about) until the allegations, then suddenly everyone has an opinion.
This is rambling, sorry.