The Fatal Conceit of Libertarian Politics
Last night I sat down with Larry Sharpe to talk about his run for governor, and the reality of Libertarian Principles being unpopular at large.
Larry Sharpe is running for Governor in New York, quite a tall task for anyone, never mind a Libertarian. But he’s no stranger to the game, he was the Libertarian Party candidate for the same office in 2018 and has spent the last 4 years building infrastructure and a professional campaign team to learn from his experiences in the past and make another run at the throne with renewed vigor and a better gameplan.
Last night we sat down to talk about the difficulties of the political reality in the Empire State, and how the entrenched corruption of cronyism has bred a generational fixation on single-party power in the cultural center of the American Empire. But aside from the corruption of the crown, the biggest hurdle facing Larry in his run for Governor is that he is in fact a Libertarian, and that means his ideas, his beliefs, and his values are inherently unpopular.
The fatal conceit of libertarians is that we tend to believe in our ideas so steadfastly, that we can’t fathom a reality where they could be rejected when explained logically and properly. The reason we don’t win, we’ve convinced ourselves, is because the game is rigged against us, and if we just had a shot at the debate stage, our superior ideas would win in the end.
But what if that wasn’t true?
What if the majority of people don’t actually hate taxes? What if the majority of people actually value social services? What if most would prefer an adequate public school system and a regulated centrally planned economy? What if comfort, security, and safety were the values that were really popular with the majority of people? What if the majority of voters can’t be convinced of Libertarian values because they simply don’t share them?
Well, then how do Libertarians win if we aren’t the majority? Can we? Is it even possible? If those who embrace the values of individual liberty will forever be an academic and intellectual minority, then electoral politics is destined to continue to fail us unless we wholesale adopt a strategy of migration and concentration with the Free State Project in New Hampshire.
But Larry isn’t willing to give up just yet. He’s trying a unique approach in the history of Libertarian candidates. trading in principles for policies, Larry is running a platform of solving the issues New Yorkers face in their everyday lives, and using an emotional appeal to change, as opposed to the logic of reason and principle to try and break beyond the echo chamber of the libertarian minority within the Empire State of New York.
Last night I sat down with Larry to talk about the unique struggles his campaign, and his state faces going into the 2022 Elections. We discuss the difficulty of reaching beyond our minority, and his unique policy proposals that are attempting to appeal to average voters by presenting solutions to problems that they care about. Check out our full conversation below to hear what Larry has in store for New York Voters in 2022.
Subversive #66: “Forward for New York” feat. Larry Sharpe
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Summary
Larry Sharpe comes back to the show to help kick off the new rebranding, talking about his run for office, and his casting aside the ideological chains of Libertarian partisanship in favor of putting the principles of Liberty first.
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