The problem isn’t Trump

Anti-Trump protesters took to the streets this week, revolting against the results of last week’s presidential election.
Immediately following Donald Trump’s victory, droves of frustrated Americans marched together across the country to demonstrate their disappointment. Some teachers even gave students permission to skip classes and midterms to join protests.
Many of the demonstrations remained peaceful, while some unfortunately devolved into chaotic riots. But don’t worry, “love Trumps hate” right?
To all those protesting the election, know this: President-elect Trump is not the problem. The office he will hold is the problem.
From a libertarian perspective, what should scare people more than a person like Trump having so much power is the fact that so much power exists in the first place.
Murray Rothbard, an Austrian economist and libertarian philosopher, provided a unique perspective.
Rothbard wrote that “the man who puts all the guns and all the decision-making power into the hands of the central government and then says, ‘Limit yourself’; it is he who is truly the impractical utopian.”
If the president didn’t possess such a wide array of powers, Trump wouldn’t be capable of accomplishing all the goals which leftists fear.
Yet for decades, leftists and conservatives alike have supported policies that expanded and centralized the federal government; together they passed laws that have propped up the same corrupt system that leftists now claim to protest against.
This is not to say that the concerns people have about a Trump presidency aren’t legitimate. However, those protesting the election don’t care about limiting the size and scope of government; they only care about putting someone else in charge.
As Lord Acton said, “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Tyler Grudi is a staff writer for the Bona Venture. His email is
gruditj15@bonaventure.edu