These Days Before the Vote: A Spontaneous and Dynamic Social Order
Whitewater, Wis. — This warm Wednesday evening in Wisconsin continues These Days Before the Vote, a series addressing, each day before the November election, a principle or position on which our liberal democratic tradition rests.
Libertarians are believers in a spontaneous and dynamic social order, where people form intricate social arrangements without the need for a central organizing power. We don't think a spontaneous social order exists because we believe in one — we believe in a spontaneous order because we know it exists. Ferguson was right about this (if later wrong about the American Revolution):
Every step and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termed enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future; and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design....it may with more reason be affirmed of communities, that they admit of the greatest revolutions where no change is intended, and that the most refined politicians do not always know whither they are leading the state by their projects.
See Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society pt. III, § II (1767).
Trump, by contrast, inserts himself with overbearing political authority to impede and disrupt the private and lawful social arrangements of our people.
Through his obliging FCC chairman, Trump has ordered early review of ABC's broadcast licenses. This FCC action followed Trump's thin-skinned reaction to a comedian's joke; ABC rightly contends that federal action chills speech. See Michael Kumzelman, Jocelyn Noveck, and Rebecca Boone, ABC and Trump’s FCC battle in federal court over issues of free speech and jurisdiction, Associated Press, October 6, 2026.
Trump first sought to restrict performances at the renowned Kennedy Center (and has now closed the institution): "He also indicated that he would be dictating programming at one of the nation’s premier cultural institutions, specifically declaring that he would end events featuring performers in drag." Why should Trump, or any president, decide what willing artists and audiences may present at a cultural venue? See Will Weissert, Trump says he’s firing Kennedy Center board of trustees members and naming himself chairman, Associated Press, February 8, 2025.
Trump has further sought an ideological overhaul — by imposing his ideology — on the Smithsonian. He has ordered officials to seek removal of what his administration calls improper ideology from museums and related institutions. See Exec. Order No. 14,253, Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History (Mar. 27, 2025). (That Trump positions himself as the advocate of truth and sanity is best understood as a claim neither true nor sane.)
He has sought to punish students for lawful speech, and directed immigration enforcement to impose his will:
Tufts University PhD student Rümeysa Öztürk had her student visa revoked and was snatched off the streets of Somerville by immigration agents last March because of speech.
If there were any lingering questions about whether Öztürk committed any wrongdoing, they were put to rest by documents unsealed last week in US District Court in Boston.
Her sole offense, the documents reveal, was to commit free speech — in a country with a constitutional right to free speech enshrined in the First Amendment. It’s the latest travesty by a Trump administration that’s shown blatant disregard for the rights of Americans and non-Americans.
If, because of the experiences of Öztürk and others like her, international students fear to speak their minds and contradict the government — or simply choose not to study here at all — our campuses will be poorer for it.
See Editorial Roundup: United States, Associated Press, February 3, 2026 (of a Boston Globe editorial).
Trump has targeted law firms for their private work and associations. See Exec. Order, Addressing Risks from Perkins Coie LLP (Mar. 6, 2025).
Supportive of Trump, and at his encouragement, the MAGA authoritarian populist movement has organized campaigns to remove books from schools and public libraries. See Censorship by the Numbers: Banned Books Data, American Library Association.
The MAGA movement screeches a relentless cacophony of demands that others, perceived as enemies, must retreat from the public space. MAGA is a movement of racial hierarchies, closet-confining, and book-banning.
MAGA is a movement begun and sustained by one man. That man, Donald Trump, is unfit to serve in any public position in this society.
