Jeffrey A. Tucker is Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute. He is also Senior Economics Columnist for Epoch Times, author of 10 books, including Liberty or Lockdown, and thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press. He speaks widely on topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.

comments

  • Feb 5, 2016
    RidgeRunner

    “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.” ~Yogi Berra

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    • Feb 5, 2016
      Matthew Reece

      Exactly. The polls still have Trump running away with New Hampshire. The delegate count won’t really be serious until Super Tuesday (March 1), so we won’t know until then how the nomination is likely to go.

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  • Feb 5, 2016
    Calin Brabandt

    >it would appear that this country will be spared an experiment in crude, ruthless >authoritarianism.

    Trump authoritarianism really never worried me much, because

    >It is just not humanly possible to cause an entrenched apparatus of a governing
    >elite to shift priorities or bend a two-million-person bureaucracy to become
    >something it is not.

    While most people of the U.S. no longer value and embrace liberty, unlike people of the Weimar Republic, the people and establishment that is the current U.S.A. will not permit nearly instantaneous advances in tyrannical authoritarianism either. It will happen (and is happening) much more slowly and Trump can’t change that kinetic.

    >I have this fantasy — preposterous of course — that Trump would show up
    >in power and attempt to manage the government the way he manages his
    >company. After a few months, he holds a press conference and says:

    Yes. That’s quite preposterous, but if Trump (or any other candidate) were already aware that Presidential control is only an illusion, certainly he could not reveal his knowledge during his campaign. Even Trump’s supporters would believe him to be crazy! Trump would have to wait until he possessed the credibility of being an eye witness to the facade as the occupier of the oval office in order to successfully out it!

    My fantasy is Trump already knows about the facade and would upset the apple cart in at least some manner (or even spill just a few apples), if he wins. He has already outed the presstitutes of the lamestream media. Unlike you Jeffrey, I think these are still early days in this race so I’ll enjoy my fantasy a bit longer than you.

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  • Feb 5, 2016
    Massimo Mazzone

    The other problem is that once somebody is in a position of power, it changes the way he/she thinks, and starts to compromise. It happened to giants like Jefferson, Madison and Cleveland, in a world in which the federal government was spending 2-3% of GDP per year. What hope is there for today’s dwarfs that started to compromise in order to be elected, and have against (assuming for sake of discussion good faith) the massive bureaucracy and spending that you mentioned? Still, I really hope Trump is out. His presidency would have been like running the bulls in Pamplona, probably funny, but far too dangerous for my tastes.

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  • Feb 5, 2016
    Rick Rule

    I suspect that Trump’s true aim in running was similar to David Duke. It was a cheap, and amusing way to expand his audience. Wait until we see his next reality TV series! He is much better at marketing to cranky old white folks than he is at real estate, his media company need not go bankrupt. There is an endless audience for his type of stupidity, and he has an endless supply.

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  • Feb 5, 2016
    Matthew Reece

    Whatever happens this time, it keeps looking better for Kokesh 2020.

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