Interesting theory. I'm not sure what the change you're talking about was, but I don't really buy the idea that there was some king of coup. The basic elements of the LP have been there from the beginning.
There have been hard-edge economic libertarians and fuzzy social libertarians all the way along (the earliest platforms opposed laws against drug use and other victimless crimes).
And LP presidential candidates have tended to be more hard-edged than fuzzy, at least until Gary Johnson tried to make a major play for hipsters.
People in the party have always run along a continuum from radically anti-government views to more moderate and gradualist ones.
Ayn Rand's been an indirect influence for a long-time, but I don't see Objectivists taking up party positions. Also, she's hardline hard-edge.
I suspect the bigger changes since the 1970s have been among Republicans and conservatives, rather than among libertarians (big L or small l).
“Interesting theory. I’m not sure what the change you’re talking about was, but I don’t really buy the idea that there was some king of coup. The basic elements of the LP have been there from the beginning.
There have been hard-edge economic libertarians and fuzzy social libertarians all the way along (the earliest platforms opposed laws against drug use and other victimless crimes).”
Yes, there has always been a lot of variations in the ideology, but it seems the social libertarians have become the dominant ones for a long time. That they may not be the most represented in the presidential candidates probably says more about their trying to put up a viable candidate, rather than the makeup of the party.
“I suspect the bigger changes since the 1970s have been among Republicans and conservatives, rather than among libertarians (big L or small l).”
Yes, there may be something to this. After all, a lot of the least socially liberal libertarians joined the Republican party during the Reagan years, so, naturally, the remaining LP membership would be more to the left with them gone.