Just to bump this thread up, apparently there's some sort of civil war going on with the US Libertarian Party?
I follow a fair number of random "Liberty Twitter" people plus there's a lot of Libertarian ideas and articles one just absorbs via Reason or FEE or whatever so it was kinda on the radar... but I still have no idea what's really going on.
Maybe someone can shed some light on it?
Huh... wha??? No idea what's happening.
Mises Institute?
Cato Institute?
Who is Nicholas Sarwalk?
Yeah, this is a long story. So there is the Libertarian National Party (LNP), which is there, but basically useless, and it has been for years. As a political party, it is a failure, as it does not get people elected into office. As a political movement, it's very dubious, as it doesn't put pressure on actual, viable candidates either.
Then there is the Free State Project (FSP), the Mises Caucus, and Libertarian Party of New Hampshire (LPNH). All of these have actually been getting stuff done, and working in concert.
The Free State Project has been hard at work since around 2000 getting libertarians to move to New Hampshire and basically shove it to the Libertarian side, which has been hugely successful. A big part of this has been electing 'Republicans' who are really free staters/Libertarians, by taking over the primaries (sometimes they do this to democrats also, resulting in a funny general election where you have your choice of two libertarians to elect). Now this might annoy the Libertarian National Party a bit, as they aren't electing Libertarian Party members, but instead libertarians who are technically 'Republicans', but I'm not sure about this part.
Now the LPNH had somewhat divided loyalties here, but then got taken over by the Mises Caucus, which caused a big to do with the Libertarian National Party, whose leadership doesn't like the Mises Caucus. Why? The Mises Caucus basically has a lot of Trump's/alt-right energy, disregard for politeness, and disdain for wokeness, but none of the Trumps/the right's non-libertarian positions. At 'worst' (from the perspective of a libertarian), they just don't focus on some of the stuff Trump really disagrees with Libertarians on (like opening immigration is a nice to have for the Mises Caucus, but not their first priority).
The Mises Caucus tends not to focus on 'winnable' candidates, because the candidates won't win regardless. Instead, it focuses on getting candidates that will broadcast their message as loudly as possible, so people hear what we have to say. Hence ads like this:
He doesn't think he's going to win, but he does want to make being anti-war a campaign point for the Dems and Republicans he's running against, shoving the Overton window towards freedom.
Nicholas Sawark was one of the heads of the LNP, before resigning in basic disgrace.
Cato is a major libertarian think tank, probably the libertarian think tank.
We don't need the far right, as we aren't a right wing organization. The Mises Caucus, Cato, etc, aren't far right organizations, or even right wing ones. They are libertarian ones that some 'libertarians' just don't like as they've bought into left wing talking points. Look, I know it seems like a minor point, but it's honestly not to libertarians. We very much don't want to be run by a bunch of tepid republicans.Lolberts and Pedos are being driven out the LP and this is is somehow a Nazi plot?
The Libertarian movement needs more far right fuckers not less.