For years, if not decades, libertarians have been making the argument that the two major parties had become virtually indistinguishable from one another. While their rhetoric might differ, their behavior once in office has tended to be basically the same. Both parties were interventionist when it came to foreign policy. Neither party was anti-war, even if some on the left liked to make a show of it when there was a Republican president in office. Likewise, neither party had any interest in cutting government spending at all, although Republicans would also occasionally make a show of it when opposing the agenda of Democratic presidents. Neither party has shown any desire at all to address our huge debt problem. Neither party is a strong defender of civil liberties. The Patriot Act was passed by members of both parties under a Republican president and renewed by both parties under a Democratic president. While they might quibble slightly on specifics and differ in the boogeymen they use to scare voters, the actions of the Democratic and Republican parties over the past 20 years has made it clear that they both want a bigger government that spends more money to control everybody’s lives and police the world.
However, that might be changing. The ascension of Donald Trump has radically altered the Republican Party over the past few years. It started with the type of campaign he ran in the primaries. He vanquished a slate of up-and-coming young Republican politicians like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. He also actively campaigned against the legacy of the previous two Republican presidents while lobbing personal attacks at Jeb Bush, earning the ire of the entire Bush family. When a pro-choice, anti-free trade, big spending, thrice-married, former registered Democrat who mocks captured POWs can win the Republican presidential nomination despite not having much establishment backing at all, you know a seismic shift has occurred.
Battle for the Republican Party
However, Trump’s election didn’t necessarily mean a permanent shift for the GOP. There was still a chance that his success was a fluke, a four year flash in the pan due to the force of his personality and a unique moment in time. After all, even after his election Trump was suffering from terrible approval ratings and was facing a small revolt by the Republican Never Trump movement. Other Republican candidates tried to mimic Trump’s populist-style campaign by focusing on divisive social issues and achieved mixed results at best. Corey Stewart came close, but ultimately lost the Republican nomination for governor of Virginia to a more establishment friendly Ed Gillespie. Roy Moore won his nomination, but lost the special election to a Democrat in a heavily Republican state. For a little while, it looked like the Trump wave was receding and the establishment Republicans would re-assert control.
The first sign of trouble was when Jeff Flake announced that he would not run for re-election.
Flake had been a vocal and constant critic of Donald Trump, even writing a book decrying Trump’s brand of destructive politics. His clashes with the president evidently came with a cost, as polls had shown him losing badly in his primary. Seeing the writing on the wall and forced to choose between his conscious and his Senate seat, Flake apparently decided to bow out with his head held high.
This past week, though, really seemed to seal the deal that the GOP is now Trump’s party.
There were two elections that people had their eyes on for two different, but related, reasons. One was in Virginia, where Republicans were picking a candidate to run against Tim Kaine for a Senate seat. The two highest profile candidates were Nick Freitas and the aforementioned Corey Stewart, continuing to run a Trump-style populist campaign. As A. Barton Hinkle writes:
“There is no Republican Party,” said former House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, at a recent policy conference in Michigan. “There’s a Trump Party. The Republican Party is kind of taking a nap somewhere.”
On Tuesday, Virginians will find out how accurate Boehner’s statement is here. The GOP Senate primary has boiled down to a contest between Nick Freitas, a hardcore conservative and former Army Ranger, and Corey Stewart, a braggadocious blowhard so intemperate the Trump campaign fired him. (A third candidate, E.W. Jackson, also is running.)
Freitas served two tours in Iraq with one of the most elite fighting units the world has ever seen. On issue after issue, he takes a resoundingly conservative position. In early March, he infuriated Democrats when he gave a speech (since viewed more than 11 million times) objecting to their linking gun rights with Nazism and racial segregation. If Democrats really want an “open and honest debate” about guns, he said, then they should “start with a certain degree of mutual respect.”
Respect is something of a Freitas theme. Last week, he tore into Stewart for his “dog-whistling of White supremacists, anti-Semites, and racists.” He denounced Stewart for cozying up to figures such as Jason Kessler, organizer of the Unite the Right rally that turned into a deadly riot in Charlottesville last August. “It is well past time we defeat the hate mongers,” Freitas wrote.
–Virginia’s Primary About Who Controls the GOP Now by A. Barton Hinkle
The other election involved Mark Sanford in South Carolina, and was more in the Jeff Flake mold. Sanford had been a long time vocal critic of Trump. Sanford had a number of advantages that should’ve made his victory in a primary a cake-walk. For starters, he was the incumbent. He was also well-known in the state, having served two terms as governor. He was a savvy politician, having never lost an election and even having survived impeachment proceedings against him due to his infamous “hiking the Appalachian Trail” affair. Finally, his opponent, Katie Arrington, was a first term state legislator who first took office one year ago. All of that wasn’t enough to overcome Sanford’s criticism of the president.
As Arrington said to her supporters, “We are the party of President Donald J. Trump”.
What Now?
So where does that leave establishment Republicans, principled small government and free trade conservatives, and libertarians who briefly thought that the Republican Party might be friendly to them? The obvious answer is to look for a third party, and no party is better positioned to take advantage of this takeover than the Libertarian Party. For as much as people like to make fun of libertarians and the Libertarian Party, they’ve actually tended to be ahead of the curve much more than the two major parties. Libertarians (both small and big “L”) were advocating for gay marriage and marijuana legalization well before either major party gave those issues any consideration. Libertarians were also talking about issues like criminal justice reform and government surveillance before either of those became hot topics. If you’re feeling politically homeless right now and wondering where to go, I suggest giving the Libertarian Party a look. You might not agree with everything they stand for, but I would wager it’s a better match than the Democratic or Republican Party.
I have one more glimmer of optimism, though, that I think is being under-reported. This past election saw Maine voters use a new voting system, Ranked Choice voting, instead of the traditional First Past the Post voting. There are a number of problems with First Past the Post voting, including causing people to believe in wasted votes and leading to the development of two-party systems. Ranked Choice voting solves a number of these problems. As CNN notes:
The consequences of Maine’s experiment could be momentous, with the potential to change campaigns, enliven third-party candidacies, and if successful, serve as proof-of-concept for the system at scale.
–Maine set for groundbreaking voting experiment on Tuesday by David Wright
Considering the results of the most recent elections, I certainly hope they’re right.
It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.