Two Objectivists on the Presidential Election

Over at Capitalism Magazine appears "Anti-Trumpites for Trump," by Leonard Peikoff, which I think is the best case that can be made for voting for Trump in tomorrow's election. I read this after viewing an interview of Peikoff by James Valliant on the same topic, and find the piece both a better presentation of that case, and easier to to comment on.

Specifically, the piece is better at laying out the positive case and is far better at acknowledging some of the many problems with Trump.

(This said, in neither place does Peikoff address Trump's disturbing and disgraceful admiration of dictators like Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Xi Jinping. Is Trump a power-luster -- or does he think the only way to "save America" is to become a dictator himself? There is no comfort if either explanation applies, and I struggle to imagine an explanation that doesn't reflect badly on him.)

Yaron Brook makes best case for Harris on his podcast, within the episode titled "Why I'm NO on Trump," which is embedded below.

As I told a friend yesterday, I'll be casting a vote for Harris, but I can't summon a clarion call to do so: The choices are that atrocious, as I think one can gather from a couple of comments I'll make on the Peikoff piece.

Peikoff, to my understanding, argues that Trump genuinely loves America and, although he does not deeply understand what makes our country great, he will fight for it. Trump is, at an imperfect, sense-of-life level, for example, pro-capitalist, anti-woke, and pro-American self-interest. (Peikoff lists off these positives under "Trump's analysis of Americanism," and then gives "some Trumpian negatives.")

As I have myself have allowed in the past, Trump may well be, in a very imperfect, mostly emotional way, pro-American.

That said, I am very concerned that the combination of some of the weaknesses of Trump and the Republicans, both of which Peikoff acknowledges, could more than undercut any positives.

For example, Peikoff notes:

Trump is not an intellectual. He is often an emotionalist in voicing his viewpoint. If he feels an emotion strongly, especially in defense of what he regards as justice, he can say outrageous things that have no bearing on his policies. For example, when he was convinced that he was cheated in the election of 2020, his statement about the Constitution amounted to the assertion, "the courts be damned!" But, in the end, he left office peacefully.

Unlike Harris' assaults on the Constitution, Trump's assertions were a matter of outrage -- he believed that the election had been stolen -- and he saw himself as fighting for America.

In contrast, of course, Harris would alter the nature of Supreme Court itself, end the Electoral College, destroy the filibuster, and anything else that might limit the government's power. The threats from Harris to the founding documents are philosophical in nature, not just verbiage, but permanent and fundamental changes, with all of the practical consequences this implies.

Set aside that Trump persists in claiming that he did not lose the 2020 election: It was, in fact, Pence's refusal to cave in to Trump's demand not to certify that result, just as it was that election officials in Georgia didn't "find" more votes for him that made this demand irrelevant.

And as I believe Yaron Brook notes in his podcast, there are plenty of other instances of Trump being stopped from acting on his impulses by the people who were around him during his first term.

Trump's impulses may have often had no "bearing on his policies," but an important part of why they didn't would be absent in a second term: Considering the intellectual influences on and statist orientation of his awful vice-presidential pick, J.D. Vance -- not to mention the numerous people from Trump's administration who will not work for him again, who will there be to hold him back from doing something that could destroy the Republic?

Peikoff himself would have to admit this problem, based on how he answers the argument that a heavy Trump loss would force the GOP to rethink its recent trajectory:

Some Objectivists claim that if Trump loses that will "cleanse" the GOP. I would ask them the following:

1. Who is this Republican who could magically transform the GOP?

2. After four or eight years of Harris, what would be left of the American system, individual rights, freedom of speech, honest elections, et al.?

Who is this Republican indeed?

If there is nothing better waiting in the wings, there is nothing better restraining Trump, either.

This is a great point, and has helped me understand why I can't offer a full-throated endorsement one way or the other. Whichever party loses is, in today's irrational, anti-freedom cultural and political climate, more apt to double down on what caused them to alienate pro-freedom and centrist voters than to question it.

So, yes, the election won't "cleanse" anything, so we're down to the question of which side buys more time for America to change course: In my view, however horrible Harris is, at least she still has to go through Congress to enact the worst parts of her agenda. Because of this, she is more an ally of the American system, even if for nefarious reasons, than Trump is.

Trump, as Brook has pointed out, can unilaterally sledgehammer the economy by raising tariffs on his own. Trump's unpredictability/impulsivity can be an advantage, as Peikoff points out, but it can also destroy the American system without decent advisors around him to calm him down. He has tried to once, and he's a safe bet to do so again.

There will be no decent advisors, as far as I can see the second time around.

So yes, while the left is attempting to destroy America from within, at least it is using our system against us. Trump could well destroy that system and, with it, America.

-- CAV