Excelent analysis. I actually voted for Ed Clark in 1980 when it looked like the LP might have a future as a mainstream party - at least to me.
The problem with 3rd parties is that they tend to be dominated by the most doctrinaire, with purity tests becoming more and more rigid with each election cycle since, with no real prospect for electoral success, ideological purity is really all they have to argue about. The left has experienced this forever - look at how many Socialist parties there are, each of whom passionately despise each other over issues of doctrine so obscure you need an electron microscope to find them.
The LP has gone from being mostly a bunch of devotees of Milton Friedman to mostly a gaggle of eccentrics who think you’re a hopeless statist if you don’t believe the military can and should be privatized.
Sad, really. I find most libertarians I encounter to be intelligent and interesting - and on most matters I generally agree with them. The LIbertarian Party, though, has pretty much achieved its apparent goal of total irrelevance.
Hank
Thanks, we seem to have a similar view of it. I believe I voted with you then, since I used to support the LP too. I voted for Perot also. So some will blame me for Clinton I suppose.
I’m not satisfied with either party and haven’t been for a long time. The US has not evolved to the current welfare state overnight, it’s been going on a long time and both parties are culpable. Ultimately it is a distracted, disinterested citizenry’s fault also.
Maybe the TEA party approach to convert the Republicans back rightward will work, as it is now there is not much opposition from them at the top level. That would only be the same process you described, that has turned the Dems into raving Communists. Issa’s attempt to make Holder accountable is an oppostition action I like.
Obama himself is the culmination of Affirmative Action, which is why his records are missing and it appears he went through the witness protection program.