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Despite repeated warnings from legacy media, it seems xenophobia is breaking out as rapidly as the coronavirus. Anecdotal reports of Asians being denied Uber and Lyft rides are adding fog to an already uncertain situation, but there are clear lessons to be drawn for advocates of free market libertarianism.

The worldwide coronavirus figures as of Tuesday are 425 dead and 20,438 confirmed cases, mostly all in China. In the U.S., there are six cases in California, two in Illinois, and one in each of the following states: Arizona, Washington, and Massachusetts. No Americans have died so far.

Reading up on the latest, one cant ignore a couple of patterns in the media, and these patterns matter to how an open market functions.

First, many news reports often downplay the severity of the virus. Note that the media almost never calms down its audience when the subject is trivial political drama like impeachment, which has less bearing on the real world than a contagion of national and international proportions. The ploy in this instance is to compare coronavirus to seasonal influenza as if to shrug off the top global story.

The second pattern might help explain the first. It has to do with the perceived threat of rising racism and xenophobia, mostly emanating from the bat soup meme, which is based on a rumor of the viral breakouts origin. For example, Health.com ran with the headline No, Coronavirus Was Not Caused by Bat SoupBut Heres What Researchers Think May Be to Blame.

It turns out, however, that the scientific consensus isnt too far off from the internet meme. Researchers point to bats and/or snakes passing it on to humans, and both of those animals are sold in the notorious Wuhan wet market in China for human consumption.

Underlying both of these media narratives is the ever-present competition from alternative media outlets that are constantly under a barrage of censorship attacks from the elite social media platforms. Many of those alternative outlets are viewed and shared in libertarian or right-leaning networks, which are increasingly concerned with globalization and immigration.

It is plain to see that there is a business interest as well as a cultural or political one at play behind most media narratives. Thankfully, there are populist forces that will eventually put an end to this top-down manipulation of public information.

Now CNBC is reporting on Uber and Lyft drivers refusing or reluctantly accepting Asian passengers. Perhaps its ironic that the same article downplays the threat of the coronavirus but plays up the racial tensions without a second thought.

The medias phobia of xenophobia isnt genuine but instead serves as a bludgeon against any argument in favor of private property-based free market solutions. Why, if average people were left to their own devices, their ignorance and racism would doom us all, were told.

Of course, its the government (mis)management of public health responsibilities that lets things get this bad in the first place. On the other hand, the wet market in Wuhan, China must not be excused by libertarians. Bat soup might just be a bad idea, whether or not its regulated by a state.

A free market should be strengthened beyond simple atomistic individualism, by means of developing or rejuvenating civil institutional frameworks that help us protect and conserve our quality of life and societal cohesion.

Racism isnt what we should fear in letting loose hundreds of millions of Americans to make free choices. Rather, we should concern ourselves with disconnected, loyalty-free consumers who continue to lap up legacy media propaganda, because it happens to be offered at the lowest price.

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To Fear the Coronavirus, the Media, or Xenophobia? - The Liberator Online

Representative Tulsi Gabbard speaks during the New Hampshire Democratic Party State Convention. (Nic Antaya / The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

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Tulsi Gabbards political style has never fit neatly into any traditional partisan paradigm. Most of the coverage she receives from the corporate mediaher termis highly derogatory and dismissive, often dwelling on trivialities in an attempt to delegitimize her. But polls in New Hampshire, where she has focused her campaign, put her as high as 7 percentin contention with some of the supposedly leading candidates. So as a potential factor in the outcome of the primary here on February 11, it is worth taking a closer look at where her support is coming from.Ad Policy

Some of Gabbards most ardent volunteers throughout New Hampshire are self-described libertarians, which at first might seem incongruous. Gabbard advocates a variety of policy proposalslike a form of single-payer health care and a ban on fossil fuelsthat plainly contravene the libertarian philosophy of little or no government intervention in the economic marketplace.

But in my travels across the state (I have covered her here daily for over a month), many of these libertarians told me that they are drawn to Gabbard because they agree with her as a matter of emphasisthat she has made fundamentally transforming US foreign policy her central campaign themeand whatever philosophical disagreements they might have on domestic issues are of lesser importance. Some have even come around to the notion of a government-administered universal health care program on the grounds that if the United States is going to be making such massive expenditures anyway, instead of wasting money on endless overseas conflict, why not redirect those resources toward something that is actually socially beneficial?

As Gabbard put it to me, this reflects her ability to reframe the conversation outside the institutional constructs that usually shape what people think is achievable. Other candidates like Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar routinely invoke their intention to work across the aisle. But fundamentally, they are all operating from within the same outmoded paradigm, where bipartisanship typically means splitting the difference between how many bombs you drop, or which social welfare programs you cut.

Gabbard also invokes the need to cultivate trans-partisan cooperation, but hers is a different paradigmcentered on her belief that upending the current foreign policy consensus must be any presidents first priority. And indeed, skepticism of US foreign policy is a cross-cutting ideological phenomenon, which explains why Gabbards events across the state draw such an idiosyncratic coterie of supporters: everyone from antiwar peaceniks who idolize Noam Chomsky, to erstwhile Trump supporters who say she is the only Democrat theyd ever consider voting for, to lifelong standard-fare liberals who simply believe she has the right personal characteristics to defeat Trump.Related Article

Its certainly an unusual confluence. But it shows how making foreign policy her foremost, animating themean anomaly in the recent history of US presidential campaignscan change the axis around which politics is normally framed. When politicians are able to make arguments that have resonance across the partisan spectrum, that ability is usually lauded as a valuable political asset. But with Gabbard, the prevailing media depiction is highly scornful; her motives are often depicted as sinister or mysterious. Of course, there are any number of legitimate criticisms one might make of Gabbard. With their condescending derision, though, corporate media merely reveals that it lacks the vocabulary to characterize a candidate whose message transcends ordinary political boundaries.

For instance, while Gabbard clearly recognizes that compromises are often necessary over the course of a legislative process, she draws different lines of demarcation as to which compromises are tolerable. Unlike other candidates, she is not going to compromise with defense industry lobbyists to enact whatever their favored regime change project might be on a given daywhile at the same time insisting that she will treat everyone, even the most unreconstructed war hawks, with basic human decency. Respect does not equate to compliance, she told me.Current Issue

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Gabbards most committed supporters tend to be heterodox left-leaning voters, but part of the reason she has drawn support from a notable constituency of libertarians and conservatives is her distinctive personality, shaped by her immersion in the culture of the US militaryin many ways a fundamentally conservative (and male-dominated) institution. She does not traffic in cheap anti-Trump insults, nor does she have much patience for the culture-war theatrics favored by many of Trumps more excitable opponents.

New Hampshire state Representative Werner Horn, a staunch Trump backer who attended one of Gabbards recent town hall events, told me he thinks she would be the most dangerous candidate against Trump because she doesnt buy into his toxic roadshow.

This doesnt mean Gabbard goes easy on Trumpshe calls for his defeat just about every daybut her approach to criticizing Trump differs from the typical Democrats in a way that even many Trump voters find appealing. As Trump abandons his campaign promise to stop squandering resources on needless wars (and starts new conflicts in the Middle East) Gabbard has unique standing to draw attention to those failures without being accused of operating merely as a knee-jerk anti-Trump partisan.

That same mindset has left Gabbard the only remaining Democratic candidate not to be implicated in the futile impeachment melodramawhich this week ended in predictable failure. By voting present on the articles of impeachment in December, Gabbard set herself apart from the whole American political landscape. Her rationale for that vote was explicitly not to absolve Trump of culpability for his many acts of wrongdoing. Rather, it was a repudiation both of Trumpwhose most severe misconduct, like illegally committing acts of war, was nowhere to be found in the impeachment articlesand of a fatally flawed process that relied on dangerous assumptions in the realm of foreign policy.

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A vote in favor of the impeachment articles would have directly contradicted Gabbards core campaign themes. She elaborated on this a recent event in Manchester, expressing alarm that a principal element of Democrats impeachment case entailed elevating permanent national security state officials like Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and diplomat George Kentthe very sort of people Gabbard is running to dislodge from poweras the guardians of whats been described by Representative Adam Schiff and other impeachment managers as official US policy.

Those statements in those hearings really took me aback, Gabbard said at the Manchester event. Because they were coming from people whomany of them were decades-long bureaucrats serving in the State Departmentwho were basically saying they were the leaders of our countrys US foreign policy, not the president of the United States.

In other words, as much as Gabbard objects to Trumps conduct of foreign policy, the proper recourse in her mind is to vote him out of officenot establish a precedent whereby unelected security state functionaries are permitted to seize quasi-autonomous authority over official policymaking from a democratically elected president.

Gabbard gained a national profile in 2016 for resigning from the Democratic National Committee to endorse Bernie Sanders; she then became one of his most prominent surrogates and was chosen to enter his name into nomination at that years convention. In recent weeks, Gabbard has continued to come to Bernies defense: countering the allegations of his purported sexism made by Elizabeth Warren, visiting one of his New Hampshire field offices, and even using the #ILikeBernie Twitter hashtag.

As Gabbard campaigns in New Hampshire, she has touched on themes that would customarily find resonance on the leftcondemning what she describes as Israels continued illegal occupation of Palestine, for example, as well as the imperialistic mindset of the Washington political classbut detractors allege (with some justification) a certain tension in her outlook. For instance, it is true that Gabbard, the first Hindu ever elected to Congress, has taken a conciliatory posture toward a number of ignominious foreign leadersnamely Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as well as Syrias Bashar al-Assad. But often ignored is that Gabbard has also made a point to meet with opposition figures in both India and Syria, born of her conviction that diplomatic engagement requires meeting everyone, without preconditions, as a necessary prerequisite to shifting US foreign policy away from fruitless interventionism. (Hence, she was the first candidate to denounce the Trump administrations regime change gambit in Venezuela, and is the only candidate besides Sanders to label the ousting of Evo Morales in Bolivia a coup.)

In my observations, Gabbards rhetoric does not materially change depending on the person shes talking to or the platform shes speaking on. Critics often complain about her frequent appearances on Fox News, but overlook that she says much the same thing in that venue as she does on left-wing independent media. (And she attracted the ire of the Republican National Committee for condemning Trumps assassination of Qassim Suleimani on Fox News last month). Her logic of broad-based engagement even resulted in Gabbards meeting with Trump himself, shortly after the 2016 election, to discuss foreign policy. She said at the time that the purpose of the meeting was to dissuade him from filling his cabinet with neoconservative warmongers. Now that Trump has done just that, she again has unique standing to call him to account.

The same pattern applies to her impeachment position. In declining to echo the standard Democratic talking points on the subjectshe has repeatedly said that a shortsighted impeachment would only embolden Trump, making it more likely that hes reelectedGabbard is singularly positioned to detach herself from the political fallout in the aftermath of Trumps acquittal. She may still not be electable in the way pundits usually understand the term. But we have already seen the definition change to accommodate a black president, female candidatesand now even a socialist. Perhaps the pundits will be proven wrong again.

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Tulsi Gabbard in New Hampshire - The Nation

The Democratic National Committee once more does not want to let the people decide who the nominee should be. Politico recently reported that a small group of its members is seeking ways to weaken Bernie SandersBernie SandersButtigieg surges in poll ahead of New Hampshire primary Buttigieg: It was 'disgraceful' to hear Trump's attacks on Romney House approves pro-union labor bill MORE and his campaign. They may have their reasons, as he is an independent and does not fully represent their principles. Republicans are hoping that he is the Democratic nominee, as many of them believe that his policies, most notably Medicare for All, will ensure victory for President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump discusses coronavirus with China's Xi El Paso Walmart shooting suspect charged under federal hate crime law Buttigieg: It was 'disgraceful' to hear Trump's attacks on Romney MORE.

Unfortunately, I would have to agree. If all this was not enough, the Iowa caucuses this week were completely disastrous. This meltdown has been the third consecutive presidential election cycle during which there have been problems with the Iowa caucuses, raising serious questions about the integrity of the results in the state. This is all because Iowa Democrats wanted a new app. Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom PerezThomas Edward PerezClintons top five vice presidential picks Government social programs: Triumph of hope over evidence Labors 'wasteful spending and mismanagement at Workers Comp MORE today finally called on the Iowa Democratic Party to recanvass the vote.

Parenthetically, this speaks to the issues of technology within our society. While technology has created so much good across the world, it has also contributed to the breakdown of civic communication. People are more likely to attack someone that they cannot personally see. Some of the first philosophers argued that a function of rhetoric is to bring us together and create a common polity in which we can make critical decisions together.

Democratic leaders, some of whom have previously questioned whether a more diverse state should host the first contest in the country, were also criticizing the Iowa caucuses. Fundamentally, this leads me to ask, what is wrong with the Democratic Party? I ask not because I am championing the Republican Party, but because at present it seems the Democrats are the only hope for establishing some semblance of respectable governance.

These last three days have been a huge wakeup call for Democrats. The State of the Union address, despite the egregious lies Trump told, was a strong speech not only for his base, but also for some African Americans and Latinos. The president artfully managed the politics of race. Trump mentioned proposed legislation regarding sanctuary cities, even though libertarian Cato Institute found that native born residents are more likely to be convicted of a crime than illegal immigrants in the state of Texas.

This speech is a warning to Democrats. On an emotional level, African Americans and Latinos may not like his behavior and rhetoric. However, his acknowledgement of African Americans and Latinos, and his mention of school choice, opportunity zones, criminal justice reform, historically black colleges, the strong economy, and low unemployment are enough to move some African Americans to pick him at the ballot box this fall.

If Trump can chip away five points of the black vote from Democrats, that is far more important than five points of the Hispanic vote in terms of the Electoral College. If Trump wins five points more of the black vote than he did in 2016, it would be enough to win the Electoral College again. Voters who dislike Trump should not solely focus on the popular vote. It is also about the Electoral College, like when he beat Hillary Clinton last time.

The State of the Union serves a major warning to Democrats, and so does everything from the Iowa caucuses to Trump delivering a good show in his address and getting acquitted by the Senate this week. If Democrats are not careful, Trump will be reelected. It is time for them to wake up.

Quardricos Driskell is a federal lobbyist and professor of politics with the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management.

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Democrats need to wake up | TheHill - The Hill

President Donald Trump delivers his State of the Union address at the Capitol, in Washington D.C. , Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2020. (Doug Mills/Pool via Reuters)They will make it more difficult for people to believe that any of their future opposition to Trump is rooted in research, principle, or legitimate consideration, even if it really is.

The most talked-about moment of President Trumps State of the Union address on Tuesday was probably House speaker Nancy Pelosi ripping up the speech on-camera after it had ended.

It was, truly, a bizarre moment. I myself have appeared on countless panels alongside people with whom Ive disagreed, at times even vehemently and yet, the thought of closing out those segments by grabbing their notes and ripping them up has never even crossed my mind. After all, I have always preferred to express my disagreement using counterarguments, finding them much more effective than temper tantrums.

The truth is though, that Pelosis speech-shredding was just one of many instances of Democrats using the SOTU to display their all-consuming hatred of Trump.

Im not, of course, saying that Trumps speech was perfect. In fact, it included several things such as his touting the importance of a wall along the Mexican border that had me shaking my head in disagreement on my couch. Its not the first time Ive disagreed with him, either. In fact, I didnt vote for him in the last election, and I wont vote for him in the next one. (Every time Ive voted, Ive always voted strictly libertarian writing in my cats name when theres no libertarian option.)

Despite this, though, there were certainly some things in Trumps speech that I supported. Moreover, some of them (such as him referencing low unemployment and honoring Tuskegee Airman Charles McGee and his grandson) seemed too objectively support-worthy to be controversial.

They seemed that way but apparently, they werent.

See, when Trump was celebrating the good economy, and lawmakers got up to cheer it, many Democrats (such as House impeachment managers Jerry Nadler and Adam Schiff) remained seated. Even more shockingly, Democratic representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib refused to join their fellow lawmakers in standing and cheering for McGee and his service.

Clearly, their most important goal on Tuesday night was to show that they hate Trump and to steer clear of doing anything that could look even remotely like they were supporting him. Thats their choice and their right, but they really should ask themselves: At what cost am I doing this? And is it worth it?

The reality is that refusing to celebrate objectively good developments (such as low black unemployment and fewer opiate deaths) and noble deeds (such as risking your life to serve your country) puts you in a position to risk offending the associated groups such as black Americans who are doing better financially than in the past, people with family members who have struggled with drug addiction, and veterans.

Whats more, you also risk looking like you care more about racking up burn-points in a political feud than you do about the welfare of the country. Youre showing that you cant celebrate good things, just because those things happened during the tenure of a president you cant stand.

Unfortunately for them, these lawmakers behavior ultimately hurts their own credibility more than anything else. A common Republican talking point, after all, is that Democrats objections to Trumps policies and presidency boil down to nothing more than Trump Derangement Syndrome. Think about it: Refusing to join in on honoring someone who risked his life for your freedom, just because Trump is the one prompting you to do so, sends the message that youll never be happy with anything that Trump says or does, strictly because Trump is the one saying or doing it.

The problem here is that youll make it more difficult for people to believe that any of your future opposition to Trump is rooted in research, principle, or legitimate consideration, even if it really is. Like it or not, youre making it harder for people to believe that youre ever objecting for any good reason because you have already shown them that youll still object without one.

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SOTU: Someone Should Tell Dems They Can Hate Trump and Support Veterans - National Review

By Bryan McCarthy & Jon Ungerland

These are, as nearly everyone has said, strange (or interesting or scary or tribal) times. Far from the initial vision of a functional Union, all-consuming discord and fracturing have become our everyday. We are screeching at each other. Climate Change. Russia. The Wall. Immigration. Abortion. Guns. Race. Gender. Speech.

Perhaps most startling and suggestive of our disintegration, we are at war over our president in a historically unprecedented way.

As a result of the bickering, each of us (regardless of which side we take in any of these battles) fosters a mindset in which autocracy or totalitarianism is just a little less repulsive than usual. Of course, no one describes their own evolving predilections this way (okay, someone on some comment thread somewhere probably does).

But while we may not feel this about ourselves, we are so apt to believe it of our opponents that the relevant headlines have come to acquire the gently tedious stench of political clich: The Right wanted a strong man to fix all their problems and embraced autocracy (see here and here); the totalitarian Left is trying to force their social justice agenda on everyone else (see here and here). And the rhetoric shows no sign of abating.

Rather than mount a defense against one or the other of these positions, however, let us for a moment assume that each of them contains a kernel of truth. Autocracy and totalitarianism are efficient, after all. So efficient, in fact, that it can be hard to detect their beginnings before they have become unstoppable.

In times of turmoil, terror, and threat (which many argue we have inhabited since 2001), having to run the plan by other people slows down the process of accomplishing stated aims, e.g. security on the Right and progress on the Left. In a time of stalemate and division, a little good, old-fashioned realpolitik feels like a welcome change of pace. But, in the depths of our minds and at the core of our being as a historically free people, we know this train is hard to stop once it leaves the station, and is neither democratic nor republican. Naturally (and rightly), we bristle when we see the other side jump aboard.

Here is the grand lesson of our zeitgeist: If America cannot get its act together and, like successful spouses or partners who do not quite see eye to eye, proffer a united front and vision for the benefit of a unified and peace-filled household, no one is going to enjoy or thrive through the results.

When Abraham Lincoln told his party that a house divided against itself cannot stand, he did not expect the country to fall, just that slavery would become uniformly lawful or uniformly lawless. Those, too, were strange times. So, maybe a similar outcome will prevail in our own day. One side of American party politics really could emerge as being right about a given issue, bringing opponents on board over time.

But this is far from obvious. Exactly no one is expecting Mericans or Deplorables to become Woke or SJWs, or vice versa, not to mention what happens with the host of other political agendas on offer.

Besides, the Civil War situation enjoyed a distinct technological advantage over us: They did not suffer the infection of social media. Along with its host of benefits, this innovation wreaks a twofold political catastrophe. For one, it obscures the fact that the political extremes have more in common with each other than either of them has with sensible and benevolent policy. And two, it makes scattered and fringe ideologues feel like a movement, when they would otherwise fade into the obscurity appropriate to their actual numbers relative to the rest of society.

All of this means that todays Union really could fall. At which point there will be plenty of bad actors only too happy to step in and undo or otherwise ruin what many of us have fought to protect and all of us cherish.

The Union needs a truly unifying solution appropriate to our modern moment. And, humbly, we offer a proven mechanism: The Constitution. This itself has become a rhetorically divisive topic in our time. However, here are three reasons you should take it seriously this election:

1. The Constitution is progressive (and, thus, anti-reactionary): Although it may seem counter-intuitive, the Constitution is a social justice document. In principle, Article V allows us to codify whatever rights we desire, so long as there are enough of us who think it is a good idea. Of course, in practice, rights are usually delineated anew by the courts or one of the various law-making agencies, in line with contemporary interpretation of how the Constitution describes the function of the governments branches.

In both of these ways, however, the document outlines a system that permits its own evolution to suit the will of the people, a radically self-directed process relative to the global landscape of political systems. If progressives want a system of social justice like socialism, they can have it. However, because it must suit all citizens of the union, protected under the rights afforded by the Constitution, any American socialism will inherently be a republican socialism. This brings us to the second reason.

2. The Constitution is conservative (and, thus, anti-radical): While the first reason demonstrates how the Constitution appeals to the progressive approach, this second reality accords with conservative thinking. It is true that the Constitution is nimble enough to allow for some socialist progress, but since it also ensures a republican character for that socialism, it will not be a European or Venezuelan socialism but a socialism of our own republic, shaped by American values. In particular, it will be forged within the framework of debate and consent amongst the three branches of government and fifty states of the union. Thus, we are faced with an either/or: We can uphold the Constitution, which only permits a republican variety of socialism, or we can continue to chisel away at the authority of this fundamental structuring, inviting a totalitarian variety instead. Which signals the final reason.

3. The Constitution is anti-autocratic and anti-totalitarian: Implied by the first two reasons is a third that is in step with both progressives and conservatives as well as libertarians, and all other political groups willing to compromise. The Constitutions balance of powers is specifically designed to prevent the viral spread of authoritarianism and totalitarianism across the body politic. Thus, for all the progressives worried about the possibility of President Trumps inaugurating an autocratic future and all the conservatives and libertarians worried about the totalitarian Left creating a Brave New World for everyone else, we can be no safer than to bolster the Constitution as an enduringly successful vaccine, as it prevents both dangers.

So, we implore you, the next time you read that another state has applied to have a Constitutional Convention to move the documents chess pieces around (looking at you, red states), or you read another damn liberalsaying we should ditch the whole thing or punch holes all through it, ask yourself:

Who gets to decide which chess pieces get moved and where they go?

What do we get instead of the Constitution, or where and how many holes get punched in it?

Who keeps the lawyers and financial backers of whatever group you hate from answering those questions for you?

If we do end up with real autocracy or totalitarianism, who prevents it from enforcing values that none of us wants?

And who ensures that the military we have is still poised to pounce on whatever foreign power you think most threatens our sovereignty during this period of pick-up-sticks with the rules that prop up our republic?

Fact is, the answer to any of the above is not likely to be you or your side. History is a body count of evidence showing that, regardless of which group has the more righteous approach to American politics, it will have a Leviathan adversary in any force that does not care about the good and, with a newly jettisoned Constitution, wields the power to effect unspeakable tyranny.

A modest proposal:This election season (and every one going forward), dance with the one who brung ya. Amend it if you must, but, as a force that is both progressive and conservative but neither radical nor reactionary, the Constitution is our only hope against the seductiveness of its very real and dark alternative.

Bryan McCarthy is an educator, philosopher, and storyteller. He teaches at the University of Pittsburgh, Greensburg, where he cheerfully flouts Ockhams Razor in hopes of demonstrating the truth and inspirational value of the counterintuitive. He can sometimes be found marvelling at wild fungi in the forest.

Jon Ungerland is an entrepreneur committed to flourishing local economies and democratic access to financial services; hes a passionate practical philosopher, accomplished business and management consultant, pioneering technologist, and a staunch libertarian (who somehow stumbled into and survived the Ivy League).

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Opinion: Founding Father Wokeness and Socialism for Republicans - The Libertarian Republic