The only thing Americans dislike more than a Republican politician is a Democratic politician. Public approval of Congress, after increasing for a few months after the November elections, has plummeted to 18 percent, near the low point of last spring after passage of Obamacare. With the two major parties so unpopular, is the country ready for a third party, or at least a nonpartisan third category? Every four years, some quixotic independent eyeing the White House gets attention for tapping into the public’s (or at least the media’s) frustration with Washington. Sometimes it’s a “moderate” or a “centrist” like Mike Bloomberg or Ross Perot, who idealists believe could strike some vast, untapped well of American centrism or “common-sense problem solving.” Other times, the third-party bid getting attention is on the edges of the spectrum: Ralph Nader on the Left, or Pat Buchanan on the Right.
At best, these third parties play spoiler — Perot helped Clinton get elected twice, and Nader tipped the scale to Bush in 2000 — leaving many independent-minded activists no choice but to work within one of the two major parties. It’s a dispiriting bind for ambitious independents, but Beltway journalists Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie sound a hopeful note in their new book, “The Declaration of Independents.”
Just as the Kodak/Fuji and AT&T/MCI duopolies were killed by innovation that expanded consumer choice, Welch and Gillespie argue, the Republican/Democrat duopoly can be broken, too. Steadily, Americans are refusing to identify with either party, leaving an opening for an independent force. The authors, editors of Reason magazine, don’t make a Jon Stewart-like appeal to “moderates” or claim that “common sense” is the answer all political problems. Instead, their alternative to the Left/Right, Democrat/Republican duopoly is libertarianism.
Libertarians today are mostly considered a variety of conservative — Ronald Reagan with fewer bombs and more pot. But Welch and Gillespie don’t cast libertarianism as one of many political ideolgies. Instead, they portray it as a truce. It’s unpolitics. The authors see evidence of a “libertarian moment,” not so much in public opinion on policy matters (though outrage about bailouts helps), but in cultural trends that spill over into politics.
Younger Americans don’t like being told what to think. Gone is the voice-of-God Walter Cronkite figure. Younger adults assemble their own news feeds a la carte, following trusted voices on Twitter and RSS feeds. Even walking through a shopping mall, the authors argue, shows how we’re much more individualistic as a culture than we used to be. The authors say there’s a proliferation of cliques and types in high schools and among adults, too. The Internet has helped people find kindred spirits both near and far, making it less necessary to modify your interests to match an existing group. Americans, increasingly, choose their own way.
Welch and Gillespie see our cultural trends as evidence that “decentralization and democratization” are taking territory from “the forces of control and centralization.” The political corollary, naturally, would be a movement that creates more space for individuality. It would be almost an anti-political movement.
But this is where every dream of an independent or libertarian uprising crashes into reality. You don’t win at politics without being good at politics. The people who are best at politics are the people who stand to gain a lot from it — special interests and people who get like to play the political game. Neither group is likely to include many anti-political decentralizers.
What about the libertarians who are already caught up in politics? The think-tankers, the activists, the journalists? Well, they’re another obstacle to a libertarian revolution. For one thing, this is a group famous for infighting. The Libertarian Party has been racked with strife, splits and feuds for its entire existence. Welch and Gillespie want to pitch a big tent, but Beltway libertarians are famous for imposing “purity tests.” (Q: Should vending machines marketing heroin to children be allowed on public sidewalks? A: There shouldn’t be public sidewalks.)
The biggest obstacle to a broad libertarian-independent movement might simply be that many libertarian views are unpopular. Sure, “fiscally conservative and socially liberal” is a popular self-description. Bailouts, wars, drug prohibition and high taxes are increasingly unpopular. But how many “independents” would want to scrap the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or overturn the civil rights laws banning discrimination by private business?
“Declaration of Independents” is an important book and a lively read. It’s hard, today, to see an independent-libertarian wave disrupting the political duopoly. But, as Welch and Gillespie say, “Tectonic shifts in the course of human events are almost never predicted ahead of time.”
Timothy P.Carney, The Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Monday and Thursday, and his stories and blog posts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com.
