Uper-case Libertarianism, i.e. how most people mean it in the US, yes. But lower-case libertarianism is a line of serious political thought going back a couple hundred years with roots in both capitalism and socialism, drawing on ideas from thinkers as diverse as Thomas Paine and Karl Marx. On the other end of the libertarian spectrum from anarcho-capitalism is left-libertarianism, anti-authoritarian socialism and non-state socialism. Unfortunately, most people, and especially most of the people in the Libertarian tent, don’t know anything about the history they’ve co-opted to rationalize their own ill-thought-out political platforms. Nor do most other Americans know much about the history of political philosophy, as it’s seen as the preserve of a handful of wonks and historians, and it’s doing well just to get them to vote in current elections let alone think about history.
I never considered myself a Libertarian, and I was even pretty ambivalent about identifying as libertarian, but explaining the difference was a losing battle, so I gave up. Sometimes a word can become more a source of confusion than description.
All of which I support, or at least find intriguing conceptually. But, yes, for the very reasons you outline, trying to have an honest and earnest discussion on those topics in online spaces typically results either in various types of libertarian-capitalists intruding and taking over the conversation, or people misidentifying the discussion as being about, well, Libertarianism, 'Merica-style! 
On a side note, one question that I love to pose to Libertarian-capitalists (especially Anarcho-Capitalists) is “how do you plan to compensate for unregulated capitalism’s tendency towards reinforcing the so-called Iron Law Of Oligarchy?” I’ve yet to get an answer that wasn’t basically special-pleading-style religious faith in the Powers Of The Free Market.
Reagan was a cardboard phony. To him, the Presidency was nothing but another acting job. His function was to distract the American public and keep them soothed with meaningless but pithy-sounding homilies while his corporate puppet masters dismantled the Federal regulatory system so they could cheapen their product while raising prices, and raped the Treasury seven ways from Sunday.
It was Reagan’s success that decided the Rebulicans to keep going with the strategy they have followed ever since - run a clueless chump, and sell him to the “useful idiots” among the voters on the basis that he doesn’t know anything about how to run a big government. Their whole strategy since Regan has been “you should vote for this guy because he’s like you - he’s a gormless halfwit too.” Ronnie Raygun was just the proof of concept of a political trend that I thought reached the bottom of the curve with Sarah Palin but in fact has dived even deeper into the slime with Donald Trump - pandering to the least educated, least intelligent, most reactionary, most hateful, least cultured, most likely to become violent, because they will put the most time and energy into getting out into the streets and shouting the party slogans.
The worst thing about the Republican strategy, the thing that will do the most damage to this country and to the world, because its effects will the longest lasting, is the fact they have decided to glorify ignorance. Not just ignorance, but actual anti-intellect. They haven’t just campaigned on the grounds that intellectualism is bad - they’ve gone way beyond the usual average American hatred of ivory tower academic types - they have done everything they can to convince voters that intelligence itself is bad. By embracing and supporting the “evangelicals” and anti-vaxxers and climate change deniers and those of similar low-IQ ilk, they have built the sin of fearing thought and the crime of fearing education into what way too many knuckle-draggers think is a legitimate political position. This will result in political wars over funding of education and scientific research problems that will retard both scientific development and social progress for generations.
The closest thing I’ve seen to conceivably being able to at least partially compensate for oligarchic tendencies is democratic anarchism combined with at least some official authority to enact democratic will being assigned by blind sortition. But of course that has it’s own problems, not least of which is the need for trained specialists in some offices.
I think that’s unfortunately because they get ignored by the mainstream media. Since the republicans have a libertarian wing, they get some airtime, but the Greens are considered so far left (which they aren’t) they get no air time. The (deeply flawed) American left has rarely gotten notice since the end of WW2, with the exception of the New Left in the 60s and that was entirely tied up with the Vietnam war and youth culture.
Oh this is a great analogy… I like it. It nails the reality, I think.
You think their masters will care if the US is destroyed? They’ll just move to the next country to trash.
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