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For a movie that’s reckoned to have cost about $150-million to make, Star Trek Beyond is unusually affectionate in referencing the 1960s TV show from which it’s descended. Here we have the crew of the USS Enterprise, stranded on a hostile planet, clambering around among fake boulders apparently mined from the same Styrofoam quarry of yore; and in at least one scene, there’s a background vista that seems to have been simply painted in (although no doubt digitally). Along with all the traditional rubbery aliens on view, these retro touches signal a sweet regard for the generations of fans who continue to revere the original, ultra-low-budget series, writes Kurt Loder.

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Donald Trump’s speech accepting the Republican nomination was easily the most overt display of authoritarian fear-mongering I can remember seeing in American politics. The entire speech was dark and dystopian, painting America as a dismal, dangerous place beset by violent outsiders. In response to the nation’s problems, Trump had only one solution: Donald Trump, the strongman who would take America back, by force if necessary.

Trump framed the speech by painting America as a nation under siege from urban crime, terrorism, and immigrants. He talked of rising homicide levels in some cities. He warned darkly of terrorist and immigrants, practically conflating them with urban violence, and told stories of Americans killed by those who had entered the country illegally. The simplest and more straightforward way to interpret Trump’s speech was as a warning that outsiders are coming to America to kill you and your family.

It was a relentlessly grim and gloomy picture of America, built on thinly disguised racial distrust and paranoia. It was a portrait that was also essentially false. Violent crime has been steadily falling for more than two decades. Immigrants are less prone to criminality than native-born Americans. 

But portraying America in such a dark light let Trump cast himself as the nation’s dark hero, a kind of billionaire-businessman fixer, unbound by rules or expectations of decorum—President Batman, the only one with the guts and the will to fight for the people.

Trump did not invoke superpowers, of course, but he might as well have; he had no other ideas or solutions to offer.

In addition to terrorism and criminality, Trump stoked anxiety about jobs and the economy, lamenting bad trade deals and the loss of manufacturing jobs. As president, he said, he would take our bad trade deals—especially NAFTA—and turn them into good ones. He did not say one word about how, or even what a “good” trade would look like, only that he would fix the problem. Trump promised to bring outsourced jobs back to America, and, as he has in the past, threatened unspecified “consequences” to companies that move operations overseas.

Trump’s entire speech was packed with threats and power grabs, details be damned. It was a speech about how government should be made bigger and stronger and given more authority over every part of American life, and government, in most cases, simply meant Donald Trump himself. It was an argument for unlimited government under a single man, for rule by Trump’s whim. He sounded less like he was running for president and more like he was campaigning to be an American despot.

Even when Trump veered into policy territory where there might be some overlap with those who favor free markets and limited government, he came across as shallow and unreliable.

He mentioned that his tax plan offered the largest tax cut of any candidate, for example, but said nothing about the mountain of new debt that plan would create. His plan to reduce burdensome regulations was not a plan at all, but two sentences of hollow assertion: “When we are going to deal with the issue of regulation, one of the greatest job-killers of them all. Excessive regulation is costing our country as much as $2 trillion a year, and we will end it very, very soon.” That’s it. That’s his plan. The whole thing. We will end it very, very soon—which, in this context, means I will end it very soon. Trump himself is the only solution that Trump knows. 

The hour and fifteen minute long speech was a tour de force of grandiose narcissism, a petulant demand to be placed in the most powerful office in the most powerful nation in the world. Thanks to the Republican party, which nominated him and gave him his platform last night, he is alarmingly close to achieving this goal. Trump is the threat, but the Republican party as an institution deserves nearly as much scorn as Trump for making this happen. The GOP has proved a willing vessel for his ambitions, a ready audience for his dark and troubling argument. 

The essence of that argument is that America is unsafe and decline, and that as a result it should be cut off from the world, plunged into fear, and managed by a simple-minded strongman who ego and bluster know no limits. This was the argument that Trump made last night. It is his pitch for the presidency. And it is a lie—a fictitious, nightmarish vision that a power-hungry narcissist invented for the purpose of acquiring power for himself by being elected president. That’s the all-too-possible nightmare that should terrify us most. 

Ted Cruz spoke at the Republican convention and urged delegates to vote their conscience. They booed him.

David Harsanyi writes:

Say what you will about Ted Cruz’s politics or personality, but it takes a special kind of chutzpah to stand up at a convention—in front of millions of viewers—and unfurl a comprehensive attack on the party’s nominee. It’s also unprecedented. On Wednesday night, Cruz gave a commanding and inclusive speech about conservative values. It was so good that the crowd forgot to boo until he was more than halfway finished.

“Stand and speak, and vote your conscience. Vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom… (so that) we will be able to say, ‘Freedom matters, and I was part of something beautiful.'”

All these words were broadsides against Donald Trump’s candidacy. By the end, the crowd tried to drown him out with boos and pro-Trump chants. Cruz’s wife had to be escorted out of the convention center because a mob of Trump fans was threatening her. A man in a donor suite had to be restrained when Cruz walked by. They didn’t want something beautiful at the Republican National Convention; they wanted something angry.

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Marco Rubio, who addressed the Republican National Convention via a recorded message on Wednesday night, came closer to endorsing Donald Trump than Ted Cruz did. But the Florida senator never explicitly told people they should vote for Trump, and his praise was limited to listing conservative positions Trump has taken. Rubio, who while running against Trump for the nomination called him a “fraud,” a “con artist,”  and “the most vulgar person ever to aspire to the presidency,” said not a word about any personal qualities the nominee might possess that would qualify him for the presidency. 

Rubio spoke for less than a minute and a half, and he spent the first 40 seconds trashing Hillary Clinton, culminating in a declaration that “Hillary Clinton does not have the honesty, the courage, or the independence to be the president we need for the next four years after the president we’ve had for the last eight.” To his credit, Rubio did not claim that Donald Trump does, although the audience might have thought that was where the speech was going. Instead Rubio immediately launched into a recitation of promises Trump has made:

But unlike Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump is committed to cut taxes, curb spending, and get our national debt under control. Unlike Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump takes seriously the threats from Islamic radicals and is committed to rebuilding our military. And unlike Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, he is committed to appointing constitutionalist judges who will respect the proper role of the judiciary.

In short, Clinton is too dishonest to be president, but Trump has said stuff conservatives like. You might wonder why voters should trust a “fraud” and a “con artist” to deliver on these promises. Rubio, who not long ago was warning that Trump’s nomination would “shatter and fracture the Republican Party and the conservative movement,” did nothing to alleviate such doubts, instead closing with this summation:

After a long and spirited primary, the time for fighting each other is over. It’s time to come together and fight for a new direction for America. It’s time to win in November.

Not “it’s time to elect Donald Trump president of the United States,” or even “it’s time to put a Republican in the White House.” Just “it’s time to win in November,” whatever that might mean to you. Rubio could be referring to retaining Republican control of Congress, or even a Thanksgiving trip to Vegas. It’s not quite “vote your conscience,” but it’s close.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Multicultural Student Center held separate meetings based on race to discuss issues regarding race, including the deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. The center held two meetings for white students and staff and two for students and staff of color.

CNN’s Dana Bash reported from the floor of the Republican National Convention (RNC) that a number of delegates (she didn’t name the state) were planning on endorsing Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson tonight.

Bash described her source as a Vice Chairman of the GOP in his state, and that he was almost shaking while telling her of the possible mutiny in the arena where Donald Trump would later give his acceptance speech. Thus far, it does not appear that a rogue group of Republican delegates in Cleveland’s Quicken Loans Arena has made a public pledge to vote for Johnson.

As convention attendees were filtering out of the arena, Reason asked a number of delegates from states whose delegations didn’t appear to be enthusiastically cheering Trump during the applause lines of his speech if they had any plans to endorse Johnson. Five delegates from Johnson’s home state of New Mexico (including current Lt. Gov. John Sanchez) all told Reason they were 100 percent in support of Trump and had no plans to vote Libertarian, as did a delegate from Ted Cruz’s home state of Texas. 

But two delegates from Utah admitted that their delegation is still “smarting” over the fact that they had pledged to vote for Cruz, but because the Republican National Committee would only record votes for candidates still officially running, all 40 of Utah’s votes became Trump votes. Utah delegate Brian Halliday told Reason they felt “disenfranchised from the Republican Party,” and also mentioned Cruz’s admonition from his Wednesday night speech at the RNC for Republicans to vote their conscience.

“I could consider voting Trump,” Halliday said, but he would also consider voting Johnson. “I’m not on the Trump train yet.”

Another Utah delegate, Bill Lee, told Reason, “We were elected to come here as Cruz delegates…and we’re still smarting a bit.” Lee also would not commit to voting for Trump, and voting Libertarian was something he would consider. Lee said that although he liked Trump’s speech he was skeptical on Trump’s ability to deliver on his promises. Lee was particularly concerned with Trump’s repeated rhetoric about “fixing” perceived issues.

“That means government is going to fix it,” Lee said. “When I hear ‘we’re going to get this done immediately,’ that usually means war to me, and those things rub me kind of funny.” Of the “law and order” part of Trump’s speech, Lee said “that sounds like a police state.” Lee added that he is unimpressed with calls for party unity, which he described as forced “group-think” and a demand to “kiss the ring.” 

“Not gonna happen,” Lee insists. 

Halliday and Lee aren’t the only distinguished Republicans from the Beehive State who refuse to commit to voting for Trump and haven’t ruled out voting for Johnson.

Earlier this week in Cleveland, Reason‘s Matt Welch spoke with Utah Sen. Mike Lee who said that Trump missed an opportunity to win over Utahans—who despite being solidly Republican voters for more than 50 years are essentially split down the middle between Trump and Hillary Clinton, according to present polling. Sen. Lee said Trump and the RNC should have allowed for a “open robust frank dialogue on the floor of the convention, rather than having that dialogue squelched before it even begins.”

When asked if he would consider voting for Gary Johnson, Sen. Lee said he has “never anticipated voting for anyone who is not a Republican, particularly in a presidential contest,” but that Trump “has yet to win me over.”

Lee added, “I’d love to be won over, and there are a whole lot of people like me who would like to be won over, but I’m not there yet.”

Donald Trump’s nomination acceptance speech tonight called for lowering taxes. He didn’t say which taxes or how much or anything concrete at all, because that’s just not how Trump rolls. He said “reducing taxes will cause new companies and new jobs to come running back to our country.” He also called for reducing regulations that cost the economy $2 trillion a year. Sounds great, right?

And then two paragraphs later we get this “solution” to get Americans working:

This new wealth will improve the quality of life for all Americans – We will build the roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, and the railways of tomorrow. This, in turn, will create millions more jobs.

The railways of tomorrow? Yes, if you weren’t aware, Trump is a fan of government pork projects, including high-speed rail. His position appears to essentially be based entirely on envy: He complained to The Guardian that China has high-speed trains and America doesn’t. That doesn’t actually mean America needs these trains. They are huge money sinks that pass money along to connected cronyist interests and labor groups, and there’s little to show that these trains would actually serve as economic engines.

In fact, evidence shows the exact opposite. As Matt Welch recently noted, California has been warned that a high-speed rail would require continued government subsidies and they’ve known this all along, despite telling the public it would be profitable. The Reason Foundation has been warning about this all along.

This is not to say there aren’t infrastructure development needs, but approaching it as a jobs program, the way Trump is here, is designed to create tons and tons of pork projects, with various interest groups jockeying for a hunk. This is essentially the opposite of Trump’s claims that he’s going to fight against special interests and the “rigged system.”

But I suspect that might be okay to many Trump supporters, particularly the unemployed ones. Elsewhere in his speech he bluntly acknowledged that he knew how to use “the system” and that’s why he could be the candidate to “fix” it. While he says it’s to make government more “fair,” it’s very clear that even under Trump, his idea of fairness would benefit certain groups of Americans over others.

And as we’ve seen in California, those who benefit from this pork are also going to see the costs bloat beyond what we’ve been sold. Taxpayers approved $10 billion to get the train started, but it’s going to cost $68 billion at the minimum and nobody wants to invest in it. It’s a boondoggle designed shovel money to connected people (as evidenced by the fact that it drifts into the middle of the state for no other reason other than to increase the length of it and the number of people who get to work on it).

And Gov. Jerry Brown, who loves this horrible train plan, loves these infrastructure plans the same way Trump does. Brown also envies how China has previously propped up its economy with corrupt infrastructure projects that blow money to create empty malls and ghost towns. It’s Keynesian economics at its most hollow and wasteful.  

Watch Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch LIVE discussing what happened at the GOP Convention.  Check it out here or at Facebook.

In the wake of the 2012 election, it seemed like there was no possible way for the Republican Party to further alienate the under-30 crowd, 60 percent of which voted for President Obama over Mitt Romney. But that was before the GOP added anti-porn language to its platform, doubled down on its dislike of gay people, turned against trade and immigration, and chose Donald Trump to lead it.

And make no mistake, Trump is uniquely unacceptable to young people—even ones who are otherwise part of the GOP.

“It seems like millennial Republicans support Trump to a lesser degree than the older members of the party,” said Nick Allman, a 23-year-old delegate to the Republican National Convention, in an interview with Reason. When asked whether he would vote for Trump in the general election, Allman said he wasn’t sure.

Pollster Frank Luntz hashed out the party’s millennial problem during a session at the RNC earlier this week. “We have lost [millennials],” he told delegates on Tuesday. “It’s not like we are losing. We have lost that generation.”

Luntz blamed far-left universities for indoctrinating young people.

“The fact that 58 percent [of millennials] say socialism is the better form of economics, that is the damage of academia,” said Luntz, according to The Hill.

Of course, it’s not actually true that most millennials support socialism (or even know what it is). A Harvard University poll found just the opposite: 59 percent said they did not support socialism. A 2014 Reason-Rupe poll of millennial attitudes discovered that 64 percent of young people preferred a free economy to a government-managed economy.

So perhaps the problem is not that young people are hostile toward free markets—perhaps the problem is that the Republican Party has embraced a candidate who is hostile to free markets: Donald Trump. It’s Trump who hates free market capitalism, not millennials. Luntz told his audience that students are learning about economics from professors whose views align with Bernie Sanders. That’s a bad thing, but it’s completely hypocritical for the GOP to treat it as such, since Trump himself agrees with Sanders on a host of economic issues. He mentions this at every opportunity in hopes of courting Sanders’ supporters. He made it clear once again during his convention speech Thursday night. He vowed to put an end to “job-killing trade dels.” In choosing Trump, Republican voters decided that the right person to head their ticket was the one candidate who could run to Hillary Clinton’s left on economics.

Young people have correctly balked at this choice. Emily Ekins, a research fellow at the Cato Institute, says that Trump badly underperformed with young voters during the primaries.

“Trump tended to perform on average about 9 points lower among young people compared to seniors,” wrote Ekins in an email to Reason. “Cruz did disproportionately better among young people by about 4 points and Rubio did disproportionately better among young people by about 5 points.”

If there’s a silver-lining for the GOP, it’s that the DNC has a similar problem. Young voters within the Democratic Party are also dissatisfied with their candidate. They wanted Bernie Sanders, they got Clinton—and older voters forced her on them.

But there are many young Democrats. There are few young Republicans, and there will be even fewer of them within a Republican Party headed by Trump. The millennials whose votes are up for grabs—those who self-identify as non-liberals—are actually most closely identified with libertarianism, a philosophy for which Trump is the antithesis.

It’s no wonder then that Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson is doing much, much better among millennials than Trump. Johnson actually draws more support from millennials than any other age group. Johnson is even competitive with Trump among all voters under the age of 45. He gets 20 percent of them, whereas Trump only gets 24.

The Libertarian Party has done what the Republican Party could not. It chose an experienced, likeable two-term governor who embodies fiscal responsibility and social tolerance. The Republican Party chose Trump. The Libertarians chose someone who doesn’t come across as regressive on nearly all fronts. The Republican Party chose Trump.

If there’s one exception to Trump’s awfulness, it’s that he’s arguably better on social issues than many in the GOP (I say arguably, since Trump’s actual beliefs are something of a mystery). But the party has corrected for that. The 2016 GOP platform isn’t as anti-gay as it was last election cycle—it’s more anti-gay. And it’s going to cost the Republicans, says Allman.

“I’ll be honest with you, that’s a big problem, that one piece of the platform,” said Allman. “It’s going to push many people away. Particularly young people.”

Trump surrogates know this is a losing battle, of course, which is why they have tried so forcefully to pivot on social issues. Milo Yiannopoulos, a gay millennial Trump supporter (they do exist—it’s a big country) and writer for Breitbart made the case that gays should desert the Democrats because they aren’t interested in protecting gay people from radical Islam. Yiannopoulos was the headline speaker at “Wake Up,” a gay conservative party on Tuesday, the purpose of which was to reinvent the GOP as the party that defends gay people’s lives (if not their civil rights).

It would be wrong to say that this pitch is completely ineffective. There are pockets of Trump-supporting young people on campus, where leftism is so powerful and oppressive that non-leftist students often make pro-Trump gestures to troll the tyrants. But it isn’t clear that the students writing “Trump 2016” in chalk all over campus are actually going to vote for Trump en masse.

Some will, of course. I spoke with one such person at Wake Up.

“I love Trump as a character, and I’m pulling for him in November,” said Hunter Swogger, a University of Michigan student. “I think he has a chance to be a disruptive force for good.”

Anti-Trump libertarians might even agree. In moving the GOP further away from the policy positions of the millennial generation, Trump has damaged the Republican Party’s chances of competing for their votes anytime in the near future—perhaps making the Libertarian Party the only serious competitor to the Democratic Party in the battle for the hearts and minds of the under-30 crowd.