Republican-Lite Is a Losing Strategy
For the past 25 years or so, the predominant political strategy within the Libertarian Party, at least in national races, has been to run campaigns based on what can be called the principle of Republican-Lite. The idea behind this political strategy has been twofold: (1) to promote reform-oriented positions that are similar to those of Republican candidates, and (2) to target disgruntled Republicans for votes.
Such reform-oriented positions include such things as securing the border, privatizing Social Security, health-savings accounts, educational reform (e.g., school vouchers at the state level), regulatory reform, selective foreign interventionism, reducing the size of government, legalizing only marijuana, ending Covid mandates and lockdowns (rather than abolishing the CDC and ending federal involvement in healthcare entirely), and maintaining a strong “national defense.”
On a national level, this Republican-Lite political strategy normally produces a vote return of around 1-3 percent, with an occasional outlier of 4 percent. Moreover, that 1-3 percent can potentially deny the Republican candidate the election and deliver it to the Democrat, which would seem counterproductive given that Republican candidates and Republican-Lite L.P. candidates are generally on the same philosophical page. (See my Substack article “Marc Victor’s Surrender to the Republicans.”)
We all know the old saying about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It is my conviction that the Republican-Lite political strategy will, over and over again, continue to deliver the same standard 1-3 percent vote totals, even if L.P. members continue, over and over again, to hope for and expect different results. That’s because the Republican-Lite political strategy is an inherently defective strategy.
I will explain why this is so in this article. In my next article, I will outline what I am convinced is a winning political strategy, one that has the potential of breaking L.P. candidates out of the 1-3 percent standard range and into the 7-10 percent or higher range.
The Republican-Lite political strategy is based on Ron Paul’s 2008 and 2012 Republican presidential races, which attracted the support and votes of hundreds of thousands of people. The idea of the Republican-Lite L.P. strategy is to reproduce the “Ron Paul Revolution” with Republican-Lite L.P. races for Congress and the presidency.
However, I don’t believe it will ever work. The reason is as follows. There is obviously a large number of disgruntled Republicans within the Republican Party. Ron Paul proved that with his two presidential races. As I have pointed out in my previous Substack articles, many of those disgruntled Republicans came into the Libertarian Party and moved the L.P. in the direction of reform-oriented positions. Their aim was to make the L.P. and its candidates more “respectable” and “credible” and thereby be able to attract disgruntled Republicans to vote for the Republican-Lite L.P. candidate rather than the Republican candidate.
But there was always a fundamental flaw in this strategy. While some disgruntled Republicans have obviously come into the Libertarian Party and have had an enormous impact on the direction of the party, the vast majority of disgruntled Republicans have stayed in the Republican Party. Moreover, the last thing those disgruntled Republicans will ever do is cross over and vote for an L.P. candidate, even if the L.P. candidate is a Republican-Lite. They are simply too loyal to the Republican Party to do that. Given a choice of sitting home or voting for a Republican-Lite L.P. candidate, they are going to sit home.
Think back to the 2016 presidential election. Gary Johnson was a standard libertarian-leaning Republican running for president within the Republican Party. He switched parties and successfully sought the L.P. presidential nomination. If there was any Republican-Lite L.P. presidential candidate who was going to continue the “Ron Paul Revolution,” it should have been Gary Johnson. Right? After all, he was the reform-oriented Libertarian’s dream: a former Republican governor, lots of political experience, big donor base, well-known, big media attention, and respectable and credible.
Yet, despite the fact that he was a model Republican-Lite L.P. candidate, he was unable to reproduce the Ron Paul Revolution as the L.P. presidential candidate. The reason for that was that he could not induce the large number of disgruntled Republicans who had supported Ron Paul to come over and support him. They chose to stay within the Republican Party.
In that same 2016 race was Kentucky U.S. Senator Rand Paul. If anyone could reproduce the Ron Paul Revolution within the Republican Party, it should have been Ron Paul’s son. Right? Yet, he was unable to do so.
There is a good reason for the fact that neither Republican-Lite L.P. presidential candidate Gary Johnson nor Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul were able to garner the support of the large number of disgruntled Republicans who had supported Ron Paul. That reason was none other than Donald Trump.
While both Rand Paul and Gary Johnson were portraying themselves as “credible” and “respectable” Republican and Republican-Lite presidential candidates, Trump was letting loose with all sorts of “non-respectable” positions. Those included criticizing and ridiculing the so-called Deep State and publicly opposing its longtime animosity toward Russia. They also included mocking and ridiculing President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, including his so-called WMD excuse for the invasion. Trump even raised the JFK assassination during the course of his candidacy, which is a super no-no in the eyes of the Deep State. Trump was failing to show the proper reverence for the Deep State and its long-held positions.
No presidential candidate is ever supposed to do that. That’s why the Deep State ended up going after Trump. But in touching lots of untouchables, Trump ended up garnering the support of mass numbers of disgruntled Republicans. Those disgruntled Republicans went with him, rather than with Rand Paul and Gary Johnson, precisely because (1) those disgruntled Republicans were Republicans; and (2) Trump was willing to question well-established Deep State shibboleths that the other Republican candidates and the Republican-Lite L.P. candidate, seeking credibility and respectability, were loathe to do do.
Does that mean that L.P. candidates on a national level are doomed to receive the standard 1-3 percent, over and over again? I don’t believe so. Actually, the basic idea of the Republican-Lite political strategy is, in my opinion, a good one. However, it needs to be redirected and reoriented in a major way.
As I will detail in my next Substack article, there is a better political strategy for the Libertarian Party to pursue. Suffice it to say for now that it is not based on taking Republican-Lite positions, targeting disgruntled Republicans for votes, endorsing Republican candidates, commending Republican candidates, making pals with Republican candidates, or giving attaboys to Republican candidates. Instead, it is based on fighting as Libertarians and unleashing a concerted, unmitigated, take-no-prisoners attack on both Republicans and Democrats for what they have done to our country.