For so many years, we have lived in this "new deal" paradigm, where people got the government to do all these things for us (to us) from "education", to social "security", and so that has trained libertarians to be very cynical of populism. The great example is a sheep and 4 wolves voting on what to have for dinner.
But maybe populism isn't so bad after all. This recent bout has taught me that while populism has it's flaws, the elitists want us to have less freedom than the populists. Also, did populism fail in the new deal because the people wanted to steal from each other, or did it fail because the elite and the state have heavy influence on the media?
Most people want personal freedom and economic prosperity, and freedom delivers that, and in a non centrally controlled media, we can make the case for it. Also the mass popularity of Ron Paul, and the popularity of Donald Trump. Donald Trump obviously wasn't libertarian, bit in the great tug-o-war between freedom and non freedom, it seemed like he was pulling more toward the freedom side, especially in the sense of backing down on the wars, and the regulations. As libertarians, Trump has a lot of flaws, but it was the direction he seemed to pull.
Also, while the left is going crazy playing black against white, man against woman, rich against poor, the simple fact is that most people were not into that. They just wanted jobs and opportunity, and personal freedom to do what they wanted. Most people at the big rallies were not interested in stealing from other Americans or going to war, they just wanted opportunity for themselves.
Also, the social media platforms didn't ban libertarians left and right because we were unpopular, but because to their owners we were too popular.
So it got me thinking that maybe populism in the information age, the age of decentralized media, is naturally pro libertarian.
The funny thing is that socialists consider companies to be a source of central authority as opposed to the government. Which is fucking ridiculous.
Just looked up populism (yes I'm an idiot) and my impression is that all leftism as it advertises itself is populist. I was hoping that the right wing, particularly libertarians, did not want to judge in favour of the poor or rich man like leftist collectivists. Perhaps I misunderstood the definition.
The thing is, in the past most populist movements were socialist and leftist movements. Politicians promised the popular mob goods and services, support of the working man, paid for at the expense of somebody else, like the rich. But now a lot of populist movements are becoming libertarian. Rather than wanting to steal from the elite, the elite are using government taxes and regulations and monetary policy to fuck over the populist mob, and populist politicians are promising society to break free of those controls.
That a libertarian world would be dog-eat-dog is a myth. Private individuals are always more charitable than the state, and the elite use the state as a regulatory tool to lock out competition, they need the state to maintain their cartels and monopolies. It's not a coincidence that the most free market economy in the world (early USA, in-spite of various regulations) created the largest middle class in the world. For all the ruthless competition and dog-eat-dog capitalism, it worked out pretty well for the common citizen.