The Revolution wasn't against government, but rather against what were viewed as illegitimate usurpations by the British government. After the war, the Framers were shocked by the chaos of government under the Articles of Confederation and resolved to create a stronger federal government. You can find quotations by Washington, Adams, Hamilton and Madison expressing fear of anarchy as well as of tyranny or demagogery. Anti-federalists may be more to the liking of today's libertarians. But even among the Anti-federalists, someone like Sam Adams with his affection for a tight little "Christian Sparta" of pious, virtuous and self-governing New Englanders wouldn't fit in well at 21st century libertarian gatherings.
Among people today you will find many who hate Hitler and Stalin and the world portrayed in Orwell's 1984. They defend freedom in areas that matter to them and oppose excessive government or taxation or intrusive bureaucracy. But they would not call themselves libertarians and would oppose planks of the libertarian platform. Many of these people are Republicans, others Independents or supporters of third parties. Some may even be Democrats. Counting them as Libertarians or libertarians would be a mistake. I suspect the same is true of the Founders or Framers.
What the founders were looking for was balance and a middle way between the world's dangers. One could make a case that that is what classical liberalism was or at least intended to be. It would be much harder to make that same point about many of today's libertarians.
Imagine reading Hayek in 1950 or 1970 and being taken by his sensible arguments against new socialist proposals. Or reading Madison, or Montesquiou on limited government or Mill or Acton on liberty in previous centuries. Then imagine that you read today's "Reason" or "lewrockwell.com" or "antistate.com" What possible reason would you have for hanging around that crowd? If the important battles against tyranny are won, why bother with the movement to crush the state? Having defeated dangerous utopians, why throw in with another utopian movement?
Is this a new libertarian age? Clearly communism and classical socialism are down for the count. More and more people care about and want liberty. But I suspect that people will still want some checks on the power of the global market and the homogenization it brings.
The globalist future means ever greater power for those who can master money and the techniques of increasing it, technology and media. Maybe such people do show the great competence essential for making the modern world work. And yet, those who lack such skills also have interests that should be represented.
The weakness of libertarianism isn't that it's so wildly, daringly and dangerously different from other theories of government. It's the similarities that are the problem. In time libertarianism comes to be seen as similar to other political ideologies, a way for one group to use the law to promote its own interests and block threats to those interests. Other groups behave similarly and make their own cases heard. If things are managed well and people keep their heads there's no tragedy in that.
Unfortunately, the people who do not care about liberty are the ones running the govt. The Dems that are members of socialist orgs. may phrase their ideas in terms deemed more acceptable by Americans, but they are still applying those ideas with full force. And the Repubs in Congress are going along with it. Thus, I do not agree that socialism (of any sort) is down for the count. Instead, it has more of a foothold here than anywhere else.