Libertarianism and the Tea party

I'm currently reading a book on the tea party called The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.  I don't think that the book shows that the tea party movement is indeed remaking Republican conservatism.  It seems that the rank and file members of the movement are simply the old fashioned type of populist conservative that made up the Republican party even before the movement.  In addition the main focus of the group seems to be opposition to taxes, which is exactly what the focus of the party was before the movement.

Some have pointed out that some of the founders of the movement were actually libertarian.  If these leaders were able to push the G.O.P. in that direction that would indeed be a change, I think for the better.  However, the main impact of the movement seems simply to make the Republican party much as it was before the movement only more so.

What this shows is that once you start a political movement, it can take on a life of its own.  Libertarianism is not one of the two most popular political positions.  This is something that is not well understood by either its most ardent supporters or detractors.  The supporters have the common trait of believing that your own political preferences are a great deal more popular than they actually are.  Libertarians are certainly not alone in this.  If the detractors realized how politically powerless the movement really was, they wouldn't waste much energy opposing the movement.

While many libertarians apparently believe that optimism can be politically empowering, I suspect that it gives you much more of an illusion of power.  Real power requires that you have an accurate assessment of the political situation.  A view distorted by optimism can be dis-empowering if it persuades you to act in ways that are counterproductive.  More specifically it can persuade you to be more doctrinaire that you should be in order to best promote your political values.

In politics every ideology has to make trade offs between the pure pursuit of the movement's political values and forming coalitions with those who hold different ideologies.  Realizing the weakness of your political movement can help you place the proper emphasis on coalition building.  Coalition building is what libertarians need to focus on.  When you construct a political quiz that divides the people into five different political positions, and your's comes in with less than 20%, you know that you cannot accomplish anything without the cooperation of those who hold different political ideologies.  You need to form a coalition with other groups.

Most political division is along the liberal/conservative political axis.  There is a reason why the Democrats and Republicans are the two largest political parties in the U.S.  It isn't that most voters are secretly libertarian, but have been tricked into supporting either Democrats or Republicans because of the self-fulfilling prophecy that libertarians are not electable.  It's because most voters are comfortably and unambiguously either left or right of center.  Libertarians are exceptional in that they are not.

In order to effectively use coalition building as a strategy libertarians must be prepared to ally themselves with either political party.  They must be aware of ways in which their political ideology is more similar to that of Democrats and ways in which it is more similar to that of Republicans.  Consistently siding with one rather than the other is as foolish as supporting a third party candidate.  Unfortunately too many libertarians who recognize that a vote for a third party is a wasted vote, waste theirs by consistently supporting the Republicans.