It's election season again, and the Libertarian Party is gearing up for another Presidential campaign.
Unfortunately, I think it will once again be a futile effort, with most of the time and money being spent just getting on the ballot.
In 50 years of effort, not a single LP candidate has been elected to Congress. Nor have they won a single Governorship, or even a Mayoral race of a city with more than 100,000 people. Our presidential candidates typically win 1 - 1.5% of the national vote.
As far as I can see, recruiting people to libertarianism in significant numbers has utterly failed.
In the past, it could be argued that it was worthwhile to run for office nationally because there was no better strategy on offer.
However, I think libertarians have a much better strategy now, a winning strategy: The Free State Project (FSP).
You can read about the project in detail here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_Project
But here's the logic of the FSP in brief.
We can achieve the liberties we want only if we win elections. Elections are ultimately popularity contests. Libertarianism has not proven very popular to date, and there's no sign that we can significantly increase our numbers via recruitment. Although there about 5 - 15 million libertarians in the US (depending on how strictly you define the term), we're spread out all over the US. So, we're routinely trounced by the much more numerous Republican/Democratic duopoly.
However, we _can_ boost our numbers enough to win elections if we concentrate our meager forces in a single state. And that's the goal of the Free State Project.
Even though only about 8000 people have moved so far, libertarians have already taken control of the Republican Party in the New Hampshire House of Representatives. And they've passed a large number of pro-liberty bills:
https://libertywin.org/index.php/Main_Page
Libertarians have been so successful that NH progressives take to the streets to protest _us_. They write frequent editorials denouncing us. For example, the NH progressive advocacy group Granite State Matters has written a 24 page attack on libertarians, accusing us of "dismantling democracy":
https://granitestatematters.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/NH-Battleground-in-the-Fight-to-Dismantle-Democracy-electronic.pdf
This doesn't happen in other states. In other states, we're the cranks protesting with handwritten signs on the sidewalk. In every other state, we're so toothless that the major parties mostly just ignore us entirely.
Yes, Milei won in Argentina. But he did so only after Argentine citizens had suffered decades of poverty and economic derangement caused by hyperinflation.
US voters have not yet endured such long-standing hardship. As a result, the public has no appetite for significantly changing the status quo. IMO, Americans will have to suffer much more before they'll be ready to listen to an American Milei.
Therefore, libertarians should stop larping at national politics--for now--and concentrate our resources on recruiting libertarians to move to New Hampshire.
If we can't win in New Hampshire, we're certainly not going to win nationally. If winning nationally is even possible at all, it will become much easier once we've demonstrated that libertarians can competently govern New Hampshire.
But even if we win over no state other than New Hampshire, at least we'll have one state that libertarians can call our own.
#archerpolitics
#fsp
#freestateproject
Unfortunately, I think it will once again be a futile effort, with most of the time and money being spent just getting on the ballot.
In 50 years of effort, not a single LP candidate has been elected to Congress. Nor have they won a single Governorship, or even a Mayoral race of a city with more than 100,000 people. Our presidential candidates typically win 1 - 1.5% of the national vote.
As far as I can see, recruiting people to libertarianism in significant numbers has utterly failed.
In the past, it could be argued that it was worthwhile to run for office nationally because there was no better strategy on offer.
However, I think libertarians have a much better strategy now, a winning strategy: The Free State Project (FSP).
You can read about the project in detail here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_Project
But here's the logic of the FSP in brief.
We can achieve the liberties we want only if we win elections. Elections are ultimately popularity contests. Libertarianism has not proven very popular to date, and there's no sign that we can significantly increase our numbers via recruitment. Although there about 5 - 15 million libertarians in the US (depending on how strictly you define the term), we're spread out all over the US. So, we're routinely trounced by the much more numerous Republican/Democratic duopoly.
However, we _can_ boost our numbers enough to win elections if we concentrate our meager forces in a single state. And that's the goal of the Free State Project.
Even though only about 8000 people have moved so far, libertarians have already taken control of the Republican Party in the New Hampshire House of Representatives. And they've passed a large number of pro-liberty bills:
https://libertywin.org/index.php/Main_Page
Libertarians have been so successful that NH progressives take to the streets to protest _us_. They write frequent editorials denouncing us. For example, the NH progressive advocacy group Granite State Matters has written a 24 page attack on libertarians, accusing us of "dismantling democracy":
https://granitestatematters.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/NH-Battleground-in-the-Fight-to-Dismantle-Democracy-electronic.pdf
This doesn't happen in other states. In other states, we're the cranks protesting with handwritten signs on the sidewalk. In every other state, we're so toothless that the major parties mostly just ignore us entirely.
Yes, Milei won in Argentina. But he did so only after Argentine citizens had suffered decades of poverty and economic derangement caused by hyperinflation.
US voters have not yet endured such long-standing hardship. As a result, the public has no appetite for significantly changing the status quo. IMO, Americans will have to suffer much more before they'll be ready to listen to an American Milei.
Therefore, libertarians should stop larping at national politics--for now--and concentrate our resources on recruiting libertarians to move to New Hampshire.
If we can't win in New Hampshire, we're certainly not going to win nationally. If winning nationally is even possible at all, it will become much easier once we've demonstrated that libertarians can competently govern New Hampshire.
But even if we win over no state other than New Hampshire, at least we'll have one state that libertarians can call our own.
#archerpolitics
#fsp
#freestateproject