Why disaffected Democrats may help us grow
Believe it or not, a great source of potential libertarians can be found in the Democratic Party. The answer is to look for disaffected Dems, those unhappy with the modern party's autoritarian policies and poorly performing candidates.
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Posted November 23, 2005
After years of constantly losing political battles, many Democrats are questioning the value of their party. After their loss in 2004, there was much infighting in the Democratic Party. Libertarians need to take advantage of the broken state of the Democratic Party to attract disaffected Democrats into their ranks.
Many Democrats are disaffected for any number of reasons. There are those who are upset with Democratic Party's stance on gun control and other issues of personal freedom. They do not like the nanny state that the Democrats are creating. These are Democrats who live by the classic views of the party, those espoused by Thomas Jefferson, a founder of what would become the modern Democratic Party.
Another reason that many Democrats are upset with their party is the simple fact that they are constantly providing poor candidates. Many in the Democratic Party may want to give up, and put their support behind someone else, yet without migrating to the Republican side. This is why I think that libertarians, with small "L"s and big "L"s alike need to create outreach to Democrats.
We cannot risk disaffected Democrats moving over to the Republican side on issues of liberty, for the Republicans do not truly espouse liberty. The Democrats and Republicans each have restrictions on liberty in their platforms, some on the same things, some on different things. To trade parties would be to simply trade in beliefs in some liberties—say, a woman's right to choose—in return for others, such as gun rights. Liberty is not something to be traded around, liberty is something which exists, therefore it is.
Classic liberals and civil libertarians within the Democratic ranks may start to find the Libertarian Party and libertarianism more and more attractive in the coming days. We cannot expect Democrats to find libertarianism, we need to bring it to them.
It works much the same way as a missionary would go out and spread gospel. The gospel does not travel on its own, it needs someone to spread it, and the people take over from there. The same is true of libertarianism.
I was a liberal until I took a quiz on which I scored as "libertarian." This is simple enough, but if not for the links and info about libertarianism given to me, I would have never come into the light. It can be as simple as this; it need not be a tedious process.
I will say now that with the addition of ex-Democrats, libertarians and the Libertarian Party will begin to get large enough a base to compete and win. Couple Democrats with any number of Republican voters that we can bring in, and within time, we will be able to compete with Democrats and Republicans in certain regions. We need not run libertarian candidates under major party banners either; we will have the base we need.
The heart of a party is having a good, stable base, not only a stable base, but a base that unites people of all ideas, but on one common purpose. We can unite people coming from all parties, but on the common purpose of more liberty and personal responsibility. 6 Comments
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