Why I Left the Libertarian Party

It's time I headed on.

Two years ago I wrote about why I had joined the Libertarian Party. Key reasons were that the populist paleo right had taken over the GOP and made it inhospitable to libertarian ideals and candidates, and the second being that as a leftist the platform was liberal or “woke” enough for me to agree to. It did represent a compromise, but I got things on civil liberties that the Democratic Party is not serious about protecting.

When the Mises Caucus was gaining territory I urged folks who believed in both liberty and an open egalitarian society to not abandon the fight for the party. Though many good people had fled by then, a significant resistance remained and we tried to fend off the horde. In the end, we failed. We could not defend the Cathedral. The Party of Principle has fallen.

In a single weekend the parts of the party platform that specifically energized me and made my partnership with the LP make sense were carved out like leftover turkey and gleefully plopped in the trash. The abortion plank that I wrote about previously? Vanished. The toothless but important statement that “bigotry is irrational and repugnant”? Deleted.

The forces and positions of the Ron Paul days that I deliberately left in the past caught up with me and took control of a space that was supposed to be different. What was a party existing in the center-ish of the libertarian spectrum has been pushed to the far paleo-right.

A little personal history: I was active in the 08 and 12 Ron Paul campaigns and ran YAL as a Chapter President, State Chair, and Regional Director from 09-13. After college while working night stock at a grocery store I became disillusioned and finally listened to “Markets Not Capitalism” and became a left libertarian. More precisely I consider myself a left techno agorist/mutalist anarchist. I am a leftist. I am “woke”. I am an anarchist and hence at total war with all hierarchy and power. I have no time or tolerance for rightist culture war pack tactics. I have no space to hold for some bullies instead of others.

I kept the torch lit during the dire and dark days of COVID starting in 2020. I held meetings under windy park pavilions because I valued the safety of myself and my members. There of course weren’t many people, but probably there could have been if I had hosted my meetings in bars with no masks like some other contrarians. It’s been a long 2 years, and I’ve honestly been burnt out since then- but I had enough energy to at least host the meetings and fulfill the basics of my responsibilities to the party. I’m exhausted, I’m angry that this happened and that the defeat was so total and decisive, and I now must leave and rest. I’ve also started a second job that needs my full attention.

Other party members have said common people don’t care about our platform or know what it is. Well, it mattered a great deal to me and you cut it apart. You teemed and swarmed until you could dismember it by force in the name of unironic “anti-wokeness”. You removed key things that made this alliance make sense for me. By ripping these out of the heart of the party, you have dislodged and discarded me also. I can’t stick around and be your token liberal.

It has also been said that national has not much to do with the state party. I do control a county and region, and I could hold on. But I am tired. I’ve had people recruited, only to leave because of vitriol seeping out of the corrupted parts of the party. How can I possibly recruit people to this party when a Google search will pull up the latest stunt like NH’s MLK Day tweet? How can I ask people to join this movement when this sort of shock jock behavior will come from the top, or at least give free pass to state affiliates that engage in this?

So what does this mean? My resignation is not immediate. I will take a couple of weeks to wrap up loose ends and make sure the leaders and allies in my region have what they need from me. I am a professional after all. Am I renouncing the party entirely? National LP will get no aid, nor comfort from me in any form. Those in my state and region that I regard as friendly I may be willing to provide limited support to if they need something like a graphic or flyer. I paid up for two memberships on accident at the TN Convention so technically I’m good for 2 years.

But I need to go. I need to rest. And honestly the culture war is reaching such insane and dangerous heights that if I’m engaging in politics it’s more likely to be providing logistical support to a revived Jane Collective or counter protesting people shouting “groomer” at Pride. Some of you have chosen your stake in this struggle, and I have chosen mine. I fear that though it is not fought yet with bullets, that the war is here. We are all thrown into this struggle. And if you think it’s ok to harass teachers for teaching LGBT subjects, force someone to carry a pregnancy, or spread racism- then you are not my friend and you are not my ally.

Ultimately I don’t regret joining the LP. I have met many incredible people, made lots of friends and connections, and by and large our crew in Tennessee is comparatively great. I’ll also say more or less that if all the Mises Caucus behaved themselves as well as TN’s more prominent members then perhaps there wouldn’t such an irreconcilable problem. But we want different things. You are singularly focused it seems on decentralization and destroying the power of the state. I want those things but I hold in equal weight raising up and protecting the marginalized. The Mises Caucus has made it clear by deed and tweet that they do not share my “woke” priorities and instead still want to babble on about masks and lockdowns while the populist authoritarian right seize the opportunity to outlaw everything that doesn’t fit into the Christian Nationalist framework. What we perceive as threats, what our priorities are, and ultimately the kind of world we will build with our freedom is completely different.

As Portugal. The Man said in their 2013 hit Evil Friends,

”It’s not that I’m evil, I just don’t like to pretend.”