Category Archives: Libertarian Party

The Road Back to the LP

I’ve long been a small-l libertarian and 90% of the time a Big-L libertarian because they’re the best option for liberty. That isn’t to say that an average libertarian like me didn’t have problems with the LP.

If you read my first post here, I made an argument of principles versus pragmatism and took many in the LP to task for their poor and inconsistent messaging. You can guess how I feel about the present state of the party post-Mises Caucus takeover.

To briefly recap, at the end of May 2022, the Mises Caucus (hereafter known as MC) took over the party…sweeping all the top spots. Many were caught off-guard, but those in the party warned of the possibility. What most of us didn’t know is how hard right the party would turn.

We found out soon enough when the MC removed “bigotry is irrational and repugnant” from the plank. That was the first sign of things to come, and it drove many people from the LP, including myself. Why would they remove that from the plank? What could possibly be the goal? You can postulate that they’re openly courting racists, but I don’t know if that was really the goal. I think it’s far more insidious than that.

The MC Messaging Problem

If anyone has paid attention to the LPN, MC-friendly state affiliates, and MC members’ social media, the messaging most often is not libertarian. They are fully invested in fighting the culture war. If challenged, they block rather than engage in rational discourse because they don’t have a rational response.

This flawed messaging was ramped up with the ongoing war in Ukraine. The position of the LPN and MC is irrational. As a libertarian, it is possible to condemn Russia and defend Ukraine’s independence while being anti-war, anti-aid, and anti-foreign entanglements. That is not the message being sent by the MC. It supports Russia and assails Ukraine. Hell, at one point, they were defending the totalitarian theocracy in Iran. In what kind of upside-down libertarian world do we defend aggression? They’re repeating Fox News talking points. Why?

I think everyone knows why. They aren’t libertarians. They’re Trump supporters cosplaying as libertarians.

The point is, none of that matters.

The Epiphany

In the months following the MC takeover of the LPN, I probably went through all the stages of grief. I got active on Twitter, calling out the MC, and was subsequently blocked by a number of those on the National Committee, the MC, and one of the state affiliates. I raged on for a few months until I had an epiphany.

We lost to a group that behaves like irresponsible cringe edgelord teens. A group that supported 2 MAGA candidates over libertarian ones. We lost to THEM? A group that repeats Russian propaganda. We lost to THEM? A group that lost control of the LPN Twitter account. We lost to THEM? A group that has told people if they don’t like it to GTFO. We lost to THEM?

Their goal was to destroy the party. Look at their actions. They thrive on conflict and chaos. They’re running the fewest candidates in decades, which is the point of a political party. Donors have left, and they’re bleeding money. They want us to leave the party. I’ve donated and voted libertarian for nearly 30 years, only to give up because some children want me out? Oh, hell no.

The Realization

After I had that epiphany and some time to reflect, I came to a few realizations.

First, I had been sucked into their negative energy and playing their game. There’s nothing to be gained by raging away on my keyboard other than raising my blood pressure. If I call them out now, I do so with a rational libertarian response; not for me, but for anyone that reads and thinks their messaging is libertarian.

Secondly, many of us are angry. The rational libertarians, from ancaps to pragmatists, are a far larger coalition than I thought.

Thirdly, I and others like myself are partially to blame for this happening. My activity at the party has come and gone over the years. I took the party for granted. As much as I had a problem with the endless struggle between hardliners and pragmatists within the LP, we all ultimately came together for the same end goal, dramatically reducing government power and increasing liberty. With the LP ripped away, many of us felt adrift.

Finally, whatever damage is being done can be undone. The MC is tanking the party…that’s true. It doesn’t bode well for the few midterm candidates they’ve supported. We’ve all seen the messaging on social media. But we’re acutely aware because we follow all the children. To put things into perspective, the LPN Twitter account has 250k followers…that’s about 1/10 of the Democratic National and GOP accounts. Gary Johnson had the highest recognition at nearly 20%. A majority of Americans still don’t know anything about the LP or what it stands for. The truth of the matter is that libertarianism is still fringe, but we have an opportunity to change that.

What now?

I’m done sitting on the sidelines. While I’ve always been active on social media, that is not fully supporting the party. To that end, I have re-upped my state and national memberships and attended my first county meeting in years.

One thing is sure; if we’re on the outside and do nothing, we can’t affect change. We can take the anger and disgust and turn it into positive energy to flip it right back on them. Suppose all of the disenfranchised libertarians come back and bring new people with similar libertarian mindsets and put energy into those types of people. In that case, we can return the party to the adults in 2024. I’ve chosen to stand up for libertarianism and against authoritarianism. We have a plan. I hope you will join me in that cause and on Reddit at r/libertarian911.

Principles and Pragmatism

I’ve been voting for Libertarian Party candidates for 26 years. That’s a lot of write-in candidates over the years. I fully stand on our principles but the fact of the matter is that the Libertarian Party has not made a substantive impact on American Politics since it’s founding.

What are our goals as a party? Do we want to effect real change? Do we want to make an impact on policy? Are we satisfied merely being a protest vote? Or do we want to continue to founder on our hard-line principled high ground only to criticize the duopoly for their folly? Honestly, I’m tired of that as I’ve been doing it for the better part of my adult life. I want to see this party grow and make a real impact on American politics.

Clearly, people are fed up with the two-party system. The Democratic and Republican party registrations are shrinking and independents make up the largest voting bloc. There’s a real opportunity here for a 3rd-party to make a real impact.

So why haven’t we made an impact?

You could point to several external factors. The CPD keeping us out of the debates. The duopoly tilting the system against us. The winner-take-all voting structure. You could say “everything will be better if we change to ranked-choice, STAR, or SCORE voting” or “If we could only get into the debates!” Yes, those are all factors. But they’re really excuses.

The truth of the matter is we’re our own worst enemies.

Why?

Because we have consistent principles, we tend fall back those principles in any political conversation. We think our principles are simple while our detractors have made simple memes about “What about the roads?” and “Somalia, libertarian paradise.” The truth of the matter is that our ideas are not that simple to explain in application to a world now accustomed to bite-size morsels of media, memes, and slogans.

In my opinion the other way we hurt ourselves is that too many people in this party are tone-deaf when it comes to our image. We don’t care how we appear to non-libertarians…even those that we could attract to the party. We should be looking at independents and moderates from either party as potential libertarians. We just need to sell them on ideas, then explain the principles behind those concepts. We tend to do it the other way around. We explain the principles, then how it applies. People just really want to know what we want to do but they are not ready for the end goals. It’s actually beyond their comprehension.

Too often I feel that there are people in the party that treat the LP like the Cool Kids Club. That if you don’t take a hard-line on principles, then you’re booed at our conventions or excoriated on social media. The attitude seems to be, “This is who we are, screw you if you don’t like it.” This is not furthering our cause.

These flaws are all fine and dandy if you want the Libertarian Party to continue to be nothing more than a protest vote. I’m tired of the protest vote when I believe we’re capable of so much more. We have to be willing to change…to be more self-aware. Being a pragmatist does not mean sacrificing principles. The end goal is still the same. Where pragmatists and hardliners diverge is how we get there and how we present ourselves to the American public.

The fact of the matter is that the American public has been indoctrinated for decades that government is the solution to whatever problems Americans think need to be solved. You can’t undo that with a snap of the fingers and stroke of the pen. Undoing the damage from this mindset will take decades. The American people aren’t ready for that. So how do we get there?

I can tell you how we won’t get there. By maintaining a hard line. By giving serious consideration and nominating candidates that a majority of Americans would consider to be a joke. At that point, you can’t even counter the “lesser of two evils” argument with a majority of Americans. How we position ourselves and how we sell ourselves matters as much as anything when it comes to candidates…that’s been true since the first televised debates with Nixon vs. Kennedy.

The way to real change is to move everything to a more libertarian position. By selling our libertarian principles in a way that resonates with the American people. Things like ending foreign wars, shrinking the military, balancing the budget, legalizing marijuana, reducing police power, decreasing regulation, ending bailouts, reducing crony capitalism, etc. But we can’t do that by sticking to the hard-line. Slogans like “End the Fed” and “Taxation is Theft” while correct on principle, are lost on a majority of Americans.

I don’t consider libertarianism to be a joke and It shouldn’t be merely a protest vote. It’s something that I believe is the only thing that can save America from itself. It is possible to be principled and pragmatic so long as our end goals are the same. We need to be cognizant of how we present libertarian ideas to others in order to sell the party as a legitimate option. The rest of the time we can continue to argue amongst ourselves as is tradition. 😀