If it wasn’t evident in 2016, it was about as obvious as Joe Biden’s cognitive decline in 2020: The Libertarian Party has lost its way. America’s third-largest political entity failed to garner voters’ attention or even ignite the torch of liberty during the contentious 2020 U.S. presidential election. Libertarian nominee Jo Jorgensen and her running mate, Spike Cohen, attempted to transform the porcupines into woketarians, invoking the hebetudinous description of “fiscally conservative, socially liberal, and we oppose racism!” The LP is now at a crossroads: Continue down the path of attracting milquetoast libertarians or embrace the Misesian philosophy of Ron Paul that piqued the interest of millions of young Americans in 2008 and 2012. More importantly, is it time to abandon the hopes and dreams of the White House and start allocating the party’s resources to state and local electoral contests? Perhaps it is time to dismantle the LP to build it back up into an authentic freedom-oriented political force.
What Happened in 2020?
Gary Johnson
In November, there were two critical battles for the LP: the White House and a United States Senate seat. Spoiler alert: Both were unsuccessful plights for the gold-and-black brand.
First, the Jorgensen/Cohen ticket failed to crack two million votes, receiving a little more than 1% of the popular vote. This was way down from 2016 when two ex-Republican governors – Gary Johnson of New Mexico and William Weld of Massachusetts – captured 4.49 million ballots, which was good enough for 3.29% of the popular vote.
Second, Ricky Dale Harrington, Jr. could not give Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) a run for his money. Cotton defeated Harrington in a landslide, securing more than two-thirds of the vote. Some Arkansas LP activists had high hopes Harrington could be a serious threat to Cotton, but Election Day eviscerated their dreams of the first Libertarian serving in the Senate.
A 2020 Post-Mortem
Indeed, 2016 was the best opportunity for the LP to generate long-term momentum. Johnson received significant media coverage, the LP brought in lots of money, and both the donkey and the elephant were quite unpopular. What happened in the succeeding years? The LP squandered the opportunity, thanks to Johnson’s series of blunders and bloopers, such as sticking his tongue out at a reporter during an interview and asking MSNBC panelists, “What’s Aleppo?” It did not help that his running mate essentially endorsed Hillary Clinton right before the election.
Fine. What is done is done. Mistakes happen. That is why we have erasers on the back of pencils. Surely, after an internal autopsy, the LP leadership would take advantage of the war chest, new registrations, and media attention. Instead of tapping into the same spirit that made three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul so popular in 2008 and 2012, the Libertarians chose to plaster its woke credentials.
In what the great Tom Woods would call Mr. New York Times Reporter, the LP has desperately attempted to appease both the establishment press and militant leftists by showing just how much it opposes racism and how the party approves whatever is listed on the 3×5 card of allowable opinion. Why, the new LP is not like those dastardly libertarians who like to talk about the real issues and do not feel compelled to highlight how much they loathe racism any chance they get!
Jo Jorgensen
Jorgensen sent out a strange tweet that essentially endorsed Black Lives Matter, a Marxist and racist outfit that has bastardized and co-opted the black lives matter movement for financial and political gain. Jorgensen also delivered empty platitudes regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, comments that were meant not to stir the pot and to appeal to everyone. And that may be the problem.
For far too long, the LP has watered down its message and sacrificed its principles as part of vein attempts to be accepted by the broader culture, which means mostly to be liked by the left – an impossible feat, considering leftists consider anything to the right of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to be racist, homophobic, and sexist. This was put on display in 2016 when Johnson had an apoplectic seizure regarding the classification of illegal immigrants versus undocumented workers. He had more passion over this designation than he had about abolishing the Federal Reserve or balancing the budget. But the demise of the LP may have occurred eight years earlier when the party went with former Representative Bob Barr (R-GA), a champion of the war on drugs, the Patriot Act, and the Iraq War.
The concerning trend has fractured the LP, creating various factions within the party. The most notable group is the Mises Caucus, which advocates the party become more like Ron Paul and less like Gary Johnson. When you see who is on the caucus’ Advisory Board, you could get excited about what the LP could be like moving forward: Tom Woods, Larry Sharpe, Murray Sabrin, Jacob Hornberger, Maj Toure, and the eminent Dr. Paul. Instead, the LP is run by organizers aching for love from the dinosaur press.
The Future of the Libertarian Party
Aside from emphasizing principles over appeasement, how can the LP gain traction? As Liberty Nation discussed in 2017, the best strategy for the LP is to attack the political establishment from the bottom up by transferring its resources and concentrating its attention on local and state elections. It is nearly impossible for Libertarians to suddenly garner one-third of the national vote in a two-party system. The LP may be the nation’s third-largest political party, but this does not mean much when the electorate is drinking mostly Coca-Cola and Pepsi. And, the way the porcupines are being run, the LP may turn into a generic brand of a political institution that is sold in a vending machine outside of Walmart for a quarter. The LP has been around for 50 years, and it will be mostly known for attracting former RINOs – not advancing the cause of liberty.
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