 Earlier this week, I had a chance to talk with my good friend Tom Woods on his show about everything happening with Donald Trump in Washington, DC And especially the left progressive reaction to it. We thought you'd enjoy hearing about Trump from a more libertarian perspective. So stay tuned I Got Jeff Deist on the show and I feel like I can't go wrong not that I want to put too much pressure on you But there it is. I mean if if this isn't any good. It's on you pretty much is what I'm what I'm saying Okay, I want to just talk to somebody about Events of the past week or so. I just want to talk to somebody about this because I feel like The whole world has gone mental I don't know where I fit. I don't fit anywhere in this There's a big big chunk of me That absolutely Loads the left and their stupid protests That they couldn't have bothered to be doing while, you know, Obama was helping to starve Yemen for all of 2016 They couldn't be bothered to take five minutes out of their schedules for that You know, but they have to have Madonna and Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus lecture us on the dignity of women I mean, are we to be spared nothing? But at the same time there is still this cult of the presidency around Trump that I don't like So I don't really have a home, but While I'm homeless. I am nevertheless cheering for people who are As fed up and disgusted with the left as I am. So Let's let's start there. I mean, I guess we could we could say something about his inauguration speech But let's just start with your overall impression. I mean, doesn't it feel to you Like things have really accelerated in the past just year or so in terms of the divisions in the country They were always there, but it's it's palpable and overwhelming now Yeah, they have accelerated and we deserve it because this is what you get when you politicize things that shouldn't be politicized Which is 90 of what government does is extra constitutional even if you're a fan of that document But more importantly, we've put the left mostly But now the right to an extent has politicized whole areas of human life that ought not to be political like sex and sexuality and family life and Work life what happens at your workplace? So so that we deserve this and I think trump is a symptom He's a symptom of the imperial presidency that the progressives have cheered this for decades They've sought to have executive control over environmental issues over health and safety issues labor issues Uh, you know women's issues abortion, you know, they cheered An activist supreme court, which they're now terrified to think they might not control They cheered an imperial executive. They're now terrified of trump. So You know, and and I think that that really this march the other day Encapsulates the whole thing perfectly. I mean these are political people who claim to love democracy and voting as the means to organize society well We had a vote and lots and lots of women voted for trump More than voted for Hillary at least amongst the white women So they they go and have a white woman march nonetheless in washington And they do so in a way that says, you know, we don't respect the outcome of this vote I don't respect the outcome of any vote. So I don't really care. I'm agnostic But for people who claim they do care You know, the guy's been in office a day and they walk around in pink pussy hats And and we're supposed to take them seriously And and we're supposed to say that these are are good You know people because they're making their voice heard. Well, you guys are the democrats You're the ones who say you make your voice heard by voting. Well, we had a vote So look this whole thing is is an absolute farce politics is devolving Into into nasty tribalism and the left has wanted this the left has wanted this for decades They talk about a fractured that we are You know, who do I blame? I blame both sides, but The question for us is how do we rack? How do we respond as libertarians? And I think the answer is going to make a lot of our libertarian friends unhappy because they don't want to face The plain and obvious truth in front of us, which is that we need to depoliticize society And we need to break it up We need some form of secession localism Subsidiarity to deal with these intractable social issues that that have arisen Because of government because of government dividing us the only Solution to this tom short of civil war and I and I hate people who talk Ghibli about civil war, you know, as though this is ever going to be a good thing and this is ever something It's going to actually happen. It's a terrible thing and we should never even even talk about it happening So the only solution short of that is some kind of decentralized Political rulemaking in this country. I would like to see no political rulemaking. That's unlikely So given that it's unlikely. Hey, let's let's go our separate ways And of course our beltway libertarian friends. They don't want to hear this They're the libertarian centralizers. Well, gee whiz we got to have abortion legal across the land We can't have these rednecks In the south banning it or whatever it is that they think but the bottom line is the only way forward Is to ratchet back politics. The only way to do that Is to be more localized. We're seeing this in europe And I think we're on the cusp of seeing it american anybody who doesn't want to do this Is basically saying one of two things Either they want to impose upon vast vast millions of people by government force a particular viewpoint that those vast millions do not accept Or They want them to simply die off demographically I mean, those are the those are the two big choices because the right says this too The right says we can't live with the left. The left says we can't live with the right So when tom woods Says as you did in houston a couple years ago. Well, well, let's get a divorce Everyone freaks out and calls you the bad guy You know, this is just absolutely intolerable and this is why I really object to this movement amongst libertarians to make this a cultural identity Movement and there was some criticism of ron paul for talking about states rights. Look states rights Or some version thereof Is the only way any of us are going to have any slight movement towards a more libertarian society in our lifetimes Or maybe 10 lifetimes in other words, you can get a group of a million or 2 million libertarian-ish people together You can't get 320 million Libertarian-ish people together not in this in this current social political economic rubric That that we're suffering under so You know, I'm really tired of airy fairy third way tech addled libertarianism Um, I think the way forward Is for us to be good neighbors to to love one another and to go our separate ways and that doesn't necessarily mean Geographically anymore, you know secession of some kind doesn't necessarily have to mean that you physically move We have a digital world now. There's no reason you can't have You know private Retirement insurance and your neighbor can opt in the social security in fedgov. There's no there's no technical Oh reason or no logistic reason that we all have to move And segregate physically to have to live under a different political structure But nonetheless, it may be at least in the short term favorable for people to start doing that and people are doing that People are moving with their feet and they're leaving blue states because no matter what they say And no matter how they vote they actually hate taxes and regulations when it affects them personally Um, and they hate overcrowding and they hate super expensive housing prices and all these things that government does So that's the way forward. It's not happy. It's not necessarily fun Um, it is a version Of the benedict option what rod drayer talks about Um, but not for catholics for libertarians and and it's it's it's the only it's the way we have to be thinking I think libertarians are guilty Of becoming universalists A globalist in the worst sense of the word not in in the sense that mises meant globalism, which is free trade Between countries because globalism real globalism tom is based on differences between countries not similarities Differences result in comparative advantage and specialization. Okay. That's what creates favorable trade But but universalist globalism That a lot of libertarians now promote. Well, it's our job to have Saudi Arabia become, you know l magazine It's it's just not going to work And I would submit that the impulse To to have universal universalism amongst libertarians is as bad as the impulse to have it amongst progressives Well, that's interesting. I'm glad to hear you say that. I've always just I don't know why I've always been a little creeped out by some libertarian efforts to You know bring certain books all over the world. I mean, you know, great books are great. I want people to read books But man, do we have a lot of work to do here where these ideas have You know, the soil is much more fertile for these ideas. What the heck are we doing? In far flung continents around the world for for goodness sake, what are we just so happy? And then I I can think of somebody who actually goes to these third world countries Or you know recently liberated communist countries or whatever and brings the copies of the u.s. Constitution This is a libertarian as if the u.s. Constitution has been such an obvious success That everybody should want to emulate that on the secession question I would have thought even a year ago That the idea that secession was one day inevitable was a joke. Of course, it's not I mean, we might like to talk about it because it's an interesting intellectual exercise, but The idea is so toxic in people's minds because of the propaganda they get in the government schools There's no way you'd be able to persuade enough of them to think about it But I just saw a poll the other day one in three californians favor secession And I think given how drastically different a lot of people in the country are Even the left's normal inclination to impose its its rule on everybody Might be overridden by their desire to be away from what they consider rednecks I think it's quite likely maybe not in my lifetime But within a hundred years it would shock me if the united states was still had the same territory And was the same political body that it is today. Well, I hope so because let's face it politics is just is a form of war It's it's war by other means and that's what we're having right now is war and and it's it's not as bad as real war I'm not trying to be Um, I'm not trying to use hyperbole here, but it is it is a form of warfare So here's what I always say to progressive which is you can have so much of what you want right here right now If you're just willing to accept this principle Of subsidiarity, why can't california vast it? I would venture that 70 of californians perhaps Would agree to some sort of single-payer centralized government healthcare system And tiny countries like norway and sweden managed to do this with just five six or eight million people So why not have california establish this at the state level and do it go forward? Prove us wrong if if government can centrally manage health care Let california Be the the laboratory the experiment that proves it at least in the u.s. Let them do it I'm all for this now. I understand that there are some good Libertarians in california who would be harmed by this and might have to consider leaving they'd say well Jeff, you know, what are you doing? But given the range of available choices before us. I would say that's fine Uh, let let california do that. Let let's start creating, you know Look at the second amendment. There are people who are just absolutely unhinged at the thought of guns in america Now, I don't understand that mentality Uh, I'm a gun owner. I like to shoot Uh, to me it's it's part and parcel of just sensible life to have a shotgun or something at home because there's bad people out there But there are millions upon millions of americans who believe with religious fervor That guns are an absolute abomination. They like to have them in cops and secret service people and and the army But they don't want anybody else having them okay, well let you know Isn't there a private property regime that could permit this? I mean how hard would it be to have You know huge groups of communities. Let's say The that what we think of as los angeles is actually dotted by many many smaller cities Um, it is there not some way with the under the california constitution To to allow those cities to on some level become privatized communities that that had some sort of covenant or some kind of document that you signed And say that as as a as a covenant Call it a giant hoa rule We're going to have no guns We're not going to have private firearms and you can be fined if you're caught with one or something like that Well, a lot of people again are going to say jeff I'm a california and I the second amendment Is you know supersedes any kind of agreement california could come up with and I want to have a gun I understand that I do but I mean wouldn't that be better wouldn't that be a way for the left to have their gun free zones? It just seems to me that we've reached a point where The obvious solution is staring us in the face, which is to ratchet this thing back Stop deciding everything in washington. You see stop having these almost unbelievable amounts of psychological Torment every four years at the thought of this binary winner takes all present coming in and ruining everyone's lives You know, it's it's it's an american system that no matter what everybody says not too many people believe in anymore That's the truth. That's the honest truth and we're seeing that that women's march That's the truth of it is they don't they don't see this vote as legitimate And they which means they don't see democracy as legitimate the electoral college or any of it And that doesn't matter who got three million more votes even if trump had won by 10 million Including the popular vote Do you think that would have changed anything in that march? Come on and and let's say hillary did get three million more votes I mean that's that's a little questionable. That's not necessarily a matter of fact, but let's say that's true And let's say the electoral college is what it is, which is an anti-democratic mechanism designed to To aid and assist in federalism Let's say that's bad and wrong. Okay. So in a country of 320 odd million people 3.2 million caught one in a hundred should tip the balance between You know agony and ecstasy psychologically for this, you know, deeply entrenched 45 percent on each side I mean come on it it can't go on and it's not it look it's If the eu can't stay together Boy, you got to wonder about us I'm looking right now at the text of the inaugural address. I didn't see it live But i'm looking at the text of it now and i've been reading Left libertarians all over the place saying that's the worst inaugural address ever So I thought wow, this must be just Appalling to an unbelievable degree. I mean there must be a huge exponent up there Compared to how unbelievably bad most inaugural addresses how messianic they are So gosh, what could this be? So I looked at it and yeah, okay, obviously it has trumpian nationalism in it. Well, duh You weren't expecting that so he's saying we that free trade has caused us problems and and we've been spending too much money overseas and We want to try and make america first And so it's really an america speech that We have our way of life and we're not going to impose it on on anybody And we understand that every nation has a right to pursue its own interests first and Okay, well, that's not the way I would speak But that's obviously not like the worst statement in the history of mankind. So I just i'm not getting this I understand the problems with trump the perils of trump But the idea that that was the worst speech in the world Shows first of all how tone deaf these people utterly tone deaf The point of the speech was not to lay out policy The point of the speech of an inaugural address is to set the tone Normally the tone is some banal boring piece of nothingness about hope and we'll all get together And of course, we're not going to all unite We don't agree with each other. So forget that so he didn't bother with any of that nonsense What he did say was the establishment that in other words the people seated right behind me The establishment has screwed you And I'm not going to take dictation from the establishment That was the tone and if all all you look at for At an inaugural address for is the tone and and I'm not looking for the substance when I get when I get that tone I say well If I compare it to other inaugural addresses It's vastly better. I mean, it's certainly better than any inaugural address fdr ever gave what do you mean fdr's inaugural addresses were better Than that. Are you kidding me? What is wrong with these people? That was a rhetorical question, but feel free to answer Well, did you watch it live or did you just read the transcript? No, I just read the transcript Yeah, I gotta tell you I watched it live I was a little shocked even for trump I mean, there was a Absolute lack of any conciliatory tone. None whatsoever. There wasn't an inch given There was there was no overture made towards the people sitting behind him on the stage which included some, you know Poor bob doll was back there with his wife way in the back and and Dan quail was there. We had you know, they the people they have to drag out for these things It's just absolutely hilarious like this somehow shows that we're all together But look when he says America first we expect the left to go ballistic We expect neocons to go ballistic But it's funny when some libertarians don't like that because what they're basically saying is that We agree with this impulse that that has a dark overtures and it does it I mean, jerald ford was a member of the america first committee They make it sound like it was some radical or renegade thing. It actually was From about after the civil war Up until really world war two, you know, the american foreign policy impulse, which was america first Let's not meddle too much in other people's affairs And of course one big war call it world war one world war two sort of changed all that psychologically for us So there's nothing nefarious about that You know, Walt disney supported america first, you know, frank Lloyd Wright supported america first sinclair lewis I mean, this is classic americana And if you're going to besmirch that then great you stand exposed for who you really are and i'm i'm glad you did it Unfortunately, most americans aren't educated enough to know anything about stuff like this And they think america first committee was nazis the america first committee went out of its way to make sure nazis were not involved Any historian of the subject knows this which means nobody writing about it today knows Yeah, it's true and the you know, what are you gonna say if you don't like america first and that makes it sound like Well, then who first right or what or what number do we assign to america on twitter? I was like what 28? Yeah, how about that? Yeah 30th Well, what number would you be satisfied with because you know bill crystal had this this tweet out there Talking about how unbelievably i kid you not how unbelievably vulgar it was to hear a president say america first And i thought you are why he won you are exactly why he won Any leftist in the world could have uttered those words Well The reason some libertarians don't like this is they think it sounds isolationist. I'm all for isolating the u.s. government You know, I don't want the american state involved In terms of trade or militarism overseas. Let's limit it. Let you know, it's not impose our misery on anywhere else So it's it's not isolationist america does just fine on the global stage in terms of Business and and travel and communications and trade and culture my god. We export our culture everywhere So you know isolationism is not the big danger Okay, I think the rest of the world has heard of google and ebay and tesla I don't think we have to worry about a blackout of what's happening in america anytime soon overseas what what we have to worry about is You know a An absolutely insane Resurrection of the cold war which hillary absolutely wanted and which a lot of people on the left Are so unhinged that they would prefer a new cold war to having trump in office If that was their choice, they hate trump's guts so much and trump voters so much i might add That they'd rather resurrect the cold war. Okay, here's what matters not having a cold war with russia a country that is shrinking It's it isn't its borders are being imposed upon every day as this population shrinks. Okay Not putting any boots on the ground in syria. In fact getting the hell out of syria Finding out a way to get the hell out of iraq and afghanistan Okay, and then we can start criticizing trump for oh, gee But there were provisions in the tpp that we're going to reduce some terrified percent somewhere or something We which we don't even know You know so let let's let's get to basis for the justin ramondo points this out The fact that he is the first one to actually challenge the post world war two Call it cold war call it neocon domination foreign policy is a huge thing and we shouldn't sleep on the on the fact that it's huge Uh, let's see. What else do I want to hit here now since then I mean there is some weird saber rattling going on with china And then I'm told now I don't know if this happened because I haven't had time to check But there was talk of moving and it may have already been done the or the process started moving the us embassy in israel To jerusalem, which is something that even george w bush didn't do Because it's a very controversial move because you're staking a position on a contested issue So on the other hand jeff it has to be acknowledged that there's that yeah, there's there's no question You know trump didn't win By alarming apac right he didn't win by saying that we're going to radically change Our tone and tenor with respect to israel. He's not jimmy carter part two so so there's no question about that he played to the israel lobby and and I heard shan spicer yesterday backtracking already on that jerusalem gambit I might add I think that is is actually fraught with the kind of complexity and ambiguity that donald trump is not known for handling too well So look So so far from what I've heard. He's going to be a zealous pro-israel Guy, I mean, I don't know what else to say. I haven't heard him say anything That that sounds like he's going to ratchet that back. So You know, I'm not sure anybody at this point can be elected president in the u.s Without being sufficiently Open to what the israeli lobby wants You know look what ran paul had to do he had to go genuflect at the wall Just to prove that he wasn't his father, you know that that he wasn't some crazy isolationist like his father This is the world we live in Yeah, I mean I I understand that and that was what people said about rand and that's what they say about everybody But when you're a guy whose whole claim was I'm not owned by anybody or anything because I'm a billionaire So I can chart my own course Just seems like an odd course to chart Yeah, he's he's a billionaire, but he's not as powerful as we might imagine and that you know, thankfully so I think in a lot of ways presidents are not as powerful as we imagine and I think his his adversaries are going to prove that Very sure and the other thing here that we're missing Is that Intelligence communities have been challenged before by presidents and very bad things have happened all around them as a result I recently finished. I think I've read it twice Truman's memoirs now. He didn't do a biography. He sat down with somebody and sort of talked about his memoirs and There's some some disagreement over what he actually said about his regrets in creating the CIA He's purportedly said and it's written in this book That well, you know, I didn't realize it would become this agency unto itself And originally it was taking these briefings from all these different military agencies in the state department And consolidating them and combining them into one briefing for the president And I thought that would be a good thing every day And I never realized what a monster I created and if I could do it over again, I wouldn't have done it That's sort of the one version of history Another version is that Truman himself later on said, well, that's not exactly what I said and that wasn't transcribed Completely correctly, but I'll tell you what I bet you about 15 presidents since him wish the hell he'd never created it because It's just unbelievable their reach that that what they can reach out and touch they can touch the media They can touch your family. They can touch an event across the globe that creates a ripple effect So I'll tell you what 90% of the intelligence people don't come and go with a new administration He better be very very careful if he's smart. Well, let's see. We've we've covered. Okay. Let's let's end with this then We've talked a bit about where libertarians fit into all this and I'm I am I know it's a legitimate concern that I could get so Hung up on wanting to smash the left because they're such enemies of civilization That maybe I'll be honest. Maybe I become blind to problems on the other side So How do you recommend I maintain my sanity and my proper balance? I mean, you hear I mean, you understand When you see these these crazy marches with signs that make no sense My favorite was the I've said this on the episode the other day the one the sign about As a woman, I just hope one day to have as many rights as a gun You idiot you realize all the restrictions placed on guns I mean, you'd be like a woman in Saudi Arabia if you had the rights of guns. What are you talking about? The whole thing is so stupid and inane or there was a I think it was senator patty murray Who was grilling betsy devos for education secretary and she went on twitter and said I'm just so deeply concerned. By the way, that's my that's not my woman voice. That's my leftist voice I'm so deeply concerned that she supports groups that oppose women's health Oppose what does she support pro breast cancer groups? What what are you talking about? They can't just come out and say abortion They can't even talk Yeah, so, you know, you just it makes you crazy Well, I I think opposing the left is something that libertarians ought to be doing I don't think it puts you at risk of becoming a closet right winger. Here's why look, we know what our ideology is We have a very good sense whether you're sort of all the way down the path into roth barney and anarchism Or whether you're just sort of a gary johnson kind of guy who wants to scale back Some federal control over some things. We know what our ideology is. It's anti-state. It's pro-freedom It's very very simple and and we know the ethics behind it. We know the arguments about it. That's not What's it issue here? Nobody nobody's going to questions tom woods is ideology. What's it question is power and For all of our concerns about where the right is bad with militarism with with nation building You know, the left has all the power in this country and let's not kid ourselves Progressives run everything that trump election doesn't change that they control media They control k through 12. They control academia. They control corporate boardrooms in all the meaningful companies This is not even debatable. Okay, this is a progressive Progressive run country and and when I say run that doesn't mean they're the majority They have power wildly beyond their numbers I would venture that Maybe 20 percent of americans are really what we would call died in the wool Progressives who want to socialize things and you know kind of view the world as birdie or patty murray does But they have power wildly beyond that 20 percent if libertarians Had as much power per capita as progressives my god We why where's the libertarian million person march? On washington. Can you imagine? You know at the federal reserve at the eckles building? Uh, I I'd love to see that day But but look that your your instinct your impulse is right. The left is authoritarian The left is in charge. They had a hiccup. They had a roadblock with donald trump getting elected They don't control some state houses. I get it people don't don't accuse me of this But the in the long run they control things So what we have to do now is understand trump as a symptom of a pushback against this 100 years of progressive juggernaut Okay That's why there's a silver lining and we have to take that silver lining. Hopefully do something with it to say Hey, look, maybe You know, what's happening? Maybe europe europe's disintegration isn't inevitable Maybe they can go back to being healthy countries with healthy currencies. Maybe America's toxic politics isn't inevitable. Maybe we can go back to some slightly better version of federalism So no, I don't think you're crazy. I think you're right. I think that The the left in this country is right now It's worse than the right in the sense that not ideologically necessarily but in the sense that they've got the power You know, it's interesting. I when I I wanted to look up a couple things about the america first committee And what I found out interestingly is that because trump said america first Now There are websites like newsmax and daily caller Where now daily caller does have a variety of voices, but all the same It's not, you know, it's not tom woods dot com. You know, so To see those websites Defending the use of the america first slogan saying look at all these harmless people who were in the america first committee And they go on to list all these familiar people e e comings and all these people That wouldn't have happened under george w bush or barack obama Anybody mentioning america first would have been driven out of society But suddenly since these people want to curry favor, they're actually Despite themselves going to do some honest writing. So it's very that I thought that I thought that was very interesting to see Yeah, it is amazing. I don't think that they were Talking about america first when w was going into iraq, you know 15 years ago or whatever But look, it's it's a new world and we've got to seize the opportunities where we see them Well, unfortunately I'm just seeing that the us defense secretary has just reassured The his I guess british counterpart of the us's unshakable commitment to nato. So Yeah, this is what happens when I think I you know, trump has some okay instincts on certain things But because they're not backed by deep learning They're all over the place. They're unreliable. They change all the time. You don't know which one you're going to get So You know, there's more evidence of that. Well, maybe we should we got to talk more see you were skeptical about this But I said jeff I think At least for my part I just need to talk this through with somebody and you were the perfect somebody to talk this through with I knew you would be so I appreciate uh, you taking the time to do this with me today. Thanks a lot. Okay Subscribe to mesas weekends via itunes you stitcher and soundcloud or listen on mesas.org and youtube You