07/21/15 – Jeffrey Tucker – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, you guys, welcome back.
I'm Scott Wharton.
It's my show, The Scott Wharton Show.
Our first guest is Jeff Tucker.
He, of course, is the, I don't know, the Chief Liberty Officer, that's what it's called, over at liberty.me, which is the great libertarian social network that you should join and friend me on, and him, too.
Hey, welcome back to the show.
How are you doing?
Good.
I'm Jeff Tucker.
I'm here from the offices of the Foundation for Economic Education, where I'm also the web builder and that sort of thing.
Great.
And that's fee.org, of course, 10 million pages of great economic writing there.
Lots and lots of good stuff to read.
All right, so listen, you're also the co-host with me of Eye on the Empire, which we haven't done in a few weeks, but it's time to do another one.
So we should do another one.
What do you think?
Long past time.
We've got to get on this thing.
You know, maybe in the next couple of days we should jump on this.
Yeah, I'm down with it.
Let's do it.
Yeah, I miss it.
Thursday or Friday is good for me.
Yeah, I'm good with either one of those things.
Okay, cool.
Well, email back and forth later.
Hey, listen, you wrote an article, and it was really interesting, and I'm glad I got you here to talk about it.
Trumpism.
Huh?
What?
Yeah, well, Scott, here's the thing about that article.
You know, as I was thinking back, I've been writing for a long time, written thousands of articles, you know.
I think that somehow this article has been more widely circulated than perhaps anything I've ever written.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
The first draft, you know, I wrote it like almost immediately after I saw that Trump speech at Freedom Fest in Vegas, and it went on Liberty.me.
I did a version of it for free, then it was picked up by Newsweek, and that's when it went viral.
And, you know, I mean, like I was inundated with interview requests, and my Twitter account went nuts.
So Newsweek ran the whole piece?
Yeah, Newsweek ran the whole piece.
Wow.
Yeah.
So, yeah, it was kind of an epic thing from that article.
They're really afraid of him, aren't they, that they would run Jeff Tucker in Newsweek.
That's really something.
Hey, that's not a knock against you.
That's praise for you.
You're way too good for them to ever consider running your thoughts in their paper, but they're just anything.
You know, I saw Karl Rove up there spitting and sputtering as though Trump is not just the ultimate, you know, kind of summation of Rovian republicanism in this country.
I mean, he owns 21st century conservatism as his project, and this is what it's wrought.
And to see him and all the National Review and Lindsey Graham and everybody just spitting and sputtering and denouncing him, it's a riot.
I got to admit, I just love it because I think regular people, hopefully regular people, not the ones who go for it and, you know, who really like him, but everybody else, I think that they can tell that the rest of these Republicans are exactly like him.
He just is rude.
You know what I mean?
He just says what they all want to say.
But when it comes down to who to tax and who to kill and all that kind of stuff, they're pretty much in line.
Who to hate.
Yeah, pretty much.
Yeah.
I think you make a good point.
It's pretty much in line.
I wouldn't say exactly the same because I mean, Trump kind of ramps it up in a strange way.
Yeah.
He's like a cartoon version of their of their worst sort of darkest dreams.
Right.
Yeah.
You know, he's their argument ad absurdum.
Yeah.
So that's why I thought it was important to focus on him.
I mean, actually, listening to his speech was very weird.
You know, it went on for an hour and my jaw was on the floor the entire time.
And you know, most of the you're right.
The rest of these Republican people have sort of cleaned up their act.
You know, they're they're they're sort of trying to appeal to the media.
They're trying to get, you know, get past the, you know, get through this election thing, you know, by by, you know, staying staying safe and that sort of thing.
Trump doesn't care.
Right.
So, yeah, you're right.
He just expresses what they sort of believe in.
Yeah.
He's there.
It is what he is.
Right.
He's got he's got no superego to tells it to cool it.
You know, that's a really you have a really good.
You should have written this article, Scott.
Yeah.
But what was interesting to me is that people are so routinely shocked by the combination of policies that guys like this push and they don't you know, they just think, oh, wow, he favors massive protectionism.
He wants to keep dollars home and and keep shipping goods out.
Oh, isn't that interesting?
He really hates immigrants.
You know, I was fascinated that he seems to be appealing to, you know, the religious right, you know, by claiming to be a Presbyterian or something, you know, and they think all this stuff is sort of haphazard in a way.
Oh, he wants to run the country like a business.
You know, that's his number one theme.
He wants to be basically the CEO of the country.
And they think all these things are kind of randomized and haphazard.
But as I listen to it, I you know, what I what overwhelmed me was just just how perfectly he has revived a very old tradition and 20th century political thought that has been otherwise, you know, completely neglected by modern political culture, namely the fascistic model of social organization as an alternative to to socialism, you know.
And so that was the purpose of my article was basically to explain what fascism is, why it's it's not just an insult.
It's not just like calling somebody, you know, an idiot or a bad guy or something like that.
This is a legitimate political philosophy.
It's a wholly sort of robust and comprehensive view of the relationship between the state and the citizen.
And he just sort of perfectly encapsulates this in every way.
And you're right.
I mean, the other the other Republicans also do, but in a way that's much more sort of palatable and compatible with existing civic conventions.
You know, Trump just doesn't care anything about any of that stuff, which is actually part of his appeal and and which is also part of the fascist tradition.
You know, these guys, these sort of interwar dictator, this generation of interwar dictators, you know, sort of rose up after the the collapse of of of the economy in 1929.
They all railed against the establishment, too, you know, and and one of the population to rally around them as as personal geniuses who were courageous and were willing to stand up to, you know, the existing establishment.
And that's very appealing to people, because, I mean, the current system doesn't work and everybody knows it.
Right.
So people are looking for an alternative.
And these guys are there to push an alternative.
And it's all based on a kind of flamboyant rejection of rationality.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And and you can see it among Trump's followers.
I mean, there's there's an element of of wild fanaticism with them.
It's like completely out of control.
I mean, my article generated more hate mail than I've ever received, you know, from Trump supporters.
And not that they took issue with any one thing that I said, but rather they they suspect that I don't I don't trust as they trust, you know, they don't.
You know, it's like that with you and so it's it's very strange.
There's a kind of, I always have believed this, that there's an element of religious attachment to the idea of, you know, let's let the state run the social order, because it's such a bad idea.
And it's it's failed so much that you almost have to sort of suspend all belief in rationality in order to sort of embrace it.
But you take it a step further when you get a guy in front of you who says, look, I've got the business experience, I've got the talent, I'm smart, the rest of these people are stupid.
Trust me, I can run it.
And something goes wrong in some people's brains, you know, they're like, heck, yeah, let's do this thing.
Right.
You know, we need a new era of of greatness and centralization.
And I mean, this is a guy, look, Scott, in your whole life, in your whole political life, do you remember a single aspirant to national office standing in front of a crowd saying we are going to make we're going to make nuclear weapons mean something again and then have the crowd cheer?
Yeah.
No.
Is that what he said?
Yeah.
Like, we're going to be we're going to use them for more meaningful threats, at least something like that.
I've never heard a politician say anything like that.
I mean, nuclear weapons, you know, we have the largest nuclear arsenal in the world.
Right.
Yeah.
But but politicians don't talk about it much.
I mean, he's up there in front of crowds bragging about it, saying we're going to take pride in the ability to wipe out humanity.
Man.
All right.
Hold it right there.
We're going to take this break.
We're going to check everybody with Jeff Tucker right after this.
Check him out at Liberty.
Me, Trump ism, the ideology, fascism, you know, familiar.
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Hey, guys.
Welcome back.
All right.
So we are talking with Jeffrey Tucker.
From Liberty, not me and from fee.
About his article, Trump ism, the ideology.
And I like the way you say, well, there's so much to go back over here, Jeff.
I like the way you say that he doesn't know that he's parroting, you know, Philip Drew and Benito Mussolini and Franklin Roosevelt and other fascists here.
He's basically just being himself up there ranting and raving.
And yet he fits right in there.
It's important, I think, what you say, too, about how even though really the rest of these Republicans mostly agree on these policies, he's not a conservative.
What he is is a radical.
He's just as far to the right as them.
But he is, you know, again, unencumbered by anything that, you know, any counter incentive to to act the way he acts, you know, the way the rest of them have, you know, all these little things to think about.
He's got a deep enough wallet to finance his own campaign that.
He doesn't he's not really checked by all the different things that they have to think about.
So he can be as radical as they want to be, basically.
And then, you know, yeah, to really imagine him in power.
I mean, think about him actually being the president.
Can anyone think, you know, pretend for a minute that the Constitution would bind him in any way?
I mean, American policy would just be his whim on a daily basis.
I listen to the way he talks.
He'll directly he'll say the exact same thing twice and then complete.
But add a word the second time that completely contradicts the first thing he said and then it's all about trusting him all over the freaking place.
He said, too.
I mean, just a few days ago, he says I heard him say something like if when he's president and he wants that Ford plant to to move from China back to the US, he said, believe me, they're going to do it.
So, you know, imagine a president who thinks that he can just order around U.S. companies and where they're going to locate their business.
I mean, that's that's an astonishing that's a totalitarian level of of power, you know, completely unchecked.
I mean, this is completely delusional.
But I'm telling you, there's a there's a segment of the voters who go for this crap.
And you can see it right now in the polls that are coming out.
He is not shrinking.
He is rising.
His lead in the Republican field here is spreading wider and wider and wider.
He's now got 24 percent support.
And his second is Scott Walter with only 13 percent and Jeb Bush with with 12.
And then it gets lower after that.
And Rand Paul slipped completely five percentage points.
So what's interesting is that the more the Republican establishment attacks this guy, the more people like him.
And and and even his criticism of John McCain, you know, that was an interesting case because he stood up and said, this guy's no war hero.
He set out the war, you know, and, you know, an outrageous comment at some level.
On the other hand, what the GOP establishment doesn't understand is that everybody is sick and tired of stupid McCain.
All right.
So, you know, for one guy to finally come out and say, you know, to call this guy's bluff and say, I don't I don't really give a crap about his his his so-called heroism does sound like that was a delight to many people.
And there was a brilliant article in The New York Times a couple of days ago about his his his speaking in Iowa where, you know, some some Republican blowhard got up and denounced Trump for for dissing McCain.
And there was only light clapping, you know, just kind of whatever.
But when Trump spoke himself and they would say these outrageous things about he's going to be, you know, basically fascistic plans about, you know, he knows exactly how production should should happen, you know, where plants should be located, what immigrants should come in, what what immigrants should be shipped out and so on and so on, you know, basically, you know, running for totalitarian powers, you know, everybody's cheering and loving him.
And then he got in trouble in Iowa when Scott, this is actually true.
When he said the words, damn and hell.
Yeah, I read that.
And and and then you heard all the mutterings and murmurings among the crowd.
And The New York Times reporter just hilariously found somebody to say something like, yeah, I'm a little worried about him because he may not be born again.
Yeah.
Otherwise, he's great, though.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
So Trump could Trump could actually, you know, intensify his, you know, this is why I love all this, though.
I mean, I absolutely love this because really, he is no more legitimate for that office and he's blatantly not legitimate for that office.
But he's really not any too much different in kind than the rest of the Republicans in a way.
He doesn't deserve to have power any less than Jeb Bush deserves it or anything like that.
So he's making a mockery of the entire process that deserves to be mocked.
I guess there's a risk that he could actually win or something like that.
That could be a real problem.
I don't I guess I don't like that.
But I also like that he's calling out the Republican rank and file, the conservatives of America and saying, aren't we all a bunch of Nazis?
And they're all saying, yes, we are.
You know, I guess it's it's too politically incorrect to just outright hate black people right now.
But how about Mexicans?
Yeah, we can all pick on the Mexicans and the queers.
Let's get them.
And, you know, he's a great leader for them.
And he proves to everyone else who they are and what they are.
Oh, yeah.
You people really love freedom, huh?
You tea partiers.
Yeah.
You love freedom from your liberal black president.
But yeah, just wait until the next conservatives in power.
It'll be like, you know, Jeb Bush, George W. Bush years will look like libertarian years.
You know, I think, you know, there's something and I've always believed that there's something at the very heart of American right wing postwar right wing ideology, you know, what we now call sort of Tea Party conservatism, because there's so much good about it.
But there's but there's a weird sort of underneath aspect to it that's nationalistic, nativistic and essentially totalitarian.
But it takes the right sort of political leader to kind of extract that.
And it's been fascinating to me to see how Trump has sort of weirdly managed to do that in his bungling, idiotic way.
He's nonetheless sort of unleashed this inner, inner totalitarian core.
And to me, the sad thing about American political culture is we don't have a word for people like this.
You know, people just go, oh, well, this is clearly this is just the yammerings of a lunatic.
No.
It's a revival of a very robust and fairly coherent political ideology that was extremely popular in the interwar period and actually much more successful than socialism ever was.
Fascism had a much better run of it around the world than socialism ever did.
And that's the tradition he represents.
And I'm just sorry that we can't just use that term.
But this is why I wrote the article.
I think he makes a very interesting study.
We need to kind of confront this dark heart of American and really Western democratic ideology that's not socialistic as such.
It's something different.
It's still totalitarian, but it rejects the sort of cultural biases of the left.
It's made its peace with private property, with the family, with the presence of religion in society.
He wants all this sort of bourgeois firmament, you know, sort of redirected and channeled into a grand national purpose that always ends up in a war.
I mean, in the end, you know, Trump is probably the most the most ghastly warmonger who's ever run, who's run for political office in my lifetime, at least most overt warmonger.
I mean, that's what it's all about.
To him, the whole world is the U.S.'s enemy, always and everywhere.
Yeah.
Well, and when it comes to the Islamic State, he keeps saying, I'm going to send a patent in there to just wipe them out and steal all their oil.
That's what we should have done is just starved them all to death by taking all their oil away.
Oh, man.
OK.
Yeah.
Again, a lot of Republicans agree with that, but Republicans with power don't talk that way, you know, but but there are, you know, again, back to the rank and file American conservatives who love that stuff.
That's right.
Kill all Arabs until they're all dead and then we won't have to worry about them anymore.
That's conservatism.
That's American, you know, nationalism right there.
All the Mexicans bring all of all plants, U.S. U.S. plants abroad, bring them home to provide jobs.
So it's a very interesting aspect of this sort of fascistic ideology, too, that it's generally pro-labor union in a way, or at least it's pro-labor agenda.
It just wants it to sort of serve serve the state.
So that's a little bit unusual.
And that's always kind of part of fascism, too, right, because it's all about the supply side ruling the state and vice versa, kind of, you know, working together against the demand side, which is how freedom works.
Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
I mean, if you read Philip Drew, Edward Mandel House's fantasy about a fascist America, there's a national government bureaucrat and a labor union leader on every board of directors.
Yeah.
It's really true.
Yeah.
The other interesting thing about it is that he doesn't really he doesn't really address anything like what he wants to do about the current government functioning.
Like he doesn't talk about education policy, doesn't really talk about, you know, housing policy.
He doesn't talk about the federal budget.
I mean, none of these sort of details of policy matter to him.
You know, and he refuses to even address these questions.
You know, he just says, you know, you just give me power and I will do the right thing.
Just trust me with it.
And a lot of people are willing to go along with that.
You know, I mean, this is just I mean, ultimately, in the end, Scott, we face a choice between freedom and control, you know, and I like Trump to this extent.
I mean, he's giving us a chance to really sort of discuss this issue, you know, to which way do we want to go forward to a world of private property, individual liberty, you know, decentralized decision making and, you know, distributed networks and technology and that sort of thing.
Or do we really want to return to an authoritarian centralized total state?
And he's forcing people to confront this issue.
Yeah.
And it's good for the GOP, essentially.
Okay, let's talk about whether or not he actually stands a chance.
I mean, you raised that question, and I think it's a really interesting question.
I just, you know, politics has surprised me enough in my lifetime that I don't think that I'm prepared to say, oh, this is a temporary blip, you know, it's just going to go away.
I would like that to be true in a way, although I'm not happy with any of the alternatives either, you know, but I don't know what you're feeling about that.
I mean, is is is the Republican establishment so tightly in control of our electoral system and the nomination process that there's no chance that we could ever win it?
I mean, well, no, I mean, you got to give them higher numbers than Ron or something like that, just because, one, there are a lot more Jacksonian fascists in America than there are libertarians.
And two, he's got billions of dollars of liquid cash, at least, you know, a couple that he can spend on this.
And, you know, Hillary is going to have the biggest campaign ever, ever at one billion, and he can top that, so.
And part of his appeal, and I don't think you can threaten him, right?
I don't think he feels like he has anything to lose.
He's not afraid of anything.
And people love that.
People love that.
You know, the biggest applause line that he had in Vegas was when he said that, he said, you know what, the whole political system is a racket.
Everybody who's giving these campaign contributions to all these people, all they're asking for is a quid pro quo.
The minute they get in office, the phone's going to be ringing off the hook, now do my bidding.
He said, there's graft and corruption behind every dollar that's contributed to every candidate in this country.
And people cheered, because, you know, I mean, that's an actual truth.
Of course, yeah.
And it's awesome to consider the implications of that.
And then he went on to say, look, I've got all the money I need.
I don't need anybody's money.
I don't owe anybody anything.
And boy, you could just feel it in the room, people were like, yeah.
That's the story of Philip Drew, too, right there, where, look at how corrupt the political system is.
The senators and the bankers all in on it together to bail each other out and protect themselves and all this corporate corruption.
All we need is a man on a white horse to come in and clean house.
So he doesn't owe anybody anything, because he has the loyal appreciation of his countrymen behind him.
Yeah, that's the whole fascistic appeal.
And I tell you what, it sold really well at the crowd I was in.
And you know, I heard him in Vegas, earlier that day, there were 5,000 people gathered in Phoenix, Arizona, to rally behind his anti-immigrant message.
I mean, this guy is really kicking up a storm out there, you know, it's just, it's awesome.
And the more the GOP establishment attacks him, the more he seems to be growing.
You know, maybe this is all a temporary blip, but I don't know.
I mean, it's pretty awesome to watch it all happening.
Well, yeah, I mean, his competition is pretty damn mediocre, too.
So we'll see how they do, I guess, I don't know.
And you know, there's an important lesson here, also, as you point out in the article about how just because someone's a successful businessman doesn't make them a libertarian, doesn't prove that they even understand economics at all.
And I guess his multiple corporate bankruptcies might tend to go along with showing that.
The guy who's always building the skyscraper right when the bubble's about to pop, and this kind of thing.
And it also goes to show about how libertarians don't necessarily like businessmen at all.
We just like the market.
That's different.
Yeah.
And liberals really get that wrong.
Like our job is simply to cover for corporate power, something like that.
They don't really get that.
It's about individual freedom.
That's what it's about.
Yeah, and big business also hates competition.
That's what people don't understand.
I mean, you know, competition is fine when you're the underdog.
You know, it gives you a chance to get out there and make your mark.
But once you're at the level of Trump, competition is your enemy.
That's the thing that they consider inefficient, it's terrible, it's wasting resources, it's knocking down the good guys and putting the bad guys in charge.
So you know, in fascist ideology, the enemy is exactly market competition.
And that's what he's targeted.
That's what he thinks is the great problem in America and the world is there's just too much market competition.
So we need an iron hand at the top to decide who the winners are and keep them in place.
And it's got to be smart people with lots of resources and unlimited power.
And then we can make the world a better place.
Oh, man.
All right.
Thanks very much for coming back on the show.
Sure.
Appreciate it, Jeff.
It's good to talk to you, Scott.
Let's talk soon.
OK.
Definitely will do.
All right, y'all.
That's a great Jeff Tucker.
He's at the Foundation for Economic Education and Liberty.me.
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