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Original air date: May 07, 2016
BY: Robin Koerner, Host
PUBLISHED: May 07, 2016
The GOP Goes Full Authoritarian: Now the Real Libertarian Moment Can Begin.
Robin considers whether the apparent lurch of the GOP toward populist authoritarianism in the form of a Trump nomination offers an opportunity to libertarians to make that “libertarian moment” finally happen.In a beautiful historical irony, an authoritarian has just done something in less than 40 weeks that the libertarians have failed to do in 40 years – take down the old partisan paradigm of a huge swathe of the American electorate, who now can’t vote, or won’t vote, for the party they have always identified with. And it’s happening on both ends of the political spectrum – as anti-Trumpers and Bernie supporters feel that their political identity is no longer reflected by either of the two big political circus tents of elephants and donkeys.
It is ironic that an authoritarian like Trump has upended one half of an establishment that has, since the New Deal at least, engaged We The People in a thoroughly authoritarian fashion – imposing its will on the People as if it is sovereign, rather than reflecting the will of The People who delegate their sovereign power to it.
The liberty movement has been trying to put a dent in the two-party system for decades. Well, folks, an authoritarian egomaniac has now done that work for you. With the duopolistic party paradigm weaker than it has been for generations, as we say in my native land, the goal is open, or as we say in my adoptive land, there ís a clearer run at the end-zone than you ever created or could have hoped to create by your own efforts.
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Robin draws an interesting parallel with what happened in yesterday’s British elections, which threw up an extraordinary and completely unpredicted reaction to the rise of a hard left party in Scotland, the Scottish National Party, in which the center-right Conservatives went from having only one representative from Scotland in the British parliament to becoming the largest opposition party in the Scottish parliament…
It’s a kind of political form of Newton’s third law – “the equal and opposite” reaction! Can libertarians create such a reaction to the rise of authoritarianism in the GOP?
