The Parting on the Right
(posted by Jim Henley)
Wirkman Virkkala says Bob Barr should the be the acid test of the dominant LP strategy of running right-wing candidates.
He truly is the best spoken candidate the party has had in years . . . perhaps ever. He has the built-in credibility of having been an elected federal representative. And he does seem to have a message that could appeal to voters in a political climate afflicted by the Scylla of McCain and the Charybdis of Obama.
I think LPers should pledge, now, to make this a test case. For a long time they have been tied closely to the GOP. There is, up to now, no evidence that this tie works. Over and over again it is the “right wing” side of the party that has selected its Ron Pauls and its Harry Brownes and its Michael Badnariks. It has rejected leftier candidates. It has not nurtured different political styles. The Calm, Tame Approach has dominated. No true firebrand, or prophet, has arisen in its midst. No one to upset people and make them think.
I hazard that the Calm, Tame Approach, left, right or center, will not work for the LP. I also think that Libertarians cannot be stuck leaning so far right. Nor should they lurch left. I believe Libertarians must really provoke thought, and must do it in a double whammy: with both passion and extreme intelligence. I do not see how a libertarian message can sell liberty to a statist populace without kicking them out of dogmatic slumbers, and then out-thinking them when awake.
But I could be wrong. So make this a test case, LP. Pledge to jettison the Rogue-Tame Elephant Strategy if, for the umpteenth time, it proves not to pull in votes.
There’s more, including a footnote that reminds one about the LocoFocos.
June 7th, 2008 at 8:13 am
I really think the idea of a national political party that fields presidential candidates, etc. is completely wrong as a means of advancing something as intellectually lofty and ideologically comprehensive as libertarianism. The party’s message is basically: “We have this philosophy. We find it to be based on an impressive body of theory. You should believe in it as strongly as we do.”
The problem with this is that most people are not intellectuals and don’t care much about ideological abstractions. Beyond that, the US is far too large and culturally diverse a state for that kind of rigid ideological consensus to exist on a large enough scale to win a national election. Successful electoral politics in America involves building ad hoc coalitions of interest groups who bring their own issues to the table in such a way that is not necessarily intellectually or ideologically consistent or even coherent. That’s the bare minimum before we even get into matters like the dominance of the electoral system by “big money”, the gatekeeper role of the media, the dominance of the state by big capital, et.al.
I do agree that the image of libertarians as “right-wing conservatives who want to legalize drugs” is not a good image to promote. I don’t think the issue of ending drug prohibition should be downplayed or soft-pedaled, it’s too important, but the “economic conservatism + drug legalization” is not a sellable formula.
Whatever one’s views on the ideal economic system, or whether one opposes “big business” per se or not, it is strategically most beneficient for libertarianism to present itself as the movement of the “little guy”, i.e. a populist approach. This is particular true now that the Left has largely abandoned this role in favor of narrow identity politics and status quo welfare statism.
June 7th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Related to the problem of libertarians emphasizing theory and ideology as the solution to our problems, I offer for your reading pleasure this short version of ideological libertarianism:
Step 1: Achieve uniform agreement on philosophical and ideological matters, so that the vast majority of American adults all march in the same direction.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: FREEDOM!!!
June 7th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Underpants gnome libertarianism, yeah!
June 7th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Thoreau, good summary indeed.
A serious anti-state movement should focus on decentralizing political power and building coalitions of people who want to attack various aspects of the state for whatever reason and begin by organizing on the local level.
Organizing locally allows activists to tailor their activities to fit well with local culture. If you’re organizing in rural farming communities, you don’t want your focus to be drugs and gay rights. You want to talk about guns, land rights, farmer issues, local sovereignty, economic issues, etc. If you’re organizing in the inner-city, it might indeed by appropriate to talk about how the war on drugs has destroyed American cities.
Some people may join an anti-state movement because they are antiwar, or think their cultural/ethnic/religious group is under attack by the state, or despise the Federal Reserve or the United Nations, or want to legalize drugs, or oppose gun laws, or think the environment will be better off, or think they will benefit economically, or those of their occupation or professional group will benefit, or because they oppose the state period as anarchists do.
As anti-state radicals gain a following locally they can then demand more autonomy for their community, city, county, state, etc. and join with others in other places who have similar goals.
June 7th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Contrariwise, Radley Balko’s been arguing (perhaps overreacting to criticism, but coherently) about the Barr/Blue Druid Pedophile dichotomy and how the LP’s needs folks like Barr/Paul/Browne/whoever might manage to get single-digit votes this time, if he’s lucky.
I can’t help but notice that it doesn’t seem to matter who the LP puts up; the candidate will get minimal attention and interest. Put ex-Red Barr up, put a Red-friendly scammer like Browne up, or put a loony like Badnarik up - the Green Party candidate will still get more votes.
Maybe the lesson is that nothing will work for the LP.
June 7th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
“Maybe the lesson is that nothing will work for the LP.”
I think you’re probably right. If we want to fight Big Brother, it’s time to move on to something else:
http://vermontrepublic.org/links
June 9th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
[...] Commentary on another site about something I wrote led me to think about gradualism vs. radicalism. Radicals say that gradualists lack something in the principles department. Whereas, gradualism being more difficult to organize rhetorically and strategically than a simple radical proposal, a gradualist has to have more principles, intermediary principles. [...]