.Posted on 02/11/2016 10:47:13 AM PST by Persephone Kore
The Gallup Poll has a new estimate of the number of libertarians in the American electorate. In their 2015 Governance survey they find that 27 percent of respondents can be characterized as libertarians, the highest number it has ever found. The latest results also make libertarians the largest group in the electorate, as compared to 26 percent conservative, 23 percent liberal, and 15 percent populist.
For more than a dozen years now, the Gallup Poll has been using two questions to categorize respondents by ideology:
Combining the responses to those two questions, Gallup found the ideological breakdown of the public shown below. With these two broad questions, Gallup consistently finds about 20 percent of respondents to be libertarian, and the number has been rising.
Two years ago David Kirby found that libertarians made up an even larger portion of the Republican party.
So why isn't all this supposed libertarian sentiment being reflected in candidates and elections? There have been plenty of analyses in the past week, including my own, about why Rand Paul didn't attract this potentially large bloc of libertarian voters. Maybe people don't see issues as equally salient; some libertarians may wish that Republicans weren't so socially reactionary, but still vote Republican on the basis of economic issues. Some, as Lionel Shriver writes in the New York Times, feel "forced to vote Democratic because the Republican social agenda is retrograde, if not lunatic — at the cost of unwillingly endorsing cumbersome high-tax solutions to this country's problems."
For now I just want to note that there are indeed a lot of voters who don't fit neatly into the red and blue boxes. The word "libertarian" isn't well known, so pollsters don't find many people claiming to be libertarian. And usually they don't ask. But a large portion of Americans hold generally libertarian views — views that might be described as fiscally conservative and socially liberal.
David Brooks wrote recently that the swing voters in 2016 will be people who don't think big government is the path to economic growth and don't know why a presidential candidate would open his campaign at Jerry Falwell's university. Those are the voters who push American politics in a libertarian direction. David Bier and Daniel Bier wrote last summer about how many policy issues show a libertarian trend over the past 30 years. Find a colorful chart illustrating their findings here.
Politics is often frustrating for libertarians, never more so than during this presidential election when the leading presidential candidates seem to be a protectionist nationalist with a penchant for insult, a self-proclaimed socialist, and a woman who proudly calls herself a "government junkie." But polls show libertarian instincts in the electorate, just waiting for candidates who can speak to them.
Read more about the libertarian vote in our original study or in our 2012 ebook.
Ted Cruz just might be able to carry this off—I don't see anybody else even trying to do it this time around.
Summary of the Gallup report: the two largest groups are libertarians at 27% and conservatives at 26%. Liberals are 23%, and populists only 15%. (The remaining 9% must not have been characterized for one reason or another.)
More libertarians is a good thing.
I look forward to a world where I am in the “big government” party, arguing with Libertarians about whether we should sell off the National Parks.
In order to make himself compatible with libertarianism and carry this off, Ted Cruz will need to 1) cut out the Elmer Gantry act and throw his Dominionist endorsers under the bus and 2) demonstrate that he isn't beholden to donors or other special interests. But doing these things will cost him some of his existing support; and the libertarians who buy into the new Ted Cruz may or may not be enough to make up the difference.
Makes sense, I see lots of cape and pot shops around more than years ago.
Liberty oriented voters also realize that scaling back government actually helps with social issues. A lot of social or values related issues go away if the government isn't involved and forcing other peoples social values onto everyone else.
There is a real opportunity to separate these voters from the liberal democrats who are determined to control everyone's lives.
Focusing on specific issues (drugs, etc.) may be a mistake. We should be focusing on broader issues of fundamental political philosophy—reducing the size and power of government, cutting spending, challenging the concept of class warfare, etc. But, looking at the issues you mentioned, libertarianism is not pro-drug. It's pro-your-right-to-decide-for-yourself-whether-to-use-drugs. In terms of Federal politics, libertarians would also say that this is a 10th Amendment states-right issue, with each state allowed to make its own decision on it, since banning drugs is not one of the Federal government's enumerated powers under the Constitution.
Abortion is more complicated, since there are pro-life libertarians and pro-choice libertarians.
But again, let's aim overall at stopping the seemingly inexorable move toward a nanny state, realizing that there may be differences of opinion among ourselves to resolve on particular issues and interpretations.
Why did Paul do so bad if there are that many L’s out there?
Agreed. He needs to make sure that he can't be pigeonholed as a religious "extremist", but at the same time he doesn't want to alienate his evangelical supporters.
If he gets the nomination, he'll veer somewhat to the center, like everybody does, so he shouldn't box himself in during the primary campaign.
As for not being beholden to special interests, I don't think that's a problem. I doubt that will end up being a deciding issue with regard to Cruz, if there's even any substance to the issue at all.
I certainly understand all that. I agree with the overall shift. Plenty of lefty hippie types out there want government to butt out and let them live in peace. That is the common ground, and that is where the shift is seen. People are sick off over-reaching government into their lives for a variety of left and/or right reasons.
I will never be part of a party who is OK with the murder of innocent children or letting a state decide. That is where I draw my final line.
But yes, there is a shift towards more libertarian-type ideas and opinions. I have seen and experienced it. And that over all, is a good thing.
Of course, some libertarians recognize the dichotomy. Mostly the older ones.
That would be great!
One thing he didn't try to do much was forge a coalition with the other grass-roots branches of the Republican Party. On the other hand, he did try to work with the GOPe (McConnell, for example) out of what he thought was practical necessity, but that turned out to be a bad tactic for this election year, as well as tainting him personally.
Paul could have tapped into some of the same tell-it-is anger and disillusionment that Trump does, focusing more on government overreach and nanny-statism. But Paul comes across as very mannered, maybe even almost effete, and that's just not effective.
Paul also couldn't seem to convey the consistency, credibility, and reasonableness of his foreign policy. He never figured out how to communicate it well.
Richard Nixon instituted a wage-price freeze. Can you imagine Obama doing that? The political center has moved toward free-market economics. (No, it's not good enough, and we still got ObamaCare, etc., but it's much better than it was.)
I just want the government to get out of the way. That's what most libertarians believe. And most conservatives for that matter.
Paris and San Bernardino thinned the ranks of “libertarians” on the rational center-right axis.
The truth about libertarians, is it means very little. People from both the right, and the left, like to find different categories, to be a bit different.
The language this election is so muddled and garbled, it is just a personality and image contest.
Paul could have tapped into some of the same tell-it-is anger and disillusionment that Trump does, focusing more on government overreach and nanny-statism. But Paul comes across as very mannered, maybe even almost effete, and that's just not effective.
I meant: the same tell-it-like-it-is anger and ....
No instead they destroyed most saved personal wealth with near zero interest rates.
Cruz has already gotten support from many Libertarians who earlier supported Rand
Again, Richard Nixon, a Republican who was regarded as quite conservative at the time, decreed a general wage-price freeze (by executive order). Not even Democrats try to do that today.
The US has moved well to the right on economics over the past 40 years.
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