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November 02, 2005
Libertarian Democrats
Matt Welch has penned one of those Look West, Young Democrats! articles that pops forth every once in awhile. The thesis is basic: by turning into a quasi-libertarian party, we can peel off libertarians and libertarianish Republicans, thus constructing a durable majority, winning the West, and consigning Big Government, crony capitalism conservatives to the dustbin of history. It's gonna be great. And he's right, it will be. For everyone but the libertarians and libertarianish Republicans.
Welch's starting point is that the Republican Party, the party that actually professed to believe in small government and state's rights, has proven a variety of old adages about power being bad and transformed into a bloated, deficit-increasing, government-expanding, liberty-shrinkin' monstrosity. So Democrats should start advocating charter schools, deficit reduction, low taxes, and all the other planks of the Reagan/Republican Revolution. Which is fine, I guess. But Welch may want to ask himself: if Republicans, who promised belief in these ideals, abandoned them once in power, why won't Democrats, who love Big Government, want to nationalize health care, and are adopting this stuff for craven political gain, do the same? Parties reposition for political advantage, but they rarely undergo fundamental changes, and the Democratic base certainly won't embrace a shift to libertarianism. The NAACP is still more important to the party than
And from the Democrat's side, is there any evidence libertarians really can be picked up? How about economically conservative Republicans? We kept hearing about how these folks were going to defect in 2004, but that didn't quite work out. Nor did Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian candidate for President, pick up any significant amount of the vote -- so who were all those libertarians voting for? If Democrats want to search for treasure troves of ballot punchers, the poor and disaffected, Hispanics, and single women all offer much richer pools to grab from. And while trying to activate those constituencies rarely works, there's not any evidence backing Welch's assertion that the John Birchers of yesteryear are willing to support progressive policies if we only promise not to create more Terry Schiavo's. For Democrats, appealing to the West is fine, but a quick shift into libertarian rhetoric is unlikely to get us any more votes or leave libertarians any happier. It's lose-lose.
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Ezra Klein (and Matt Welch) on Libertarian Democrats. Ezra has some good criticisms here, suggesting that picking up "libertarian" votes (from the GOP or LP) will be tough. At least in the case of Republicans, it seems a lot will cling to some libertarian [Read More]
Tracked on Nov 2, 2005 1:17:44 PM
Comments
You know, now that the Christian Right is kinda mad at Bush, we should try to get them to cross over into the Democratic Party! We could run on a platform of rolling back civil rights and universal suffrage. We could campaign to make displays of the Nativity and Ten Commandments mandatory.
When you add the Christian Right and the Libertarians to our the traditional Democratic constituencies, our majority will be unassailable.
Next: Neo-neo-conism. The solution to all the Democratic Party's problems.
Posted by: Stephen | Nov 2, 2005 12:46:54 PM
I certainly agree that the Democrats can become Libertarians, but there are a couple things they could do to make themselves a better compromise for Libertarians than Republicans are. Gun rights is an obvious one here.
I have never quite understood how the anti-gun philosophy fit in with the rest of the Democrats philosophy in any event. Add in some reductions on drug offenses, particularly for Marijuana and you have something that 'fits' pretty well with where Democrats already are but has some appeal to Libertarians.
Libertarians are used to compromising from their beliefs when voting anyway, Democrats could be contenders for their votes without betraying their soul.
Posted by: Dave Justus | Nov 2, 2005 12:51:14 PM
Of course, I'm not entirely convinced that Western Democrats are libertarian. It's more an air of being anti-authority, some would say populist. Freudenthal, Schweitzer, and Napolitano, three of America's most popular Democratic Governors aren't exactly interested in drowning government.
They're critical of corruption, they do serious outreach, but they're also supporters of environmental protection (Freudenthal less-so than I would prefer, but certainly more so than Bush).
The answer isn't in libertarianism, which itself has very few advocates. But in populism that criticizes wasteful big government, but also the increasing influence of corporate power. Americans worry about big government to the extent that they worry about big everything. Big corporations also instill concerns. Americans want to know someone is looking out for them.
Libertarianism is, in fact, the antithesis of that. So, while the libertarian Democrat is a nice myth to play up, it's useful only because so many people who are populists now like to call themselves libertarians (think Bill Maher).
Posted by: Matt Singer | Nov 2, 2005 12:56:50 PM
I recommend you check out FreedomDemocrats.org, a community (that I'm part of) that's trying to push forward on this sort of thing.
I think that libertarian rhetoric alone isn't going to turn on libertarian Republicans, and the Democrats will not (and should not) ever just do a 180 on everything and become hardcore anarcho-capitalists. Granted.
But, I think increasingly many Democrats can share core values with small-l-libertarians and people with this more western flavor of what was considered "conservativism". Both Democrats and libertarians are dedicated to allowing personal freedom in choosing a way to live. Democratic leaders (ex: Clinton, Dean) have shown themselves willing to commit to fiscal conservatives.
If you treat "libertarian-ness" as more of a tendency rather than a strict ideology, then I think you'll find that we could make a coalition work. IMHO, it also can lend itself to a strong core message and narrative, along the lines of "freedom in your life".
Posted by: DevP | Nov 2, 2005 1:02:51 PM
And if the Dems can pick up the Lyndon LaRouche crowd, they'll be an unassailable juggernaut!
Instead of trying to woo a group that's been aptly described as the Bolsheviks of the 21st Century, Dems would do a lot better to tackle their specious ideology head-on. Fact of the matter is, everyone's attracted to libertarianism -- up until it looks like it might really happen. Has it ever occured to Matt Welch that there might be a reason that Republicans constantly feel the need to cloak their intentions (e.g., "compassionate conservatism") in liberal-sounding verbiage?
Posted by: sglover | Nov 2, 2005 1:05:33 PM
The big problem with going after the libertarian vote is that it is so small. Libertarianism is a sophomoric political philosophy -- literally a phase for college sophomores, for whom a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. That's a very small voting population. It only appears to be popular, because libertarianism is an effective rhetorical pose, used by authoritarians, whose repulsive political aims would otherwise make them unelectable.
Bush is a fascist, and his base is fascist. Do you want to invite the fascists into the Democratic Party? It does not sound so good, when you call things by their proper names, does it?
Posted by: Bruce Wilder | Nov 2, 2005 1:07:19 PM
I treat "libertarian-ness" as what it is--solipsism with a big dose of selfishness. I have relatives who call themselves "libertarians" when they become embarrassed to call themselves republicans. They came for the low taxes, stayed for the bigotry and racism, and are now slightly embarrassed by the hysterical fundamentalists. But not enough to vote democratic. Why? because their actual interest in anyone's liberties but their own is, precisely, nil. They are, and always have been, stupid enough to allow big buisiness to profit from libertarian laws, while they are complacent enough to allow their own actual rights to be diminished at the same time. They prefer to allow big corporations to pollute while entertaining the fantasy that if they owned a big old piece of land somewhere they'd be able to do what they want with it. Similarly, they are willing to support big buisness's right not to be sued, and to give up their right to sue, because they think someone poor, or non white, or female might also get some rights.
I'm sick of them and their faux libertarianism. They can't be picked up, other than as somethign you'd scrape off your shoe.
aimai
Posted by: aimai | Nov 2, 2005 1:17:49 PM
Maybe the weather up here in Boston, but the libertarian folks I've met here (while few and far between) have been greatly invested in protecting other people's freedom, esp. in the areas of marriage equality and drug law reform.
Posted by: DevP | Nov 2, 2005 1:20:44 PM
DevP,
Actually, I live in Boston, and so do my libertarian relatives. You must simply be running with some actual liberals.
aimai
Posted by: aimai | Nov 2, 2005 1:37:42 PM
I never understand these articles that amount to, effectively, "Democrats need to be the party that the Republicans should be." No, Republicans should be the party that the Republicans should be. Why isn't Welch writing about how the Republicans should do more to appeal to libertarian ideals?
The number of libertarians is so low as to be almost negligible. Furthermore, the Democratic base is in America's cities which are, let's face it, anti-libertarian. Cities don't function unless there is a highly-functional government in place to provide services and prevent large real estate and commercial interests from taking too much control away from the people. An explicit play for libertarian votes (which would end up appealing to these larger commercial interests) would devastate the Democratic strangehold on cities.
As far as the Boston libertarians, my take on them has been that their stance comes from a place of the New England Yankee attitude of "don't be an asshole." It would be very much in keeping of being an asshole to oppose marriage equality and drug law reform, so they support those things. By contast, other forms of libertarianism tend to be rooted in the attitude of, "I don't want the government to interfere with my right to be an asshole to others."
Posted by: Constantine | Nov 2, 2005 1:39:23 PM
Libertarianism isn't a coherent party philosophy for many reasons people have said here, and others. There are many strains in libertarianism, both philosophical and consequentialist, and the narratives behind liberalism's economic-power/social-freedom (basically, initial distribution sucks) and conservativisms economic-freedom/social-power (basically, if we all behave well we should be fine) are really powerful. It is instead, a general goal and way of looking at things.
There are very good reasons that out-of-power Republicans sounded a lot more libertarian than in-power Republicans.
That being said, there's no reason not to work with them given the fact that.. we are an out of power party! At this moment in time, a good libertarian should be very strongly behind the opposition party that seeks to reduce the effectiveness of the party in power. In fact, they should REALLY want the Democrats to win Congress in 2006 and restore some checks to American government. The day libertarians would want to stop helping Dems is the day the Dems look likely to control every branch of government. That's pretty damn far away.
Posted by: Tony Vila | Nov 2, 2005 1:42:10 PM
Constantine,
"don't be an asshole"--what a fantastic boiling down of the new england code of ethics! Needless to say my "libertarian" relatives are not, actually, new englanders though I am!
Anyways, great posts on this topic from everyone. Very interesting and educational.
aimai
Posted by: AIMAI | Nov 2, 2005 1:50:54 PM
The NAACP is still more important to the party than Reason.
True, in every possible reading of that sentence....
Posted by: The Joker | Nov 2, 2005 2:16:17 PM
Libertarian = wingnut.
If there's one thing that I've learned in my years on earth, it's that with very, very few exceptions, people who call themselves libertarians are nearly indistinguishable from plain old Republicans. The only difference is that they tend not to be god-obsessed and they pay lip service to drug legalization.
Thus you get "libertarians" supporting the Iraq War, the PATRIOT Act, Scalia, etc. etc. - which is self-evidently ridiculous.
Posted by: Dadahead | Nov 2, 2005 2:36:34 PM
Dave Justus is right on the gun score - its something that sticks in the craw of a lot of Ohio rural voters that the Dems have been behind lots of broad-based initiatives to curb gun ownership (i.e. they're trying to take away my guns!). I do think that the Dems could make some real advances with the rural vote by recognizing that there actually are "two Americas" (urban and rural) as far as gun ownership is concerned, and that policies that work well in highly urbanized areas look suspicious in rural parts of the country.
The legalization issue is a toss-up for me right now. I'd like to see someone take the initiative on this and show just how stupidly our current system is setup - that if we cut back on going after the potheads we could focus more of our energy and money on taking out the meth-dealers, coke dealers, and black market prescription drug dealers. That's tough to spin without looking "soft on crime", though, so it would take a special Dem candidate to get away with it.
Posted by: NonyNony | Nov 2, 2005 2:43:18 PM
I think that Dems can pick up a decent number of votes by reexamining gun control -- close the gun show loophole then turn most of it over to the states. I also think that libertarians will vote for whoever promises lower taxes, no matter what -- and that libertarians, as befits people with a sophomoric political view, are endlessly gullible.
Posted by: Kimmitt | Nov 2, 2005 2:49:52 PM
There's a quite logical reason why some libertarians are trying to sway Dems:
Republicans promote themselves as being for "limited government" at least on economics, then prove otherwise. Democrats at least rhetorically promote themselves as being for individual liberty, but out of panic from bad luck in a few elections is drifting away from that. Pragmatic TRUE libertarians are beginning to see that "liberals" are more salvageable than "conservatives", in that for the most part all it'd take to bring Democrats to a reasonable stance would be a re-embrace of civil liberties*, whereas the Republican Party is now nothing more than a party of Christian Mercantilists.
If the Democratic Party were to take an unapologetic stance in favor of individual liberty, in direct contrast to GOP slogans of "family values" enforced by the State, I'd gladly support them.
(* - as for the economic stance, the only problem Dems have is they tend to treat the symptoms rather than the disease. Corporate-statism is an affliction borne of government, thus it cannot be cured by more government.)
Posted by: b-psycho | Nov 2, 2005 3:45:53 PM
BTW: To address previous claims here about libertarians solely caring about taxes: personally I care more about spending than taxes. I don't like high taxes, but debt is worse economically speaking.
Posted by: b-psycho | Nov 2, 2005 3:48:29 PM
Matt Singer said:
> Americans want to know someone is looking out for them.
But they don't want to feel that someone is looking *over* them, monitoring every aspect of their lives to make sure they're not doing anything "wrong."
An appealing message for anyone running for office would be to let inviduals run their own life, knowing that in the off-chance something bad happens, they'll be looked out for while they get back on your feet. To me, that fits within the realm of the Democratic party and also should be decent enough for libertarians, who will never see their anarcho-capitalistic utopia come true, to support.
Posted by: Chris Monnier | Nov 2, 2005 4:32:59 PM
and also should be decent enough for libertarians, who will never see their anarcho-capitalistic utopia come true, to support
Yeah, get back to me when a majority of people who call themselves "libertarians" complain about the elimination of Habeas Corpus in the Padilla case.
Posted by: paperwight | Nov 2, 2005 4:41:25 PM
> Yeah, get back to me when a majority of people who call themselves "libertarians" complain about the elimination of Habeas Corpus in the Padilla case.
Please. I call myself a libertarian and I'm complaining about the elimination of Habeas Corpus in the Padilla case. And the most prominent libertarian organization, the Cato Institute, filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court on his behalf:
http://www.cato.org/dailys/08-21-03.html
Libertarians are appalled at the way the government has treated Padilla.
Posted by: Chris Monnier | Nov 2, 2005 5:30:49 PM
There's nothing inherently incompabitble between "Democratic" values and "libertarian" values. At worst, they are to independent viewpoints that sometimes agree and sometimes disagree. At best, they complement each other.
Here's a thought: Taking $10 million in taxes from a person with an income of $20 million is less of an infringement on liberty than taking $1,000 in taxes from a person making $20,000.
Posted by: Adam | Nov 2, 2005 7:57:11 PM
Interesting to see the different ideas people have of libertarianism. I suggest heading to Mises.org to get a non-"sophomoric" take on it.
I like the idea of incorporating libertarian ideals into the Democratic Party---with that spirit in mind maybe its possible to have mean and lean, but effective, government programs such as health insurance.
Posted by: Steve Mudge | Nov 2, 2005 11:38:56 PM
I'd be careful about overestimating the true influence libertarianism has on either party. In my experience, libertarians tend to be young, urban, white males. Most prominent bloggers also tend to be young, urban, white males. As a result, those of us who spend a lot of time reading blogs tend to think there are more libertarians than there actually are.
Posted by: Matt | Nov 2, 2005 11:56:06 PM
I think that it's ironic that as many Democrats re-examine gun control, Abiola Lapite, my favorite libertarian blogger, does the same. I don't think there are any easy solutions to the issue of gun control. A 30-06 hunting rifle in the hands of a violent, angry husband is quite possibly more dangerous than a 9mm pistol, even if we aren't typically afraid that a young, dark-skinned male we see on the street might be packing a hunting rifle.
I think one way Democrats could appeal to libertarians, on a blog level, is to not call them selfish, solopsistic, sophomoric wingnuts.
I think the alignment of our political parties is, to some extent, a matter of chance. It's pretty much written into our constitutional structure that we will have a two-party system, but what those two parties are isn't destined to be liberals vs. conservatives. It could have been that we had a conservative party and a libertarian party, in which case probably many would-be Democrats would be part of the libertarian party instead, and not only would they vote for the libertarians because the alternative would the Republicans, but they would probably actually be dragged by the politicians toward sincerely holding more libertarian beliefs than they do now. On the other hand, if we had a liberal party and a libertarian party, probably many would-be Republicans would be part of the libertarian party. Or, for that matter, we might have Greens vs. Democrats, in which case many would-be Democrats, who now honestly think the Green party's policies sound terrible (increase in agricultural subsidies to European or Japanese levels, etc), would be sincere Greens, and many would-be Republicans would be Democrats.
Posted by: Julian Elson | Nov 3, 2005 12:40:21 AM
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