For a brief period as a young, civic-minded American citizen, I literally was a card-carrying Libertarian.
I don’t recall how I came upon the card—I assume a friend or relative must have donated money somewhere along the line in the late ’90s.
But I proudly bore it—and all the rights and privileges it conferred—as a status symbol of someone who bucked the entire establishment, who shunned the corporate greed and back-slapping cronyism of the GOP, as well as rejecting the constant hypocrisies and ethical problems posed by the Clintons and their ilk.
Most importantly, the card was a symbol that I valued the liberty of the individual over that of the collectivist, bureaucratic machine.
No nanny state or social safety-net was necessary for anyone who embraced personal responsibility for his or her own livelihood—while accepting that some concessions to the greater good may be needed in order to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as guaranteed by our mutual compact.
While I no longer support the Libertarian Party, I understand its appeal to many—and, in particular, to young, idealistic conservatives.
Nonetheless, when I saw several college-age former students of mine endorsing Jo Jorgensen in my (since deleted) social-media feeds, I was compelled to explain that their best hope of having a libertarian president was keeping the one already in office.
Who better to usher in an era of individual freedom than someone whose foreign and domestic policies, respectively, could be distilled into the simple slogans “America First” and “Make America Great Again”?
It was not my ideals that changed in the interim years so much as my recognition that third-party candidates will forever be an impracticality in the modern political sphere, where so much wealth and influences is concentrated at the two poles.
Americans are consigned to view voting as a binary process largely because the “us vs. them” mentality is the easiest narrative to package and pitch to the masses.
Accordingly, third parties have ceased even to represent their actual values; instead, they amount to little more than a protest vote repudiating both A and B.
A couple close to me recently revealed as much—perhaps unwittingly—by turning the very concept of libertarianism into a Never-Trump dog-whistle.
The husband admitted that he had not voted for Trump in 2016, largely because of the future president’s abrasive demeanor.
However, he had supported Trump in the 2020 election because he approved of the administration’s tough stance on China.
The wife, meanwhile, could never vote Democrat because of her objection to abortion—but, likewise, could never stand with the misogynist-in-chief due to his history of making divisive and offensive remarks.
As a compromise, both proudly backed former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson in 2016.
“We’re more libertarian,” they rationalized.
It was not lost on me, however, that few of their priorities seemed to be particularly in-line with a libertarian, anti-government worldview.
Trump’s tariffs and trade war with China may, in fact, be the least libertarian thing in his legacy—although there is a strong case to be made that they afforded greater liberty by allowing us to break the choke-hold of a globalist-friendly economic model.
In a traditional sense, the free market should be allowed to flourish, devoid of government interference; however, since China and others have rigged the deck, it was necessary to regulate more in order to impose a course correction.
As for abortion: I have been chided by purist libertarian pedants who maintain that conservatives’ anti-abortion views are not, per se, irreconcilable with the libertarian platform, which establishes as its cardinal rule the Hippocratic-sounding “do no harm.”
Nonetheless, I have always come to regard Republicans’ customary stances on abortion and drug law as the two areas least consistent with libertarian principles, since implementing them arguably entails more regulation of individual liberty, not less.
That isn’t to say that Democrats’ so-called pro-choice policies are not equally unjust—and far more ghastly and appalling. But, the libertarian ideal would be having no abortion policy whatsoever.
The recent $1.4 trillion ominbus spending bill and its companion piece, the $9 billion coronavirus stimulus, present yet another shining example of how deeply warped and convoluted the political process has become.
Once again, Trump’s call for $2,000 individual stimulus checks might be construed as the least libertarian thing one could do—or the most.
The fact that it will run up the massive deficit should be horrifying (although Trump would likely argue that China should be on the hook for footing the bill in all things COVID).
Yet, it seems far more suitable for the money to return to taxpayers’ hands than it does to fund gender-studies programs in the Afghan army or any number of other foreign initiatives that do little to provide direct relief for Americans.
Although Trump appears to have been unsuccessful in his efforts, it was entirely in line with all he represents for him to demand more for America while giving Congress a “special message” to cut the waste from other areas.
Ironically, in the run-up to the November election, the central argument most of the libertarian-backers in my life made for their views centered not on Trump’s agenda, but on their disdain for his character.
That, too, seems deeply at odds with their proffered platform. Since when do moral values and individual liberty go hand-in-hand?
Rather, I think Trump’s ‘un-presidential’ lack of grace and decorum was his most quintessentially libertarian quality.
If Trump had achieved nothing else, the Schadenfreude he elicited on behalf of his base by making TDS-afflicted Establishment elites cringe would alone have been worth electing him.
Yet, his bucking of political norms, and his willingness—even eagerness—to take the ensuing lumps, also proved essential to his agenda.
If Congress’s political sausage-making is too vile a process for the weak of stomach to witness, then blowing up the whole sausage factory—as Trump sought to do, in a manner of speaking—is bound to be all the more unpalatable to those who subsist on the pork byproducts.
Not surprisingly, the Establishment lashed back against him like a cornered dog. But the sheer scope of its viciousness set many aback.
Any libertarian who believes such feats of government and regulatory reduction might be achieved cooperatively from within the current system is dreadfully deluded.
Were a Libertarian Party candidate ever to find him/herself standing on the podium, ready to take the Oath of Office, getting elected would have been the easy part.
Trump, the larger-than-life Manhattan mogul who has spent an entire lifetime playing political hardball and preening his public image, has barely made it out of the Swamp unscathed—and yet we’re led to believe that the B-team could do better.
Indeed, if America were ever to become truly free, Trump’s presidency has offered a roadmap for how it must be done. But it’s hard to imagine any other figure with the grit and tenacity needed to achieve it.
Follow Ben Sellers on Parler at parler.com/profile/Sellers.
