Now that the Reno Rebirth is complete it is time to start looking forward to our plans in
the future. Chair Angela McArdle already has a comprehensive electoral, strategic plan for Libertarian Party success. I intend to focus on the theory of the long term strategy of the LP, and adjacent political factions.
The Mises Caucus (MC) ought to recognize the current reality of our party and learn from the past. The Libertarian Party is now a populist movement. This isn’t inherently a bad thing. The new Libertarian Party’s appeal is predicated on anti-elitism, anti-wokism, and libertarian
pro-worker policies designed to create mass support to overthrow the current ruling elite.
These policies will help the people democracy was intended to help, not the ruling elite.
However, Michael Lind, in his new book called The New Class War, expounds upon populism in an enlightening and sobering manner, one which the LP can learn from: “Populists are better at campaigning than at governing...populist movements that deride expertise and bureaucracy naturally tend to have few experts of their own to formulate policies and administer agencies.” Hence, former-President Trump's ineffectualness once in office despite having mass popular support.
The Libertarian Party should learn from this lesson in the not-so-distant past. The LP
can use similar populist momentum for a more pragmatic, moral political project. The LP
ought to aim at being not just the counter-culture, a group that “relish[es] their outsider
status” but instead the counter-establishment that “regret their outsider status...waiting in the wings for a chance to play the title role.” The Mises Caucus has played this role within the LP, now it needs to prove this in the broader political order too. If the LP intends to rule and dismantle the state, the liberty movement will need experts, managers, and administrators of our own.
Where will those trained in the managerial roles of democracy come from? Until the LP
can train up their own vast pool of experts, they will come from urban think tanks and
universities. Some might come from the Mises Institute, but the largest body of experts will
come from “beltway” Libertarian organizations like Cato and Reason as well as think tanks like AIER, AEI, Acton Institute, Manhattan Institute, and sundry universities with libertarian cells (like my very own UVA).
Most libertarians share the same ideology, but it appears that vast segments of
libertarian share vastly different ideal world views. The urban class envisions the ascension of egalitarianism, unrestricted labor arbitrage, and full sexual liberation. Whereas the rural and suburban class envisions: the end of corrosive assaults on traditional institutions disguised as wokeism, the demise of the FED, and balkanization/nullification.
The material and cultural interests of a suburban mother and father, who don't want
their children taught racialism in public schools, are far different from the urban libertarian who wants an overt pro-sex work culture and embraces a partial, possibly total, erosion of the traditional sexual ethic. Neither of these things are mutually exclusive to either class, but the disparities stand.
Let it be known in no uncertain terms, it was Mises Caucus' dynamism that delivered
the LP from the jaws of irrelevancy. The metropolitan elites who previously dominated the party lacked appeal to the working class of America and were driving the party into the ground. The issues that it championed were ones appealing to an overclass of middle managers who already had a home in the self-flagallent, Cancel Culture of the left. What happened was an imperative paradigm shift.
Nevertheless, there is still an unexplained rift between the two classes. While some
political tension should be expected, it can’t quite account for all the friction. Some of the
tension might be explained simply through social factors. Most of the party now comes from
the suburban and rural areas, where support of the MC agenda is highest.
This means the party base is far from the urban dinner parties that many members of
the former LP attended. Many in positions of power at wealthy DC think tanks, are insulated
from the momentum coming from the exurbanites and thus, haven’t played sufficiently iterated games with the MC Libertarians. The more metropolitan wing of the LP has lost power (and in some cases left in disgrace). This has left the beltway think tanks in a bit of a lurch, unsure of how to proceed. This social incompatibility won’t be impossible to overcome, it just might require a little effort on both sides to get to know each other and create personal connections.
A detente of sorts is possible (and is already starting to take place). The shock of the
urban class from losing its allied faction in the LP is slowly fading and the LP has demonstrated that its not losing steam as it left June with an $180K budget windfall, one of the strongest months the LP has had in 20 years. The MC is here to stay and so is the urban class. Both sides possess something the other side needs.
We can’t abolish the government overnight. Doing so would lead to renewed calls for
political and economic paternalism that would doom the libertarian cause. While it may seem satisfying (and sometimes justified) to cast stones at think tanks for not being radical enough, they possess the human capital and bland research papers to begin the long-technocratic process of de-state-ification. While policy briefs and “practical solutions” are incapable of getting the LP into power, they will be indispensable for governing effectively and bringing about the end of the leviathan.