I am a classical liberal. Our country was founded and has prospered on the proposition “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” We jealously guard our individual liberty. We are free to decide what we want to do and how we want to do it. This liberty is subject to two major conditions: we must live with the consequences of our choices and actions, and our actions cannot interfere with the same exercise of freedom by others.
When in 1964, at the age of 21, I voted for the first time, I was thrilled to vote for Barry Goldwater. His “Conscience of a Conservative” more or less defined my political philosophy. Ronald Reagan’s presidency that came a few years later reflected the Republican Party I believed in and supported.
When Donald Trump changed his party registration from Democrat to Republican in Sept. 2009 and was first elected President in Nov. 2016, the Republican Party I had belonged to quickly became something quite different from the one I had always supported. President Trump, an egotistical, corrupt bully, enlarged executive power freely violating norms and laws with no pushback from the Republicans in Congress. Trump unilaterally imposed tariffs indiscriminately, joined Israel in a war against Iran (after he had earlier withdrawn from the Iran deal that was preventing it from building a bomb), helped fund and arm Israel’s genocide in Gaza, imposed 43 trade deals that gave shares of American companies to the federal government, sharply reduced legal immigration despite a labor shortage, misused the Dept. of Justice and the withholding of funds to punish “his enemies,” closed the Kennedy Center when the courts wouldn’t let him put his name on it, etc. My Republican Party no longer existed. The separation of powers that our founders had wisely put in our constitution now rested only on the courts, which fortunately were doing their jobs most of the time. https://wcoats.blog/2026/04/20/trumps-record-so-far/
First-term Trump official Miles Taylor enumerated Trump atrocities as: “In less than two years, he’s nearly destroyed the U.S. Constitution. He ignored laws passed by Congress by the dozen… took a wrecking ball to agencies he had no legal authority to delete… purged the civil service… fired the watchdogs… remade the Justice Department into an instrument of revenge… ordered the prosecution of his critics by name… thumbed his nose at the courts… put troops on the streets… sent masked agents to kidnap people in the night… shipped them to foreign prisons without hearings… teased the suspension of habeas corpus rights and the invocation of the Insurrection Act… sued newspapers and threatened broadcast networks… arrested journalists… extorted law firms and universities… jailed students for what they said… and tried to literally rewrite parts of the Constitution by executive order.”
What was I and the country to do? I continued to vote for libertarian candidates, of course, but a few days ago large majorities of American voters threw out the hapless Republicans, giving Democrats a majority in both Houses of Congress. Trump’s lawlessness and bullying can now more easily be stopped. I am very relieved by this development. Trump could brag no more about sweeping into office with a huge majority (he actually received only 49.8% of the popular vote for his second term).
My friend Robert Calderisi recently wrote that: “Another almost-too-saintly candidate, James Talarico, was asked whether he loved his opponent— the loathsome attorney-general of Texas impeached by his own party several years ago for corruption— and he said, ‘We are both children of God, so he is my brother, but with love comes accountability, as with a family member who wants to drive under the influence and you are obliged not to give him the keys to the car.’”
The new Congress can begin by rebuilding trust in our government. It can subpoena Trump and his officials to explain seemingly self-serving deals and disregard for the law. It can require greater transparency for government actions such as the firing of at least seventeen Inspector Generals and many top military officers all without explanation. https://wcoats.blog/2026/08/19/where-is-trump-going/
But I am a classical liberal, a traditional pre-Trump Republican. I do not like many of the policies Democrats often propose. So, it is time to shift gears and remake the case for a strong and efficient but quite limited government that will effectively defend America and my personal rights. Rather than damning our opponents as evil enemies, we must again engage them in debate over how best to establish the rules governing our interactions with our neighbors and countrymen, and fellow citizens of the world.
