I post this rather wonky blast to (i) point out that the Republican Party and its poisonous ex-president have unleashed something that has a poisonous life of its own, and (ii) suggest where some or most of the moral responsibility for their anti-democratic poison should lie.
Ex-libertarian Andy Craig, complains:
I was an active member of the party for nearly 10 years, until I resigned last year along with many others unwilling to stick around for a takeover by the illiberal far right. During that time, I was a party officer at the state and local level, served on national committees, including the ones responsible for writing the party’s platform and bylaws, was twice a candidate for office myself, and also worked as a senior staffer on the Johnson campaign in 2016.
Under the direction of the so-called Mises Caucus, the LP has become home to those who don’t have qualms about declaring Holocaust-denying racists “fellow travelers” and who don’t think that bigots are necessarily disqualified from the party. They even went out of their way to delete from the party’s platform its nearly 50-year-old language stating: “We condemn bigotry as irrational and repugnant.” The caucus is also reversing the party’s longstanding commitment to open immigration policies in favor of border enforcement. The new chair, Angela McArdle, proclaims that the party will now be dedicated to fighting “wokeism.” People with pronouns in their Twitter bios aren’t welcome anymore, but, evidently, white nationalists and Holocaust deniers are.
But that’s not all. Various members of the new leadership have averred that: Black folks owe America for affirmative action; Pride Month is a plot by degenerates and child molesters aiming for socialism; and a country with zero taxes but more trans murders would be more morally acceptable than the reverse. Though some Mises Caucus figures insist they want to offer solutions to the culture wars, in practice, that means obsessively weighing in on the side of the far right.Former Republican congressman Ron Paul has been paleolibertarianism’s most visible promoter. His 2008 and 2012 bids for the Republican presidential nomination initially ignited considerable grassroots enthusiasm, even among non-libertarians, thanks to his staunch opposition to war, among other things. But eventually Paul’s candidacy went down in flames in no small part due to the emergence of racist newsletters penned under his name some 20 years prior by a Rothbard acolyte. The author, Lew Rockwell, founded the Mises Institute, from which the Mises Caucus gets its name. (It can’t be emphasized enough that Ludwig von Mises, the Austrian economist after whom the institute is named, was a liberal champion of toleration and cosmopolitanism who would have roundly condemned his namesake’s twisted agenda.)
To believe that there was a kumbaya compromise possible with those whose vision is fundamentally incompatible with liberal values speaks to a profound moral confusion. You can have an organization that welcomes bigots or one that welcomes the targets of their hate, but you can’t have both under the same tent.
The same pathology that afflicts the GOP now also afflicts the LP, namely, orienting itself not by reference to its principles but by single-mindedly focusing on its enemy: progressives and anybody else to the left of the far right. This alignment bodes ill for the future of American politics, now that the nation’s largest third party is an adjunct of Trumpism rather than an opponent of it.
From that, one can see the authoritarian mindset has been with us for a long time. At least since the US Constitution was ratified by my reckoning. It also hints at the influence that corrupt or authoritarian elites have on many Americans. They have convinced millions to embrace lies, bigotry, theocracy and fascism. They have normalized vulgarity, incompetence and corruption. Surely they deserve some responsibility for what radical right authoritarians have done to us.
Off topic
An American Pica gathering food
to store for winter
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