I have often butted heads with Libertarian Party political candidates in West Virginia over the years. The argument usually goes like this:
Libertarian candidate: Why won’t you treat me as an equal to the other candidates running for office and give me more time on your radio show?
Me: Because historic election results demonstrate Libertarian candidates are never even close to equal to the other candidates in terms of outcomes.
Libertarian candidate: That’s because you and the rest of the media won’t treat us equally. If we received more coverage, we would get better results.
Me: (getting slightly testy now) I’m not here to help your campaign.
Let me say this in the least patronizing way possible: The Libertarians I have met and interviewed over the years, I generally find to be interesting, intelligent and, most of all, deeply passionate about their philosophy.
And a many of the basic concepts are appealing on a philosophical level. David Boaz defined the key elements of libertarianism as individualism, individual rights, spontaneous order, the rule of law, limited government, free markets, the virtue of production, natural harmony of interests and peace.
The idea is that if the government would just stay out of our business, we would be able to figure everything out on our own. As Boaz wrote, “The great insight of libertarian social analysis is that order in society arises spontaneously, out of the actions of thousands or millions of individuals who coordinate their actions with those of others in order to achieve their purposes.”
Michael Lind, author, professor and critic of libertarianism, sees it differently. He wrote, “Libertarian theorists have the luxury of mixing and matching policies to create an imaginary utopia. A real country must function simultaneously in different realms—defense and the economy, law enforcement and some kind of system of support for the poor. Being able to point to one truly libertarian country would provide at least some evidence that libertarianism can work in the real world.”
What Libertarians do have going for them is that some of their best ideas are adopted by countries like Switzerland, Sweden and New Zealand, but those countries do not adopt all libertarian principles.
Yet, Libertarian political candidates rarely get any traction in this country, with only a few exceptions. In West Virginia, they typically finish in the single digits. (Here is where the Libertarians again will criticize me and other media for not giving them more press, which they believe would lead to more votes.)
But you must give it to these folks; they stick to their guns. They demonstrated the commitment to their ideals during Donald Trump’s speech at their convention last weekend.
When Trump said something they agreed with, they cheered. When he said something they disagreed with, they booed. West Virginia Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Erika Kolenich and state party chair Taylor Richmond were among those at the convention, and they alternated cheering and booing, depending on what Trump said.
Trump tried to win them over with what he thought was a practical argument. “What’s the purpose of the Libertarian Party getting three percent?” Trump asked the crowd. “You should nominate Trump for President only if you want to win.”
That ignited a chorus of boos and insults. That tells you about the Libertarians. As they say on their website, “Our slogan is that we are ‘The Party of Principle’ because we stand firmly on our principles.”
Those principles make for interesting discussions and debates, but typically leave their candidates short on votes on Election Day… no matter how much media attention they get.