The Case for Liberty Activists Joining the Democrats

Except for a few more-rural regions, Colorado Republicans lost badly in the midterm elections, and for the most part they deserved to lose (as I’ve written and emphasized). What are liberty advocates—“libertarians” in the broad sense of being fiscally conservative and socially liberal—to do? My advice: Consider joining the Democratic Party and establishing a free-market caucus.

Back before Donald Trump won the presidency, I switched my voter affiliation from unaffiliated to Republican mainly to try to stop Trump from reaching the White House. I urged other liberty activists to join the GOP. Well, Trump won, Trumpism remains strong within the GOP, and in many ways the Republican Party has become a cesspool of conspiracy mongering and authoritarian nationalism. My strategy failed.

Quitting the GOP is not a new idea. In Colorado, Mario Nicolais and Cole Wist quit the GOP, and state senator Kevin Priola joined the Democrats. Now more will consider jumping parties.

Nationally, there’s an effort to create a Democratic Freedom Caucus.

Here in Colorado, long-time Republican consultant Kelly Maher writes:

I became a Republican because I love economics and believe that a free market and a restrained government make for a wealthy society. I didn't become a Republican because I hate Democrats. . . . I’m on the hunt for a role where I can talk about ideas and make the difference I had hoped for as a young politico. I want to do good work well. With two little boys, I refuse to hone that bitter edge of cruelty onto myself. Maybe that means I’ll be working with Democrats; perhaps it even means I'll no longer be a Republican; I’d be okay with that.

Meanwhile, Republicans have hardly kept their contempt for libertarians hidden (using the term “libertarian” in a broad and loose sense). Recently Marjorie Taylor Greene dissed the Cato Institute. Even after Arizona’s Blake Masters mocked libertarianism, the Libertarian Party candidate in the race threw his support to Masters—illustrated that the LP these days often is a subsidiary of Team MAGA.

Republicans sometimes mouth the rhetoric of economic liberty but rarely are serious about it. On the whole they are far more passionate about banning abortion than about protecting economic liberties. And many Republicans have been very willing to invoke state power over businesses to further their culture wars.

Many Republicans are outright hostile to personal liberties. Many want to ban all abortions, even from the moment of conception, with few or no exceptions. Many remain hard-core drug warriors who want to lock people in cages merely for possessing the “wrong” herb or chemical. Many want to ban “offensive” speech.

I don’t like calling myself a “libertarian” because the term is so ambiguous and it carries so much baggage. Today the term can refer to MAGA “edgelords,” anarchists, religious conservatives, or nihilists seeking to tear down American institutions. Basically I favor liberty across the board, including in the economic sphere—whatever you want to call that.

Many of my views are compatible with standard Democratic views. Here are some key political things that I believe:

• Abortion should be legal at least in the overwhelming majority of cases. Further, I think the federal government properly keeps abortion legal on Constitutional grounds.

• The drug war is wrong and extremely harmful. At a minimum, marijuana should be fully legalized (among consenting adults). This is hardly a universal Democratic view, but on the whole Democrats are more friendly to it than are Republicans.

• The criminal justice system needs serious reforms. End “qualified immunity” for government agents, hold police legally accountable for crimes that they commit, abolish victimless “crimes,” and seriously reform jails and prisons.

• The U.S. should let in many more immigrants than it currently does. (I think immigration of peaceable, non-contagious people should be totally open, but that view is outside Overton’s Window.)

• Government, including the federal government, should recognize same-sex marriages.

• Transgender people deserve cultural respect and equal treatment under the laws. (We can discuss such thorny details as transgender participation in high-level sports.) Generally, people, including children with appropriate guardrails, have a right to pursue gender-affirming care.

• Cronyism—government favoritism of certain businesses—is evil. True, both Democrats and Republicans often promote cronyism, but Democrats sometimes claim to oppose it.

• The separation of church and state should be strictly maintained. Yes, people have the right to worship as they want, but people have no right to impose their religious beliefs on others by force of law.

In these ways and others, my views fit more naturally with today’s Democratic Party than with today’s Republican Party.

At issue is not whether most Democrats would welcome free-market types into their ranks. As I have written, political parties “are in effect quasi-governmental entities, tightly controlled by government and granted explicit privileges by government.” If political parties were private organizations, as they should be, they’d be free to set whatever membership requirements they wanted. But they are not. What it means to be a “Democrat” is simply to register with the state as a Democrat. The rules suck, but I did not make the rules. Until the rules change—and Democrats hardly are lining up to change them—at the individual level we can only operate within the rules as given. So whether today’s Democrats want a free-market wing is largely beside the point.

That said, free-market types who join the Democratic Party undoubtedly will be more successful if they try to make friends and allies within their new party. But joining a party is a matter of strategy, and the aim is to enact better policies.

What is the point of joining a party at all, as opposed to registering unaffiliated? I am certainly not saying party affiliation is for everyone. Joining a party is worthwhile only for those who want to be active within a party structure to run, endorse, and promote certain candidates. Eventually I would like to see more-libertarian Democrats challenge more-statist Democrats in primaries.

If you don’t have the time or interest to be active in a party, just stay unaffiliated. In Colorado and various other places, unaffiliated voters can participate in party primaries anyway. (That is again a stupid rule, but one that I did not make.)

I don’t know what I’m going to do. Maybe I’ll remain a Republican and try to help salvage what’s left of that party and potentially reform it. The thought of surrendering the Party of Lincoln to Trumpist authoritarians pains me deeply. Maybe I’ll become unaffiliated and avoid party activism. Or maybe I’ll join the Democrats and try to help create room there for more free-market thinking.

So I’m not trying to offer anything like universal advice. What I’m saying is that liberty activists should take a serious look at joining the Democrats to try to push that party in a better direction. Especially in parts of the state and country where Democrats dominate and the only elections that matter are the primaries, Republican activism is largely pointless.

Jared Polis, at least, has openly indicated his willingness to embrace some libertarian ideas and to work with free-market-leaning people. Other Democrats, of course, are hard-core leftist Progressives who generally hate free markets and people who advocate them. On the whole, though, it seems that activism within the Democratic Party would would be at least as fruitful for liberty activists as activism within the Republican Party has been. That’s a very low bar. But we are where we are. We might as well try something new.

Image: Aurelien Guichard