Should the Libertarian Party Even Bother Existing Anymore?

1. The LP has contributed nothing of value to the libertarian movement. It’s candidates often bring libertarianism into disrepute.

   • Huh. Well, I’d say that the Libertarian Party has been instrumental in legalizing dope in many states and in legitimizing same-sex marriage. In the states where that’s happened, often it was LP candidates alone who had s the courage to even discuss the topics openly.

     • Prove it. The LP has had virtually nothing to do with legal cannabis or gay marriage. Most of the candidates are too timid to even bring the subjects up, if they even support those freedoms. What the LP is good at is keeping itself in business.

2. Ranked choice voting won’t destroy the two-party system. Ranked choice voting requires the winner to amass, in the end, a majority of votes cast. If Ls can’t get a plurality, they surely can’t get a majority. Ranked choice is part of a fantasy that there are hoards of Libertarian-liking voters, who foolishly instead vote for Ds or Rs in order to (I guess) decide the election. In fact, however, what’s true is that most voters are either committed Ds or Rs . . . at least, they actually prefer Ds or Rs to Ls.

   People like Ralph Nader, unable to admit that most voters don’t buy what he’s selling, insist that everyone loves him, but just won’t actually vote for him. The reality is that most voters just preferred Al Gore to Nader, and that’s why Nader lost. Under ranked choice voting, the Naders of the world lose in the early round, and then his voters’ support is reallocated to a candidate like Gore, and then the media report only that final round of voting, thus making upstart parties even more irrelevant than they are now.

   In politics, “relevance” means having the ability to affect the outcome of elections. With ranked choice voting, upstart party candidates become completely irrelevant as their supporters’ votes are instantly reallocated to one of the two older party candidates.

   Ironically, the existing system – where the candidate winning a plurality wins the election – gives the LP it’s best chance of affecting the outcome of elections and therefore being politically relevant. That’s particularly true where the Ds and Rs are close and where nearly half of voters vote D and half vote R. That’s so because, to affect the outcome, an L only has to draw enough votes to swing the election from one side to the other. Think of it this way: if a legislature of 100 total has 49 Ds and 49 Rs, there are only two legislators who hold true power – the two who swing every issue.

   Libertarians might now carry “balance of power” and therefore swing important elections. Arguably, Gary Johnson siphoned enough key D votes in key states to swing the close Clinton/Trump election to Trump. Whether that’s true or not can be debated, but it’s clear that the LP is on the verge of being able to decide who wins depending on whether its candidates participate and how they pitch certain issues.

   Once it’s clear that LP participation decides who will prevail, then the LP will have become politically important and powerful.

   In some states, like California, for example, the Ds have such a commanding lead, that no LP candidate can affect the outcome. For that matter, Rs don’t count for anything in California either, so even in those states, the LP has as much power as the Republicans.

   Those who bemoan the Libertarian’s failure to win outright elections, simply don’t understand the magnitude of the task we’ve undertaken. The two old parties have had a 150 year jump on the LP in doing the hard work of building a political party, and that involves 1) identifying like-minded people in the community, 2) organizing them, and critically, 3) turning them out at the polls. Forty years just isn’t enough time for the LP to build its party into a competitor, but as I say, it is on the cusp of being able to decide who wins many elections.

   Part of the problem is that libertarians; that is, the people who likely would support Libertarians, rationally have calculated that, whether they vote D, R, L, Green or Constitution or for some other party candidate, a D or R will, almost certainly win, that life won’t change appreciably regardless of whether it’s a D or R that wins, and therefore they choose rationally to do something more productive than participating in politics – mow their lawn, or take their kid to a ball game, or paint the house.

   Part of the problem is that libertarians aren’t interested in running other people’s lives and accordingly, aren’t really interested in seizing political power.

   Part of the problem is that Libertarians spend too much time talking to voters. That happens because, well, voters vote; non-voters don’t. But, while that’s true, most voters are voters because they have been recruited into politics by Ds or Rs and were recruited to political action because they think like Ds or Rs. Those people might vote, but they aren’t going to change their political values and vote L. So, building the party means spending more time talking to non-voters.

   We know this is true because most Libertarians don’t come to the party saying that they defected in disgust from either D or R party activism. Most say: “I’ve been a Libertarian all my life and only recently found that the LP existed.” That is, they joined the LP from the ranks of the previously politically inactive – the non-voters.

   It’s also a math problem. Currently, voting breaks down about like this: 24% vote D, 24% vote R, 3-5% vote D, R, Green, etc. and around 48-50% don’t vote. Now, if that 50% of non-voters remains constant, then to win, we need voters to break 17% D, 17%R, 18% L, and 48% don’t vote. Think about that. It means that fully a third of the Ds and Rs defect and become L supporters. I submit that such a massive change in political thinking is impossible. But what’s possible is that 21% vote D, 21% vote R, 22% vote L, and 37% don’t vote. That requires about 10% of the Ds and Rs defect and about a third of the current non-voters are recruited by the Ls in order for Ls to win. Again, we have to go talk to non-voters.

   In fact, there’s some evidence that if voting turn out can be raised into the 60-70% range, Ls do win. This too supports the idea that we need to get non-voters back in the game.

   All of this suggests that the LP is close to becoming politically relevant and therefore powerful, and once that threshold is met, it will grow even faster. Those who dismay at the inability of Libertarians to seize power rapidly need to have a sense of perspective. When I got involved with the LP, I was regularly asked: “Why do the librarians need a political party.”

   We have come a long, long way from those early days. Liberty-minded people need to just keep plugging away and doing the hard work of actually building a political party brick by brick.

   • There is strong support that RCV helps diminish the third party killing strategic voting trait.
     The LP will NEVER be a party as defined by the binary status quo R&D game.

3. Far out, man. Far fcuking out!

4. RCV is the best option to bring higher credibility to our elections as well as making for more palatable candidates.
   That said the rest of your piece essentially calls out the LP to dissolve and to have folks run as independents.

5. […] + […]

Comments are closed.