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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026

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I am too, in an ideal world, a Reaganite libertarian, but that almost feels like some quaint dream from a former life. It has little or nothing to do with the world as it now is. Do you think there can be a return to a politics with Reaganite libertarianism is successful? Is Reaganite libertarianism sustainable? Personally, my "black pill" was realizing that libertarianism really is only marginally more compatible with human nature than communism, albeit for different reasons. I could argue for Reaganite libertarianism, but it feels rather like trying to convince people to close the barn doors after the horse, pig, sheep, and even the donkey have already bolted, and the people I'm trying to convince are denying there was even a barn to begin with. We lost. Reaganite libertarians are like downed Japanese fighter pilots still fighting world war 2 into the 1970s. Condemning Trump for these actions feels merely philosophical, but it's all so obvious as to not be especially philosophically interesting. Of course it's stupid and wrong, and yet it's also necessary and inevitable.