Saturday, October 4, 2014

Libertarian 'third force' emerging in U.S. politics

American Way: between Democrats and Republicans, a libertarian "third force" is emerging - Telegraph - Peter Foster:

October 4, 2014 - "On the surface, American politics often seems so tribally divided between Democrat and Republican, Liberal and Conservative that there is little point in even bothering with the shades of grey in between..... But ... the failures of first the Bush and now the Obama administrations have seen the emergence not of a third party in US politics but a libertarian 'third force' that could yet influence the outcome in 2016.

"Listen carefully and libertarian ideas – with a small 'l' – can be heard shaping many of the big issues of the day, from marijuana legalisation, to penal reform; from digital privacy issues in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations to whether or not to bomb Syria....

"The libertarian sentiment reflects the pitchfork politics that gave rise to the Tea Party on the right and the Occupy movements on the left that were both fuelled by public disillusion with the power of conventional politics to deliver anything other than the stagnant status quo.

"Measuring the potential electoral impact of libertarianism is difficult precisely because it cuts across traditional party lines, which is both its protean strength and political weakness in an era of big money politics.

"Put a capital 'L' on libertarianism and it largely evaporates – Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party candidate in 2012, won only 1 per cent of the popular vote (1.2m people), but research by the Cato Institute, the libertarian think-thank, points a much deeper pool of Americans with libertarian leanings.

"When they asked voters if they considered themselves 'fiscally conservative and socially liberal – also known as libertarian', some 44 per cent of Americans were happy to be placed in that category.

"The politician most obviously trying to capitalise on the idea that Americans aren't quite so easily pigeonholed into red and blue boxes is Rand Paul, a Republican senator from Kentucky who the bookies rate as a leading contender for 2016.

"As the son of veteran libertarian Ron Paul, his formula will be to bring libertarian ideas off the fringe – where his cranky dad always languished – and into the mainstream, tapping that well of disaffection that resonates across party lines.

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-politics/11140657/American-Way-between-Democrats-and-Republicans-a-libertarian-third-force-is-emerging.html
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