Last updated on December 4, 2024
by Chris Powell <okcspowell@gmail.com>
There has been a great deal of consternation regarding the LNC acting with complete disregard for any views outside of those of one faction. Leaving discussion of the motives and practices of that group aside for the moment, any Libertarian who finds themselves at odds with the LNC or their state party organization’s approach may want to think about what they can do to advance a different vision of libertarianism. Joining a different party or abstaining from political activity altogether might seem like an answer, but abandoning the Libertarian label accomplishes nothing beyond letting a term that is in the public consciousness degenerate into meaninglessness in much the same fashion that Democrat and Republican are words that once meant something but now are just team names. So what is there for an individual to do who wishes to present a coherent vision of what it means to be a Libertarian that is consistent with the long and storied traditions of the LP? The best platform by which to represent Libertarian ideas is by being a candidate for office.
As a candidate, the individual has the freedom to choose their policy priorities, craft their messaging, and tell the voters themselves what it means to be Libertarian. There are some states where to be a partisan candidate and use that Libertarian label requires state party approval, but the LNC has no power to veto candidates. Many states do not allow parties to prevent individuals from running under their label, not to mention that many states do not allow the Libertarian Party on the ballot at all. Ballot access for nonpartisan offices obviously cannot be controlled by party organizations. And nothing prevents a technically unaffiliated candidate from promoting themselves as Libertarian.
Under the current LNC the LP has run far fewer candidates than in the past, candidate training programs have been discontinued, the number of states with ballot access has decreased, and the ability to support candidates has declined along with the state of national party finances.
Rather than being an obstacle, this is an opportunity for those who are not aligned with the current national party officials. The general voting public doesn’t know anything about the LP’s intraparty disputes and wouldn’t care much if they did. The Libertarian on the ballot in their town is, if that candidate campaigns to them, who will shape the perception of the LP to the average voter. And those candidates who win become elected officials who will continue defining the Libertarian label with a much greater voice in their communities than anybody on some national committee or with a podcast.
You can be the person defining what it means to be a Libertarian in the area where you live. The most that party officials can do to stop you is, maybe, prevent you from having the Libertarian label on the ballot(which they may not be able to provide anyway) but they can’t stop you from saying you are a Libertarian as you run for office. As you campaign, you will be able to communicate your ideas and find like-minded people persuadable to join your efforts to promote Libertarian ideas to the public and inside the party. I encourage you to find out what opportunities to run are approaching in your area and find one right for you. Become ungovernable, both by the state and by party officials, and demonstrate to your community what it means to be Libertarian. The campaign trail is the path to a more Libertarian world and a more Libertarian LP.
The libertarian label is defined to the general public primarily completely outside the libertarian party. Politicians of other parties, talking heads / columnists / podcasters etc who call themselves libertarian and or get called libertarian by media outlets – Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Thomas Massie, Neal Boortz, Glenn Beck and many others. It doesn’t matter whether anyone reading agrees this or that person is libertarian – they call themselves libertarian and or media outlets repeatedly call themselves libertarian, so that’s where most people get their idea of what approximately the term represents.
To the extent that the libertarian party has much of anything to do with what libertarian means to folks outside it’s information bubble that usually weighs heavily on their presidential ticket, except for this year, when few outside that bubble even noticed that they even had one.
What is the point of running to “define” a party in opposition to how the party chooses to define itself? You might as well run as an independent, or some other ballot label, or for that matter as a Republican or Democrat.
It’s also unclear that voters, particularly if you’re talking the less than 5% or so who have voted Libertarian for some office in the past or who might seriously consider it, are entirely unaware of how bad the party’s gotten. Vote totals are down, after all, not just for president where the party effectively opposed its own nominee, but for statewide and other races. That also tracks how paying membership has collapsed, and most of those were never people actively involved in going to conventions and stuff like that. The hand-wave about how nobody knows about it might be true of the median normal voter who’d probably never vote Libertarian anyway. But people who have any connection to the movement, or are just aware of it enough to know the word libertarian, or who’d ever consider voting third-party in general— those people mostly have seen how the LP became a hate group and is proudly pro-Trump. It’s not some obscure secret.
All the maga people that I know (through customers/work not socially) know about the clown car. They have all been aware of the LP and how it was turned for Trump.
Yes, it is a very public joke. They won’t recover from this until Trump is gone, and possibly not for a number of years after.
And they are not going to give to us.
I will continue to do my part to educate.
The point is just as George says, that “the Libertarian on the ballot in their town is, if that candidate campaigns to them, who will shape the perception of the LP to the average voter.” Who runs for office, and what they say, is instrumental in how the party defines itself.
Maybe this is not how it should be – under normal conditions, I’d prefer to see the party be able and willing to exercise more control over who can run in its name – but it’s how it is right now. This being the case, it presents an opportunity to route around right-wing-oriented national leadership and reclaim the Libertarian Party for libertarianism.
One interesting feature of the Libertarian Party that sets it apart is that it is a dues paying membership party. This actually means that you can have your cake and eat it, too. You can remain a dues paying member, and join another party at the same time. That other party could also be a dues paying party, or a voter registration party. AND, that other party could free itself from no no-fusion provisions of the Libertarian Party and choose either to endorse acceptable Libertarian candidates, or run others of their own.
You can do that in some states, but not all. For example, in South Carolina, if you become a delegate to your county or state convention, where they vote on candidates, if you also vote in the Democratic or Republican Party primaries, you are committing voter fraud. Double voting in the same election cycle.
In states where the libertarian party is just a club and not an actual party, that obviously does not matter.
That is a weakness not a feature IMHO
I think this is a practical and efficient approach.