I have always preferred to focus on specific policy issues and not get too involved in personalities and relative character. In my feuds with David Boaz, Tom Palmer, and Steve Horwitz over Donald Trump/TDS, utter distain, even Hate, seems to trump public policy.
Trying to understand this better, I recently visited the website of The UnPopulist, which describes itself as in favor of “liberal democracy” as opposed to “intolerant populist nationalism, including in the United States…”
I immediately read a piece by Steve Chapman, “Kamala Harris Might be Less Injurious to the American Economy than Trump.” It can with the subtitle: “Neither is exactly a devotee of Milton Friedman but at least Harris won’t use fiscal and economic policy to settle personal scores and violate the rule of law.”
His thesis:
According to a pre-debate poll by the Pew Research Center, 55% of registered voters place greater trust in Trump than Harris on economic issues. Whatever his faults, they regard him as clearly preferable to his Democratic opponent when it comes to economic issues. They are, however, badly mistaken.
Really? Chapman claims that Harris is
far short of a progressive darling: After veering leftward in her 2019 presidential campaign, Harris has moved back to the center, firmly abandoning her endorsement of “Medicare for all,” a ban on fracking, and higher taxes on everyone making more than $100,000 a year. Although her campaign has been light on specifics, it’s safe to classify her as a standard Democrat, not the rabid leftist who inhabits GOP fantasies. And given that she seized the presidential nomination without a fight, she owes nothing to the party’s ultra-progressive faction.
But it is on climate that Chapman gives himself away as an uber-statist.
In our current political environment, the most efficient weapon against climate change, a carbon tax, is out of the question. So, we have to settle for second-best solutions. Harris is committed to combating climate change, a dire threat, while Trump regards it as a massive hoax deserving no action whatsoever. For anyone who recognizes the dangers posed by climate change and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, she is the only option.
Chapman also references a ISMA conference, “Climate Catastrophism Leads to Illiberalism but Doesn’t Solve the Problem,” which featured four it-it-a-problem-requiring-open-ended government intervention in the name of ‘saving’ the environment from fossil fuels.” Matthew Ygelsias states that “there isn’t as much debate about it inside of intellectual circles as there is about other topics.” Really? I guess I am not an intellectual, or at least a statist intellectual.
Nils Gilman wants to “address climate change … while preserving liberalism?” He wants to tie immigration to the climate issue (?) Good luck with that…
Jonathan Adler:
“There’s this fear: Which am I afraid more of, climate change or climate change policy? And if climate change policy means the government is going to decide how much, and what sort of, energy each industry gets to use, and in what time frame, and what car you drive, and what kind of stove you have, what kind of house you live in, and so on … well, then, climate change has got to be really, really bad to justify that.” — Jonathan H. Adler