These Days Before the Vote: "Individual Rights"
Whitewater, Wis. — This sunny and warm Friday afternoon 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.
For a libertarian (and some others not describing themselves as libertarian), the the first condition of a free society is respect for individual liberty. Some libertarians ground individual liberty in individual rights (as I do), while others justify it through a rules-based utilitarianism.
A rights-based view begins with the moral standing of each person. A conception grounded in general rules starts with the conditions under which people can live freely together. (A fuller consideration of the differences between these approaches can wait for another time. The different conceptions most often support the same practical conditions for society.) Both approaches, in any event, seek to show first how liberty is justified and thereafter how it is to be maintained.
For today: libertarians can agree that liberty (however justified) is the first and most fundamental principle of a free society.
This brings us to Donald Trump, whose authoritarian populist MAGA movement is the single greatest threat to freedom on this continent in our lifetimes. A fundamental, indispensable point (itself worthy of much greater discussion): it is logically impossible for a libertarian who, in fact, properly and correctly sees liberty as the first condition of a just political order to support Trump's political order. It happens too often that some of those who style themselves libertarians support his political order: they call themselves firefighters while supplying arsonists with gasoline.
A list of Trump's offenses against liberty could scarcely be exhaustive, as with each day he transgresses against individual rights at home (and, truly, abroad). I will list, apologetically for omitting so many others, only a few of his many assaults against liberty:
He obstructs the freedom to choose counsel and speak against the government. See Exec. Order No. 14,230, Addressing Risks from Perkins Coie LLP (Mar. 6, 2025).
He obstructs the right of individuals to criticize the government, twisting his own censorship into false claims of censorship by others. His accusations read like confessions — he embodies hypocrisy. See Presidential Memorandum, Addressing Risks from Chris Krebs and Government Censorship (Apr. 9, 2025).
He denies an individual's right — any individual's — to due process under law. He fabricates threats to justify his own threat to individual liberty. See Proclamation No. 10,903, Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of the United States by Tren de Aragua (Mar. 15, 2025).
He denies the individual rights of children, any children, including those born on our shores. What he claims to protect, he harms; what he claims to value, he debases. See Exec. Order No. 14,160, Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship (Jan. 20, 2025).
He denies individuals recognition of their personal identity and the equal treatment necessary to protect it. Trump by order schemes to render women subservient in the name of protection and to impose extremism when claiming to alleviate it. Trump lacks the knowledge and judgment to discern any measure of truth (biological or otherwise). See Exec. Order No. 14,168, Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government (Jan. 20, 2025).
He frees perpetrators of violence and insurrection from individual accountability and from punishments lawfully imposed and deserved. See Presidential Proclamation, Granting Pardons and Commutation of Sentences for Certain Offenses Relating to the Events at or Near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 (Jan. 20, 2025).
He orders the killing of foreign civilians at sea, without evidence of any crimes or threats against the people of the United States. His justification is no more than his own whim. See U.S. Southern Command, Lethal Kinetic Strikes, Feb. 16, 2026 (Feb. 17, 2026).
He has unleashed violent officers, little better in conduct than undisciplined paramilitaries, to kill our fellow citizens in our own streets. His administration has then obstructed investigations of the killings his own officials committed. See Hannah Schoenbaum, Trump Administration Stopped Sharing Evidence in Good and Pretti Killings, Minnesota Officials Say, Associated Press, October 22, 2026.
Any one of these assaults on individual rights would justify Trump's removal from office. All of them, and more, together make him the single greatest enemy of individual liberty in our lifetimes.
