These Days Before the Vote: Never Means Never
Whitewater, Wis. — Election Day here in rainy Wisconsin concludes 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 some of us, this day has taken far longer than a campaign season to arrive. We have been through many days, and many elections, over these last eleven years.
It has been 11 years, 4 months, and 19 days since Donald J. Trump first declared his candidacy for the presidency.
It has been 9 years, 11 months, and 26 days since Trump was first elected president with a minority of the popular vote but a majority of the electoral vote.
It has been 6 years since Joe Biden defeated Trump with a majority of the popular and electoral vote.
It has been 5 years, 9 months, and 28 days since Trump incited a violent insurrection to prevent the lawful counting of the states' electoral votes.
It has been 1 year, 11 months, and 29 days since Trump was elected again with a plurality of the popular vote and a majority of the electoral vote.
It has been 1 year, 9 months, and 14 days since Trump took office again. By the end of that Inauguration Day in 2025, Trump had already issued 30 executive orders or proclamations that abridged Americans' rights or otherwise disgraced our political tradition.
And here we are.
Those of us who have opposed Trump through all these years have not gone away.
Never Trump libertarians, of whom I am one, are only a small part of a much bigger coalition. Too many in the libertarian movement abandoned their principles and yielded to Trumpism. We of Never Trump are what's left of libertarianism. We have found our place with millions of others, from diverse backgrounds, in a grand coalition for liberty and equality.
Thankfully, along the way, so very many others have joined this grand coalition. As with all growing movements, the most recent to join are the most welcome of all — every new person advances the efforts of those who've come before.
I'll not offer election predictions today. The result is uncertain until the votes are counted.
Certainty, however, can be found elsewhere — that many millions of us will carry on, ordinary people one and all, committed to repairing and reconstructing our institutions, place by place.
The repair and reconstruction of America will be the repair and reconstruction of libertarianism, too.
