Tag Archives: elections

Op-Eds

Election 2016: Finally a Real Third Way?

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Libertarian Party Logo
Libertarian Party Logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As I write this column, the polls haven’t yet opened for “Super Tuesday.” By the time you read it, polling predicts that Donald Trump will have carried at least 12 of the 13 Republican primary and caucus states, the possible exception being Texas (which may go for Ted Cruz), and that Hillary Clinton will have won 10 of 12 Democratic contests (Bernie Sanders is expected to carry Vermont and Colorado).

If the polls are right, Trump and Clinton are, at this point, essentially unstoppable in pursuit of their parties’ presidential nominations.

Over the years I’ve become desensitized to the constant talk about how this or that election is “the most consequential of our lifetimes.” It’s usually just not true, because the “major party” candidates are usually as alike as peas in a pod.

But it may be true this year, precisely because the two candidates are as alike as Juan and Evita Peron.

Over the years I’ve also become desensitized to the constant talk about this being the year a “third party” finally breaks out, because as much as I’d like to believe that (I’m a long-time Libertarian Party activist), it’s also usually just not true.

But it may be true this year, because we seem to have hit bottom in our long slide into banana republicanism — the culmination of, among other things, George W. Bush’s “unitary executive” claims and Barack Obama’s “pen and phone” posturing.

The first step, as Alcoholics Anonymous points out, is admitting you have a problem. There’s certainly no denying that at this point. We seem to be at the point where America has two choices: Up, or out. We can pull ourselves up from our authoritarian funk, or we can finally tip ourselves over into the dustbin of history.

I’m not placing any bets on which way things will go in the here and now, although my money is on the dustbin option for the long term (I always bet with the odds).

It seems to me, however, that if there is ever going to be a libertarian moment in American politics, it has to come soon, and that this year is its best chance.

Since 1972, the Libertarian Party has consistently offered American voters their best shot at national resurgence and a new birth of freedom. We’ve been right on economics. We’ve been right on foreign policy. We’ve been right on immigration. We’ve been right on all the burning social issues.

But being right has never been enough. While hundreds of Libertarians have served and continue to serve in public office, we’ve never worked our way higher up the elective political ladder than state legislative seats. It’s always been easier for voters to just go with the flow, kick the can down the road, etc.

So, how’s that working out for you? The polls say not so well. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton? If that’s not the bottom of the barrel, the barrel has no bottom.

Time to vote Libertarian. Or to quit pretending you care about your country.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Win or Lose, Donald Trump Just Did the GOP a Yuuuuuuge Favor

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English: Donald Trump speaking at CPAC 2011 in...
Donald Trump speaking at CPAC 2011 in Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Fresh off his plurality win in the South Carolina primary, Donald Trump looks stronger than ever in his bid for the Republican Party’s 2016 presidential nomination. Whether or not he goes the distance to the nomination and then to the White House, he’s done the Republican Party a major service by helping it put the Bush dynasty in its rearview mirror.

Nobody doubts Trump’s willingness to say unpopular things in politically dangerous venues. But some observers felt that it might have been a bridge too far even for Trump to bust Jeb Bush’s “my brother kept us safe” balloon in South Carolina (uber-hawk Lindsey Graham’s stomping ground) the week before the south’s first major primary. Would this be the mistake that brought his campaign to grief?

Nope. Trump won the primary handily, Jeb ended his campaign … and from this point on Republican candidates for the presidency and other offices will finally feel free to openly disown — or at least quit feigning nostalgia for — the eight nightmare years of George W. Bush’s administration.

Dubya’s legacy — 9/11, two failed wars in the Middle East and Central Asia, and the  worst economic collapse since the Great Depression — may not have been entirely his fault. In fact, I think most reasonable people can agree that bad luck and bad advice were major contributing factors.

But what happened happened. It destroyed any chance of victory John McCain might otherwise have enjoyed in 2008, then dogged Mitt Romney’s heels in 2012 as well. Sure, Romney was the weakest Republican nominee since Wendell Willkie anyway, but the Bush legacy certainly didn’t do him any favors.

The GOP’s rut really goes back to 1990, the end of the Cold War, and yet another Bush White House. Ever since, the party’s establishment has had to work overtime, with the aid of convenient menaces (Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, 9/11, etc.) to keep its post-WWII raison d’etre — maintenance of an expensive gravy train for its military-industrial complex backers — on the rails. This meant marginalizing, at every opportunity, the party’s non-interventionist wing, most famously in the persons of Ron and Rand Paul over the last three election cycles.

Those non-interventionists could be marginalized, dismissed and put to pasture because they owed a modicum of loyalty to their party. But the Donald knows no loyalties except to himself, and perhaps to his own view of the truth. By stating that view and not paying for it with the loss of a major presidential primary, or with a hit to his overall nomination prospects, he has set the Republican Party free … if free is what it wants to be. Which remains to be seen, and is a question almost certainly weighing heavily on the minds of Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Op-Eds

Election 2016: The Courtpocalypse and How to Delay It

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English: President Barack Obama and Vice Presi...
English: President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden with the members of the Supreme Court and retiring justice David Souter (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Presidential election campaigns tend to follow a predictable issues timetable, but certain events can upset that timetable in a big way. The death of US Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia is precisely such an event, and its consequences will be felt in November.

By the time Scalia’s body reached the funeral home, US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had already handed Democrats a great talking point and turnout motivator with his announcement that he intends to put off Senate confirmation of any replacement for Scalia for a full year, until a new president has been elected and sworn in.

The usual tactical approach when a president of one party nominates a candidate for approval by a Senate of the other party is basically brute obstructionism — dragging out the committee investigations, perhaps pushing back with the discovery or manufacture of scandals, and so on. McConnell could have almost certainly pulled that off. There would have been grumbling, but heck, there’s always grumbling.

Alternatively, a “consensus” appointee acceptable to both sides of the aisle might be allowed to run the gauntlet. In this case, the likely pick would be DC Court of Appeals judge Srikanth Srinivasan, who clerked for “conservative” justice Sandra Day O’Connor, worked in the Solicitor General’s office during the Bush administration, and was confirmed by a 97-0 Senate vote when Obama appointed him to his current post.

Instead, McConnell laid out an entirely new doctrine: When the Senate doesn’t like the sitting president, he says, it will just hold off on confirming Supreme Court appointments until it gets a president it DOES like.

Why is that such a big deal? Because the implications stretch far beyond the replacement of Scalia.

At least three more SCOTUS justices — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer — are, as was Scalia, in their late 70s or early 80s. Along with Scalia, they cover the whole range from “liberal” to “conservative.” And like Scalia, there’s every reason to believe that they will each retire or die during the next presidential term.

The Supreme Court is soon to be re-made in a big way, almost certainly altering the “liberal/conservative” balance. Scalia’s death puts that re-making front and center in the presidential race.

In a normal election year, presidential primary candidates talk to their parties’ “bases” about appointing hardcore conservative or liberal justices. Then during the general campaign they move toward the center, avoid ideology, and claim their only concern is finding  “qualified” justices. Scalia’s death and McConnell’s declaration of war on the confirmation process have the effect of keeping everyone in their initial corners for the long haul. If you worry about polarization in American politics, welcome to the Courtpocalypse.

But let me suggest a grand bargain to defuse the situation. Congress has changed the size of the Supreme Court before. Why not pass legislation reducing the number of justices to seven, contingent upon Ginsburg agreeing to retire? That would preserve the balance and put the whole question off. For a little while, anyway.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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