Libertarians: The Great White Hope

[DonViejo]

by Jamelle Bouie Oct 30, 2013 2:15 PM EDT

These days, anti-government zeal should appeal to just about everybody, right? But a new poll shows that libertarians' narrow base is nowhere near mainstream electoral success.

Politically, this has been a good year for libertarians. Not only do they have savvy champions in the form of Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan (among others), but revelations of unprecedented government surveillance have made Americans more skeptical of the national security state and more open to a message of restraint in foreign policy. In addition, a growing number of conservative intellectuals see a populist libertarianism as key to the future of the Republican Party, while a smaller group of progressives have floated the idea of a left-libertarian alliance on national security to push against the Washington consensus of invasiveness and intervention.

Unfortunately, if a new poll from the Public Religion Research Institute is any indication, barriers exist to both plans. If this anti-establishment libertarianism has broad appeal, you should see hints of it in the demographic make-up of self-described libertarians; the ideology should have some appeal to more than a narrow slice of the public. But it doesn’t. Of those who identify as libertarian or who have views that mark them as such, 94 percent are non-Hispanic whites, and 68 percent are men, according to the poll. As for libertarian leaners, 81 percent are white, and 53 percent are men.

Let’s start with the push to expand the GOP’s appeal through smart application of libertarian ideology. The thinking is that libertarian populism has political appeal beyond the GOP and its traditional constituencies. “Americans look at Washington and know the game is rigged against them. Conservatives can promise to level the field by getting the bureaucrats and politicians out of it,” wrote the Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney after last year’s election. “Every small businessman, ambitious immigrant, and would-be-entrepreneur should be a Republican.”

Indeed, there’s little that distinguishes libertarians from ordinary Republicans. Fifty-seven percent identify as conservative, and close to half (45 percent) say that they’re Republicans, compared to the 5 percent who identify as Democrats. Thirty-five percent say that they’re independent, but odds are good they vote Republican—if political science is clear on anything, it’s that most “independents” behave like partisans. To wit, 39 percent of libertarians say they identify with the Tea Party, which makes them less supportive than Republicans, but far more than Americans overall.

full article
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/10/30/libertarians-the-great-white-hope.html