Free Republic

Sen. Ted Cruz said the future of conservatism after President Trump leaves office can be both populist and libertarian. The Texas Republican weighed on ideological debates among conservatives, saying the future of conservative politics can be a combination of libertarian beliefs and populism during a Tuesday interview with the Washington Examiner about his podcast, The Verdict, co-hosted by conservative commentator Michael Knowles. "I think properly understood, those concepts are complementary, and they're not antagonistic. So I am a conservative, an unabashed conservative. I'm also a populist. I am deeply a populist," Cruz began. "And I also have deep libertarian principles....

A good piece at Reason.com called "Rand Paul Is Out—But Libertarianism Is Finally Mainstream": "Rand Paul beat them all after being excluded from the Fox Business debate just a few weeks earlier. I’m going to call that a comeback—one small step for mankind, another bigger step for the future of liberty." "Why? Because Rand has seeded another generation of liberty-minded young people, much like his father did in 2008 and 2012. When I was a kid, there was no broad social movement for liberty like we see today. Rand juiced the build-out of this community simply by being on the...

National Review writer Charles C.W. Cooke explained his new book, The Conservatarian Manifesto, on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday, claiming that Senator Rand Paul (R., KY) perhaps best represents the “conservatarian” political point of view. Cooke said conservatarians feel “libertarian when around conservatives and conservative when around libertarians . . . They don’t like libertarians on defense, they don’t like libertarians on foreign policy, and they’re not sure about libertarians on abortion — abortion is the one so-called ’social issue’ that is still an outlier.” “But on drugs, on gay marriage, and on federalism, they’re disappointed with conservatism,” he continued....

Ive seen several others use the term, but I'm not quite sure that it has the same meaning for them that it holds for me. In my case, at least, a conservatarian is a mainstream conservative in the Goldwater/Reagan tradition who subscribes to the fiscal and modern federalist principles of the libertarian philosophy. Why not just refer to myself as a conservative?I don't believe that's possible in the 21st Century. The ink on the conservative label has been smudged by too much abuse of the term. There are people who call themselves "conservatives" these days who leave me scratching my...