Voters Want Solutions, Not Libertarianism

FF Symposium: The new wave of conservative independents aren't looking for extreme libertarian policies, but rather a party they feel they can trust.

Jonathan Rauch’s “The Tea Party Paradox” is a great article.  It almost undermines one of my core convictions, namely, that libertarian ideas (particularly libertarian economic ideas) are inherently repellent and will never be popular. If what Rauch writes is correct, then perhaps libertarianism under some conditions can be (more) popular after all. However, I'm still skeptical. The Pew data say nothing about the political sophistication of the subjects polled. If you interview a highly knowledgeable voter, and he says "government programs should be cut back," then it's likely that he's a consistent libertarian who might favor, say, abolishing social security. But that individual is the exception. Most people who say "government programs should be cut back" usually have no real desire to cut back entitlements or do any actual government program cutting.

Which is not to say that the trends that Rauch discovers are meaningless. Rauch notes the most important long-term dynamic in American politics today: as a demographic matter, Republican constituencies are shrinking while Democratic constituencies are growing. At the same time, the Republican constituency is becoming increasingly conservative.  "Conservative" here means that Republican constituencies are increasingly inclined to believe that government is no longer being run for the general public's benefit (no surprise -- numbers-wise, they're becoming a minority). Hence, they are attracted to an anti-government message, and, as Rauch finds, may not even trust Republicans anymore. The ongoing economic crisis and the disrepute into which Republicans fell during the Zeros exacerbates this trend.

Of course, these are just groundless speculations. Still, I disagree with Rauch's conclusion that to win over conservative independents, the GOP will need to adopt broadly unpopular anti-government policies. On the contrary, I think the data, properly understood, support the political case for a mix of policies that addresses (or, more importantly, for better or worse, is perceived to address) wage stagnation and the unhappy economic plight of the middle and working classes. That is, those conservative independents aren't looking for extreme libertarian policies but rather a party that they feel they can trust.