Why I Left Libertarianism.
A story of how I went from being a libertarian to a progressive.
In my previous piece “Dear Progressives: A Third-Party Strategy Is Doomed To Fail. A Warning From A Former Libertarian.” I promised to tell you why I went from being a libertarian to becoming a progressive. Well here it is.
For reference:
Libertarian: a member of the Libertarian Party
libertarian: one who subscribes to an extreme laissez-faire political philosophy advocating only minimal state intervention in the lives of citizens.
Ever since I became politically active, I had a great deal of disdain of the two major parties. I wanted to finally buck the system an elevate a third-party to give to show the two major parties that their time came. As far as issues I cared about I hated war and racism, and I wanted my taxes low. Two presidents, I looked up to early on were Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy. Reagan because he was known for cutting taxes and creating a free market economy. Kennedy because he opposed racism and introduced the Civil Rights Act. I absolutely couldn’t stand George W. Bush because he instigated the Iraq War. I didn’t like Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon because I thought they were both corrupt politicians. So my politics were influenced by the presidents I did and didn’t like at the time and my disdain for the modern Democratic and Republican Parties. So when I was actually planning to vote in 2016 and find a political party that reflected my views, I looked into the Libertarian Party and their candidate, Gary Johnson. Gary Johnson and his running mate, Bill Weld, sold their ideology as being fiscally conservative and socially liberal. So I thought Johnson and Libertarians supported Reagan’s economic policies and Kennedy’s social policies. That is why I was sold on Libertarianism in 2016. Even before 2016, I was an Independent and I had thought of my ideology as being a cross between conservatism and liberalism, it wasn’t until 2016 that I embraced the title of libertarian.
During the 2016 election, I was an active supporter of the Johnson/Weld campaign. I had believed that Gary Johnson was going to be that candidate who would disrupt the two-party duopoly. It was by supporting Johnson’s campaign I began to learn about how rigged elections are against third-party candidates. I had truly believed that the Libertarian vision was a vision that would change the country for the better. As far as keeping up with current events, I got most of my information from Reason. I would watch ReasonTV and read Reason Magazine for news. I also read articles from A Libertarian Future until the website crashed. Those outlets helped shape my worldview and pushed me to become more of a hardcore Libertarian. I did tune into mainstream media outlets like CNN, MSNBC, NBC, and Fox largely to see an interview with Gary Johnson or Bill Weld or to see breaking news. Other than that I turned them off. When Gary Johnson was excluded from the first presidential debate, I saw an interview Ralph Nader did with Amy Goodman on “Democracy Now!” for FSTV where he criticizes the CPD for excluding Johnson and Stein from the debate. I was furious about that, and in fact, expressed my fury on Twitter, and seeing Nader mad about that helped express my fury. I also gained massive respect for Jill Stein knowing that she protested her exclusion from the 2012 debates, mentioned in the interview. Then I found an interview Gary Johnson did with Cenk Uygur on “The Young Turks.” I thought it was the best interview Johnson had, primarily because Cenk went out of his way to be fair to Johnson even when they disagreed on issues. Then I started watching TYT and FSTV in addition to ReasonTV. When Johnson had his series of gaffes I noticed that Cenk went out of his way to be fair to Johnson and give him the benefit of the doubt. I appreciated Cenk’s fairness to Johnson and it proved that you didn’t have to agree with Johnson in order to be fair to him. I also started watching the TYT show “Aggressive Progressives” hosted by Jimmy Dore which promoted voting for a third-party candidate. I knew Dore was voting for Stein, but Dore’s advocacy for voting third-party in general made me feel comfortable voting for Johnson. In retrospect I can see that Dore’s advocacy was driven moreso by hatred of the Democrats and not actual ideological convictions. That’s why I stopped liking Dore. I went onto vote for Gary Johnson in 2016, and I voted in the deep-red state of Kansas which Trump overwhelmingly won.
So how did a Gary Johnson supporter go onto be a Bernie Sanders supporter? Well, I held onto my Libertarian views well into June of 2017, and that’s because I started opening up to the progressive way of thinking. In December of 2016, I enrolled in community college and started studying US History. The first class I took was a nineteenth-century US History course. During my time in that class, I still held onto my Libertarian beliefs even after completing that course. It’s when I took the twentieth-century course offered at my community college that I started questioning my Libertarian beliefs. The first unit was on the Progressive Era and the labor movements of that time. I began to learn about the income inequality problems of the early twentieth-century and how the elite screwed over workers and tried to crush unions. Then when Theodore Roosevelt became president following William McKinley’s death, he began to change the way America was governed. Roosevelt implemented robust policies that helped the American working class get a fair share of their hard work. The Square Deal was the progressive policy agenda implemented by a US president. Then learning about the success of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and how it transformed the American economy for the middle-class in was that his cousin Teddy couldn’t imagine. Roosevelt’s New Deal is eventually what ended up saving the country from the Great Depression, even if it wasn’t an immediate as many would hope for. Roosevelt also created Social Security which has benefited American seniors for decades. Also learning about John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier program and how Kennedy had a vision where all Americans could be treated equally in our great society. Kennedy introduced programs like Medicare and Medicaid, and he proposed the Civil Rights Act, of which his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, signed into law. Then I learned about Ronald Reagan and the Reagan Revolution and how it basically undid the positive reforms by Franklin Roosevelt, Jack Kennedy, and Teddy Roosevelt. Reagan’s policies put the economy in a downward spiral and killed the American middle-class. That’s when I realized that my views on economics were misguided, and when I became a progressive. I realized that if we can have Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that policies like Medicare For All and Debt-Free College are possible and we can have them implemented. No, this wasn’t because I was indoctrinated by “leftist professors,” a lot of my views were influenced by my own research as well as learning about these events in my history classes.
In addition to learning about the Square Deal, New Deal, New Frontier, and Reagan Revolution, watching libertarians fall apart when they defend their ideas also pushed me away from libertarianism. While I mostly watched progressive media or read from progressive publications I did occasionally hear out the Libertarian voices. I started following TYT Network programs like “Secular Talk” also called “The Kyle Kulinski Show,” “The Jimy Dore Show,” “The Majority Report,” and “The Humanist Report” to hear out more progressive voices. Those shows allowed me to discover the “Michael Brooks Show” and “The Rational National.” I also started watching “Ring of Fire” since TYT posted their videos to their YouTube channels, and I decide to subscribe to the ROF YouTube channel. I soon learned that just like TYT, ROF was also a multichannel network. So I started looking at other programs that were part of the ROF Network and I started watching “The Thom Hartmann Program,” “The David Pakman Show,” “The Benjamin Dixon Show,” “The Laura Flanders Show,” and “The Zero Hour.” I recognized Richard Eskow host of “The Zero Hour” because he was a panelist on “The Young Turks.” Then I found “The Rubin Report” which was hosted by former TYT host Dave Rubin, who went from being progressive to a libertarian or “classical liberal” (he’s basically a libertarian regardless of what he calls himself) as he calls it. At first, I thought he hosted an interesting show, I liked that he did interviews with guests of differing ideologies. He had David Pakman on his show once, and Jimmy Dore on his show once. He also spoke to Ben Shapiro and Glenn Beck as conservative guests. Then I saw an appearance he did on David Pakman’s show, and boy did he fall apart. I watched the full 51:44 minute interview and I saw Dave Rubin fail miserably to defend his ideas. David Pakman wasn’t even being adversarial or aggressive, he was just asking friendly questions to Dave about his beliefs. That might explain why Dave won’t have David back on “The Rubin Report.” On top of Dave falling apart on “The David Pakman Show,” seeing Sam Seder and Thom Hartmann destroy libertarian guests and callers on a regular basis pushed me further away from libertarianism. For my next piece, I’ll get to critiquing the actual ideology behind libertarianism. A libertarian friend of mine does like to remind me of the fact that not all libertarians are the same, and yes I’m aware of that fact. This next section focuses on the ideas most commonly associated with libertarianism, and I will actually address how some libertarians actually disagree on some of these principals.
Closing Statement
I left libertarianism largely because I found the libertarian view on economics and guns to be off the rails. However, I can still appreciate libertarian views regarding social issues, civil liberties, the drug war, and foreign policy. I would say that foreign policy has always been an issue that I care deeply about and one that I’ve been consistent on while my views on other issues like economics have shifted leftward. I believe it is possible for libertarians and progressives can unite at the citizen level on issues like drugs, war, and civil liberties through activism and influence government action. Especially when politicians like Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul were able to work together on those issues at the federal level of government. Meanwhile, libertarians and progressives will still oppose and debate each other on issues like taxes and guns, that shouldn’t fully divide the two groups because there is a lot they still agree with. As I’ve experienced from having libertarian friends, that we completely agree on war and warrantless surveillance and have found common ground on those issues. Meanwhile, we still debate each other on taxes and guns. I think Ralph Nader and Ron Paul’s idea of a libertarian/progressive alliance is one that can be achieved to fight for the issues we agree on. Which I will dive into next time.
