One of the debates we had in the Political Science department when I was in college was whether the American Revolution was a revolution or whether it was actually a revolt. I think it is very clear that it was a revolution. It was the only successful libertarian revolution in the history of the world. The US took leave of the divine right of kings and upended the ruling class allegiance to a distant and brutal bureaucracy that was completely disconnected from the interests of the American people.
The Marxists and sympathizers (some of the other polisci majors in the department) typically argued however that the Revolution as only a revolt as property rights and individual rights/liberty were championed in direct conflict with the Marxist critique, which for all of its talk of liberation and freedom for “the masses” is in essence just another version of the collectivism that has stained most of human history. For Marxists property rights are counter-revolutionary.
They were/are wrong however.
Actual revolution is in the embracing of liberty, the individual dignity of the everyday person, property rights, and peace. These are the ideals of a truly revolutionary mindset, not the seizing of the “commanding heights” of the economy by a Marxist/collectivist neo-aristocracy.
Whatever. The Trump election changes things. For most people (nonpolicsci dorks)“revolution” just means big time change. Change we have.
I have to state also that I am not arguing that the Trump election constitutes the beginning of some libertarian revolution or something. Trump is no libertarian, but he does have some very important libertarian tendencies. Here, some libertarians, particularly the “never-Trump” libertarians, will take issue. We understand why. At ACC our disdain for tariffs is well documented and we are certainly not for the military being involved in any sort of domestic law enforcement effort. We will keep a trained eye on these issues (and others of course).
But Trump’s election was and is a transformational societal moment, much more than Obama (who always talked about his desire to be “transformational”) could have ever hoped to have initiated.
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