Should There Even Be A Libertarian Party? – OpEd

In last week’s column, I argued that while neither major party consistently fights to shrink government and protect civil liberties, the Republican Party is closer than the Democratic Party to practicing such ideals. Meanwhile the actual Libertarian Party, despite existing for over a half-century, has failed to break into the mainstream, rarely making a dent in federal and state elections. These two realities raise a question: should libertarians stop propping up an uninfluential third party and try instead to overtake the GOP? 

To recap from last week: not only are Republican positions closer to libertarian goals, but historically the results of Republican governance are more libertarian. Looking at state-level outcomes, where legislatures are often dominated by one party, red states score way higher on the Cato Institute’s Overall Freedom index than blue states. What’s more, libertarians already tend to vote Republican, with 45% of libertarians aligning this way (by contrast, 5% identify as Democrats). 

The Libertarian Party, by contrast, struggles to get vote share. The only time the party held a Congressional seat was when former Michigan Congressman Justin Amash switched his registration in 2020. There are no Libertarian Party governors, nor prominent mayors, and their presidential candidates struggle to perform better than low-single digits. In the last presidential race, Libertarian nominee Chase Oliver won a shockingly low 0.42%. And that, critics argue, means its main influence is running “spoilers” who take votes from candidates who can actually deliver better outcomes.

To be sure, this dismal performance isn’t entirely about voter preference. The Libertarian Party is the nation’s third-largest, but ballot access restrictions keep it and other independent parties from being a consistent presence in elections. In the 2022 midterms, for instance, the LP was kept off ballots in key states like New York and Ohio. That situation locks the party out of competing in state-level contests where it could incrementally build influence. The Commission on Presidential Debates has long excluded third-party candidates, keeping them obscure. 

But eliminating these barriers is an uphill battle, and since the Republican Party already has ballot access, media and fundraising machines, and political capital, libertarians might enjoy more success by laser-focusing on transforming it. In recent history, right- and left-wing activists have reshaped both parties with exactly this strategy.

President Trump and the MAGA movement drastically transformed the GOP in a decade, shattering Republican orthodoxy on free trade, immigration, and foreign interventionism. Something similar occurred on the left. While the Democratic Party still has a moderate wing in the mold of Bill Clinton, activist politicians have forced ever more radical ideas into the mainstream—and harshly punished dissent. Self-described democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been prominent in American politics for awhile and is seriously discussed as a Presidential candidate. Zohran Mamdani, who publicly said “I don’t think billionaires should exist”, is now the mayor of America’s biggest city. Bernie Sanders, once an irrelevant fringe Senator, ran formidable primary campaigns in 2016 and 2020, only sidelined, many argue, by the party machine. These activists did not shun the Democratic Party in a quest to keep their ideas pure; they joined it to remake the party in their image.

In fact, libertarians already enjoy some success at influencing Republicans. Libertarian-leaning officials like Rand Paul and Thomas Massie now hold influential stances in Congress, and have pushed to the mainstream ideas like auditing the Federal Reserve and deregulating hemp production. During the 2024 race, Donald Trump spoke to libertarian audiences, and while he was boo’d at these speeches, that actually seemed to pressure him. In the months leading up to election day he campaigned with Elon Musk, who spoke vocally about cutting government waste and deregulating cryptocurrency—positions Trump adopted early in his second term. The fact is that libertarians forced these ideas to be taken seriously. 

There is, of course, a serious counterargument: that mixing with the GOP won’t work, because that party too is far down the statism road. 

The idea of libertarians influencing the Republican Party from the inside isn’t new, and has been adopted by libertarian circles almost as long as the LP has existed. But ultimately, libertarians remain a junior player in the conservative coalition.  

The Trump era is instructive. For all the President’s noninterventionist talk, he’s launched significant, if targeted, military operations without congressional approval, and as of this writing may be poised to strike Iran. While past free trade agreements had plenty of strings attached, Trump’s tariff-happy approach creates a less open trade policy. On civil liberties, the Trump administration’s authoritarianism needs little elaboration. The government now argues that ICE agents don’t need judicial warrants to pursue illegal immigrants, escalates enforcement against even peaceful protest, and flirts with censoring media figures who criticize it. 

All this happens with little opposition from the Republican-controlled Congress—as could be expected. After all, it was the Bush administration that signed the Patriot Act into law. 

What’s more, Trump beat out more libertarian leaning candidates early on. He routed Rand Paul’s 2016 campaign, marginalizing his arguments about increasing freedom in favor of a strongman vision. Justin Amash left Congress after criticizing Trump and losing a primary challenge. Looking back further, Ron Paul’s Republican primary campaigns, while spreading libertarian ideas, never challenged the party establishment the way Sanders did with the Democrats. It’s hard to think that in a landscape dominated by right-wing nationalism and left-wing socialism, libertarians can break through.

But the Libertarian Party is part of the problem too, with its internal fractures. This surfaced in recent years between the party’s old guard and the more socially-conservative “Mises Caucus”, which caused some states to revoke their affiliations with the national party. 

This is where branching into the mainstream party duopoly may actually refine the differences, with right-libertarians influencing the GOP and left-libertarians bringing their own brand of freedom to the Democrats. It seems like a more constructive approach than the libertarian infighting that occurs now.

Granted, disbanding the party would reverse the work that founder David Nolan and countless others have put in the last half-century. It might still be practical to preserve the LP as a forum for events, ideas and policy platforms, while declining to run actual candidates.

Libertarians can instead work to get Republicans elected, and work to ensure that those GOP selections stay true to that party’s stated commitment of limiting government size and upholding the Constitution.

• This article was also published at the Independent Institute