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The Current Libertarian Party in the U.S..
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Libertarian Party, U.S. political party devoted to the principles of libertarianism. It supports the rights of individuals to exercise virtual sole authority over their lives and sets itself against the traditional services and regulatory and coercive powers of federal, state, and local governments.
The Libertarian Party was established in Westminster, Colorado, in 1971 and fielded its first candidate for the presidency in the next year’s elections. In 1980 it achieved its height of success when it was on the ballot in all 50 states, and its presidential candidate, Edward E. Clark, a California lawyer, received 921,199 votes. Although this vote represented only about 1 percent of the national total, it was enough to make the Libertarian Party the third largest political party in the United States. Libertarian candidates ran in every subsequent presidential election, and several of its members were elected to local and state office, particularly in the West. Though subsequently the party failed to match its 1980 total, its presidential candidates consistently attracted hundreds of thousands of votes, and from 1992 the party consistently secured ballot access in all 50 states. In 2000 the party contested a majority of seats in the House of Representatives, and though it captured no seats, its candidates combined to win 1.7 million votes. The party maintains a national office in Washington, D.C., and has affiliates in every state. The Cato Institute, a public-policy research organization, was founded in 1977 in part by prominent members of the Libertarian Party.
In opposing the purported right of the state “to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor,” the Libertarian Party contends that a completely free market is a necessary economic condition for prosperity and liberty. To this end most Libertarians call for the repeal of personal and corporate income taxes; the replacement of most government-provided services, including Social Security and the post office, with private and voluntary arrangements; the repeal of regulations, including minimum wage and gun-control laws; and the dismantling of all regulatory bodies that do not promote freely contracted trade. In supporting an individual’s “right to liberty of speech and action,” the Libertarian Party opposes all forms of censorship, insists on the right to keep and bear firearms, and defends the choice of abortion. Noting that “the initiation of force against others” constitutes a violation of fundamental rights, the Libertarian Party supports the prosecution of criminal violence and fraud but also advocates the repeal of laws against such “victimless” crimes as gambling, drug use, and prostitution.
Libertarian Party principles are incorporated into its platforms, which are established at semiannual conventions of national party officers and delegates from state affiliates. To direct the ongoing functions of the party, convention delegates elect an 18-member Libertarian National Committee, composed of a chairperson and 3 other officers, 5 at-large members, and 9 regional representatives. Presidential candidates are elected by a simple majority of convention delegates. The party publishes a number of pamphlets and newsletters, including the Libertarian Party News (monthly).
Libertarianism is a political philosophy that takes individual liberty to be the primary political value. It may be understood as a form of liberalism, which seeks to define and justify the legitimate powers of government in terms of certain natural or God-given individual rights. The central philosophical issue is not individuality versus community, but rather consent versus coercion.
Libertarianism has deep roots in Western thought. A central feature of the religious and intellectual traditions of ancient Israel and ancient Greece was the idea of a higher moral law that applied universally and constrained the powers of even kings and governments. Libertarianism also was influenced by debates within Scholasticism on slavery and private property.
Libertarian Party (United States) - Wikipedia
Platform[edit]
The preamble outlines the party's goals: "As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others. [...] Our goal is nothing more nor less than a world set free in our lifetime, and it is to this end that we take these stands". Its Statement of Principles begins: "We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual". The Statement of Principles is foundational to the ideology of the party and was created specifically to bind the party to certain core principles with a high parliamentary burden for any amendment.[65]
The platform emphasizes individual liberty in personal and economic affairs, avoidance of "foreign entanglements" and military and economic intervention in other nations' affairs, and free trade and migration. The party opposes gun control. It calls for Constitutional limitations on government as well as the elimination of most state functions. It includes a "Self-determination" section which quotes from the Declaration of Independence and reads: "Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of individual liberty, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to agree to such new governance as to them shall seem most likely to protect their liberty". It also includes an "Omissions" section which reads: "Our silence about any other particular government law, regulation, ordinance, directive, edict, control, regulatory agency, activity, or machination should not be construed to imply approval".[66]
The party favors minimally regulated markets, a less powerful federal government, strong civil liberties (including LGBT rights, with the party supporting same-sex marriage), the liberalization of drug laws, separation of church and state, open immigration, non-interventionism and neutrality in diplomatic relations, free trade and free movement to all foreign countries and a more representative republic.[66] In 2018, the Libertarian Party became the first in the United States to call for the decriminalization of sex work.[67] The party since 2022 has no official stance on abortion.[68]
The Statement of Principles was written by John Hospers.[69] The Libertarian Party's bylaws specify that a 7/8ths supermajority of delegates is required to change the Statement of Principles.[70] Any proposed platform plank found by the Judicial Committee to conflict with the Statement requires approval by a three-fourths supermajority of delegates.[71] Early platform debates included at the second convention whether to support tax resistance and at the 1974 convention whether to support anarchism. In both cases, a compromise was reached.[72]
What Happened?: The 2020 election showed that libertarians have a long way to go before they can become a national movement. | USAPP (lse.ac.uk)
In the 2020 presidential election, the Libertarian Party candidate, Jo Jorgensen, gained 1.2 percent of the vote, less than half the party’s 2016 election result. Jeffrey Michels and Olivier Lewis write that despite signs that pointed towards the potential for libertarian voters to be king makers in the 2020 election, their dislike of Donald Trump turned many to Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.
• Following the 2020 US General Election, our mini-series,?‘What Happened?’, explores aspects of elections at the presidential, Senate, House of Representative and state levels, and also reflects on what the election results will mean for US politics moving forward. If you are interested in contributing, please contact Rob Ledger (ledger@em.uni-frankfurt.de) or Peter Finn (p.finn@kingston.ac.uk).
In the 2016 US Presidential election, the former Republican Governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson gained 3.3 percent of the national vote share, the highest on record for a Libertarian Party presidential candidate. This modest milestone could have been written off as the result of a race featuring two highly unpopular mainstream candidates, Donald Trump and former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. But it might also have portended a more meaningful movement in US electoral politics, one in which a growing Libertarian Party – or at least an increasingly independent bloc of libertarian voters – gains the critical mass to tip the race. In fiercely competitive bipartisan contests, protests voters could position themselves as power brokers.
The Libertarian Party and the 2020 election
When we entertained this possibility during the primary season, plenty of signs were pointing to another strong result for the Libertarian Party. The frontrunners of the Democratic Party primaries were relatively radical candidates like Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, who were proposing a new push of state intervention in the economy – anathema of course to libertarian ideology. Meanwhile, Trump’s dominance of the Republic Party was unquestioned, blocking any attempt to move the party away from the incumbent’s brand of blunt nativism. And the one Republican House Representative, Justin Amash, who did dare question this dominance – and in doing so became a minor cult hero – threw in his hat for the Libertarian Party ticket.
But then, a lot changed. Democrats rallied behind moderate former Vice-President Joe Biden, while Libertarians chose Jo Jorgensen, a familiar face within the party but a stranger beyond it. The COVID-19 pandemic then rendered impossible the in-person canvassing necessary to raise Jorgensen’s profile. And it left little place for libertarian discourse in public debate. In the run up to the election, the question was not whether government intervention was justifiable, but rather how much and what kind was needed.
As a result, in Libertarian candidates finished with just under 1.2 percent of the vote in the 2020 election, losing nearly two-thirds of their share compared to 2016.
Did the 2020 ‘setback’ confirm that the Libertarian spike of 2016 was not a sign but a fluke? Looking at the bigger picture, was it rash to consider that libertarian voters could become kingmakers in US Presidential elections?
Libertarians were not 2020 spoilers
One straightforward response was put forth immediately after the election by commentators and politicians who argued that the Libertarian Party nonetheless decided the election, “spoiling” a Republican victory. Despite underperforming relative to the previous election, Jo Jorgenson’s ticket still was the second-best result in Libertarian Party history, and it was enough to cover the difference between Trump and Biden in several swing states.
This “spoiler” argument rests on the false assumption that voters of the Libertarian Party, and more generally voters whose identification with libertarian values rivals their loyalty to any particular party, belong, in the end, to the GOP. It was precisely the extent to which this assumption was false that provides a key to answering the questions set out above. The Republican Party showed in 2016 that its turn to Trump could cost it a large portion of voters to a Libertarian Party protest ticket. Doubling down on Trump in 2020, the GOP proved it could push the lion’s share of these same voters into the enemy camp, assuring its defeat.
