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Libertarians Are Marxist Dupes

With one of the most critical midterm elections in American history just weeks away, libertarians continue to wallow in denial. Their core membership is comprised of an incoherent, eclectic mixture of hedonists, social darwinists, hyper-intellectuals, and anarchists. They have no coherent political platform, and to the extent libertarians have an ideology, it is one that is as out of touch with reality as the ideology cherished by their supposed polar opposites, the Marxists.

There is one thing libertarians can do, however. They can turn America over to Marxists, or more accurately, to their socialist oligarch puppeteers.

In the 2016 election, the Libertarian Party candidate for President, Gary Johnson, attracted just over 4.5 million votes. The Leftist equivalent, Green candidate Jill Stein, received only 1.5 million votes demonstrating the superior understanding the Left has of political mechanics. Despite being a deeply flawed candidate, this Libertarian moved the national popular vote from a toss-up to a clear Clinton edge. In the Electoral College, Johnson’s influence was even greater.

At the state level in 2016, Gary Johnson very nearly handed crucial states to Clinton. In Pennsylvania, where Trump’s margin was a 1.3 percentage points, Johnson got 2.4 percent. In Wisconsin, where Trump won by 0.6 percentage points, Johnson got 3.7 percent. In Michigan, where Trump won by a razor thin 0.3 percentage points, Johnson got 3.6 percent.

Not only did Gary Johnson very nearly leave the “Blue Wall” intact for Democrats, he also took states out of play that might have been toss-ups. In Colorado, for example, Trump lost by 3.6 percentage points, but Gary Johnson got 4.7 percent. In Nevada, Trump lost by 2.7 percentage points and Johnson got 3.1 percent.

What about “purple states”? Florida went for Republican Trump in 2016 by a margin of 1.4 points, but Johnson got 2.2 percent. By 2020, assuming the biased media can continue to brainwash hundreds of thousands of recent Puerto Rican refugees into thinking Trump deliberately neglected their hurricane relief, Trump will need that 2.2 percent.

Thank God Johnson was an avowed pothead who, at least back in 2016, couldn’t find Aleppo on a map.

The stakes in 2018 could hardly be higher, but Libertarian Party candidates don’t seem to care. In states where the races for U.S. Senate are too close to call, and in similar cliffhanger congressional races across the nation, Libertarian candidates are running. None of them have the slightest chance of winning, but dozens of them are capable enough to attract two-percent or more. If more than a few of them do, Republicans will lose control of Congress.

Libertarians may wish to reflect on a couple of salient points as early voting begins, and obscenely well-funded Democratic political machines across America begin “assisting” millions of people with their absentee ballots.

First—and sorry to have to state the obvious—America is not a parliamentary system. Even if Libertarian Party candidates attracted five percent of the vote, that would not translate into 22 seats in the House of Representatives. These votes for Libertarian candidates will do only one thing: help Democrats win.

We need to quit indulging the preposterous talking point that Libertarian Party candidates siphon as many votes from away from Democrat candidates as they do from Republican candidates. No, they don’t. Libertarians, for all their incoherence, agree on one thing: smaller government. And Democrats, for all their incoherence, also agree on one thing: much bigger government. Get real.

Whatever may be the flaws of the Republican candidates and elected officials out there (and there are many), Libertarians need to grow up, and recognize a painful fact. The lesser of two evils is the lesser of two evils. The real world isn’t perfect. You take what you can get, because if you walk away, you’ll get something worse.

Perhaps one may excuse some stubborn Libertarian voters for being too naïvely principled to recognize that the establishment Democrat platform—import welfare recipients, export jobs, expand government, cede national sovereignty—is so horrific that even a blatantly imperfect Republican coalition is vastly preferable. But libertarian (small and large-L) donors, especially the big ones—and you know who you are—are not naïve. To support Libertarian candidates with big money, or to withhold that money from Republicans at a time like this, is the same as writing checks to Democrats.

After this November, should Republicans lose control of Congress, there will be a time of reckoning and realignment. For now, libertarians, and their donors, need to understand the consequences of their choices. A vote for a Libertarian is a vote for oligarchic socialism.

Photo Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images

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About Edward Ring

Edward Ring is a senior fellow of the Center for American Greatness. He is also the director of water and energy policy for the California Policy Center, which he co-founded in 2013 and served as its first president. Ring is the author of Fixing California: Abundance, Pragmatism, Optimism (2021) and The Abundance Choice: Our Fight for More Water in California (2022).