As a libertarian I used to be able to say "I'm culturally liberal and economically conservative." That doesn't seem to work any more on either side. Our mainstream cultural liberals and economic conservatives are ever less culturally or economically libertarian. The heuristic of minimizing the imposition of your will on other people has retreated with my hairline. Libertarian political relevence is asymptotically approaching that of the Bull Moose and Whig.
I guess it's a case of a scarcity of pacifists on a battle ground.
Libertarians were never pacifists as much as they were naively selfish, after all conservative economic policies were always about more for me, less for everyone else. This led to inequality and the rise of an oligarchy, the same one that's now beating the battle drums, destroying our democratic institutions, promoting political extremism and anti-intellectualism.
It's funny because totalitarianism will be the most probably outcome of this, and most libertarians still haven't realized that the authoritarians they keep electing will get them as well.
As someone from Europe I didn't want to become a libertarian until I am an disgruntled 80 year old that throws sticks of disapproval at children. I am far from being 80 but I already see the appeal.
I believe what is sold as culturally liberal is often anything but. It isn't a tolerant culture of letting people live like they want to without to much judgement, but modern "liberals" want to change beliefs and language of others and they try to proselytize like the church in former centuries. They want to form some perfect human being. Even some corporations have picked up this infantile paternalism. Of course this isn't really liberal, but it advertises itself as such. You really have to control yourself to not become reactionary towards their nagging, they seem to like that. They need their images of enemies.
I believe this actually makes the US so attractive for many. They have them too, but still seem to fare better. Of course these kind of liberals will never improve some of the issues with social systems in the US, but well, still better to have a choice.
As someone also from Europe in my experience it's the other way around, people move to Germany and Switzerland for their children to have a decent life, which in the United States is a luxury.
The liberals are not the ones in the United States destroying everything, always voting against anything that would make life better, including against veterans. The liberals are not the ones fighting against human rights, including reproductive rights and worker rights. The liberals are not the ones promoting conspiracy theories on a daily basis, suggesting authoritarianism and domestic terrorism as solutions. The liberals are not the ones in bed with the fossil fuel and tobacco industries, or Russia. The liberals are not the ones that keep supporting criminals like Trump, who just stole nuclear secrets and sold them to Saudi Arabia.
The documents were seized during the FBI's search, many of them were missing. The Trump family have very close ties to the Saudis. Saudi Arabia was his first international trip in his presidency. His son-in-law Jared Kushner have a close relationship with Mohammed bin Salman, and he kept sharing sensitive information with him, including at the time he was rounding up his rivals. According to the FBI Khusner knew about and approved the dismemberment of Khashoggi. Trump himself sold sensitive nuclear documents to the Saudis a few days after that happened in 2017. The Saudis gave $2 billion to Khusner's fledgling firm despite objections from the fund's advisers six months after Trump left the White House. Trump just hosted a Saudi-funded golf tournament.
I could go on and on, call me partisan, but Trump and Saudi Arabia, specifically MSB are joined at the hip. Khusner just got $2 billion for no reason right at the time Trump was in a position to sell them the stolen documents.
I guess it's a case of a scarcity of pacifists on a battle ground.