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Is the LIbertarian Party Relevant? · Conversations With the Hoff

• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Pull up a chair.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Lean in close.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Got a question.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_04: Welcome to the 35th episode of Conversations with the Hoff.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_04: I'm Steve Hoffman, your host, and with me in the Liberty Crack Media, as always, is our executive producer, Tripp Detmering.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_04: Hello, everybody.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, 35 episodes.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it seems like only yesterday when I was ranting about the evils of Obamacare.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_04: There you go.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_04: The uh the topic today is gonna be a personal one.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_04: Uh uh.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_04: As most of my uh listeners know, I'm a member of the Libertarian Party.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yay! Oh, I thought you were gonna say Moose Lodge.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_04: Well that too, yeah.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_04: Moose Lodge, yeah.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_04: But uh I joined the Libertarian Party back in uh 1994.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_04: So it's been uh a little over 30 years.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_04: And uh so 30 years now there was a break, and that's probably one of the reasons why we have this discussion today.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_04: I did take about a 10-year break where I moved over to the Republican Liberty Caucus, which is kind of like the libertarian wing of the Republican Party.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_04: And I did that because in in Cobb County, Georgia, I tried for a long time to get libertarians elected to public office.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_04: And I just got tired of getting beating my head against the wall.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: Well, just even getting ballot access was difficult.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah, ballot access.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_04: We had to get more signatures to get our guy on the ballot than the previous guy who won the election got as far as total votes.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_04: That's how bad it was, yeah.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_04: So anyway, I went to the Republican Liberty Caucus because they were actually electing liberty-minded people to state offices, you know, to public office.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_04: And so I I I I made that little transition for a while, but I was still a member of the Libertarian Party.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_04: Luckily in Georgia, you don't have to register by party or anything.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_04: So no problems there.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_04: And I even spent uh a few years very active in the in my county GOP organization.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_04: Republican Party, for county Republican Party.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_04: And they actually invent uh they actually elected me as the vice chair of the county party for a couple of years.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: So you had a lot of libertarian influence even with the uh with the GOP.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_04: No, I I think they just got too much son or something because uh I I was a radical libertarian even in those days.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_04: I never changed my viewpoints, but yet here they elected me as their vice vice chairman.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_04: So they they like me.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_04: I just I probably attribute it to my good looks, maybe.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, the the women is the eye candy and so on.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there you go.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: That that that helps.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: Republican women just started drooling for you.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_04: So but eventually uh the establishment Republican Party did piss me off enough where I did transition back to the Libertarian Party and got got working there again.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: Transitioning like Randy O.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: This is a trans pro-trans program.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_04: So the um the question that I that I had to ask, and I've asked myself a couple times, is uh, is the Libertarian Party still relevant in American politics?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_04: Sounds like a simple question.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_04: But in 2026, it may be the most complicated question facing the American Liberty Movement.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_04: You know, word what what role does the Libertarian Party play in the American Liberty Movement?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_04: For half a century, the Liberty P Libertarian Party has argued that government in America has become too large, too expensive, and too involved in the lives of ordinary citizens.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_04: Our basic message has been consistent, and that is more individual freedom and less government control.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_04: More government, less freedom.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_04: But here's the problem.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_04: We know our ideas are great, they're wonderful, they're important.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_04: We know that our policies, if they if they got uh put in into uh legislation, would make America peaceful and prosperous.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_04: We know that.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_04: We've read all the books that tell us that.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_04: And and but the thing is, if our policy if our policies and our our messages are so great, why has the Libertarian Party basically failed in the political arena?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: I could answer that very simply.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_04: Well, that's what this episode is for.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, okay.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: Go ahead, give me your answer.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: The the answer is that uh government right now is all about power and influence.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: And because we are saying we want to take away the power and reduce the influence, those that want to exercise those will not support it financially or with uh social media, with uh mass media or anything else.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: Self-inch.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_04: And that's gonna be an and part of my my presentation too.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, of course.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_04: So yes, we have run uh presidential candidates in every presidential election since 1972.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_04: And uh yes, we do run uh candidates at the state level and the and the county and the city level.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_04: And we have introduced some ideas that were once considered radical but are now part of the mainstream political discussion.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_04: So we have had some successes, but today, if you look at American politics, it's deeply divided between the Democrats and the Republicans.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_04: Voters increasingly seem to think in terms of red versus blue, conservative versus liberal, or Trump versus the Democrats.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_04: So where does that leave the Libertarian Party?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_04: As my mother used to say, up a creek without a paddle, you know, we're we're not even considered uh on the news.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_04: You know, when they have debates and stuff, uh that they leave the libertarian candidate out.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's by design.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: That's by design.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: As a matter of fact, when they talk about uh libertarian candidates, they are they are they never say the word libertarian.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: They always say third party or independent.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_04: Independent, right.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_04: But maybe, just maybe, the Libertarian Party itself may be responsible for our lack of influence or our lack of success in the political arena.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe the problem isn't our philosophy, our ideas.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe the problem is politics, like you've referred inferred already.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_04: Today we're gonna take a hard look at the Libertarian Party.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_04: Not as cheerleaders, not as critics, but people asking a very basic question.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_04: What would the Libertarian Party have to do to become relevant in the political arena?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: Well, let's stop.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: To me, relevant, what what makes a party ir irrelevant is how many people they have elected to office.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_04: We're gonna get into that.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: That is not relevance.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_04: We're gonna get into that.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_04: You got it.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_04: So as my theme song says, pull up a chair, lean back, and enjoy this episode of Conversations with the Hawk.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_04: There we go.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_04: And here we go, off and running.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_04: Now, we talked about electing people to public office.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_04: No.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_04: Why?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_04: Well, well, I'm gonna do that first.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_04: Is that really a measure of success?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_04: Probably not.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_04: If you're gonna use that as a measure of success, then the Libertarian Party has utterly failed.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_04: We've we we have fielded candidates in the presidential elections.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_04: Everyone since 1972.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_04: The first guy was John Hospers.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_04: He got less than 0.1% of the vote.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_04: But he did establish a landmark in electoral college history.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_04: He's the only libertarian candidate that actually got a vote in the Electoral College.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_04: Ah.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_04: A little bit of presidential trivia there.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, well, from what state?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_04: I have I wish I would have done that as much.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna have to go back and have another conversation with my Japanese friend, Mr.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: Ai.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'll tell you what.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: If any of our listeners uh can sit there and go on their Google bot and um and find out the answer, put it in the put it in the show notes or or put it in the you know, give a response to us.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: We'd love to hear you.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_04: Now, our our biggest success in the presidential elections came with our buddy Gary Johnson.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_04: You know, the guy that didn't know where Aleppo was, you know?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: Well, no, he he didn't say he didn't know where it was.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: He didn't know what it was.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: What is Aleppo?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, what it was, okay.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and and the response should have been it really isn't anything, uh, because it really was not anything that was, you know, well he he was the first presidential candidate in 2012 to get one percent of the vote.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_04: And at that time that was the best LP performance ever.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_04: And then he exceeded that in 2016, where we got 3.28% of the vote.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_04: And that's the most uh votes that any libertarian c candidate for president has ever got.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_04: 3.28%.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_04: Then after that, we uh 2020 and 2024, it kind of went downhill after that.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_04: We we ran Joe Jorgensen and Chase Oliver, which was a complete disaster.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_04: But a lot of internal friction within the Libertarian Party.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_04: Even a lot of libertarians didn't vote for Chase Oliver.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_04: They just couldn't couldn't do it.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I understand that.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, so we haven't had that much success in the presidential elections.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_04: What about electing libertarians to Congress, to the to uh the Senate or the House?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I'm sorry, but uh the Libertarian Party has never ever elected a member of their party to the U.S.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_04: Congress.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_04: Under our flag.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_04: Under our flag.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_04: Now there has been a libertarian that served in Congress.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_04: And you probably know who he is.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_04: Justin Amash.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_04: But Justin Amash from Michigan was elected as a Republican to Congress.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: Well, let's let's let's be real transparent.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: We have people who are members of the Libertarian Party currently who are serving in Congress.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: Enlighten me.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: Rand Paul still has his Libertarian Party affiliation.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's great.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so does um Thomas Massey.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: Thomas Massey.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: And um, yeah, you it's uh the whole thing is that they can't sit there and uh you know drum up, but I think both of them have lifetime uh uh memberships.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: If I'm not if I'm mistaken, correct us and let us know.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_04: But uh it could could probably be the uh Republican Liberty Caucus.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_04: And I know that Thomas Massey used to come to our uh Republican Liberty Caucus conventions.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_04: I even got a picture of him on a big, big yeah.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: But you know that that that's uh I think that probably wrangles some of the uh the LP party insiders knowing that uh there are libertarians are flying under a different flag that have been quietly doing this, but they cannot publicly come out and say this because then the the the flag party will uh will oust them.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_04: We do have friends in the Republican Party.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_04: We also have a lot of friends in the in the Democrat Party.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_04: Not just friends, and actual members.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm gonna get into that a little bit later on about suggestions on how we can improve our our our role in in American politics today.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, so as far as the U.S.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_04: Congress, U.S.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_04: President, we haven't had much success.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_04: So what about the state houses?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, we have had some success in getting libertarians in in the state houses across the country.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_04: To date, there have been 22 total libertarians who have served in various state houses.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_04: Now the bad news is that only ten of those actually got elected as members of the Libertarian Party.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_04: The others were elected as either Republicans or Democrats, and then once they got in office and they switched to Libertarian Party.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: There are two of them, two I think were independents, but yeah, and that was because of uh ballot access.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_04: So so basically if you if you look at electing libertarians to public office as a as a measure of success, you you you'd have to say, well what what's going on here?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_04: Why what's going on?
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_04: Why why can't the Libertarian Party be like other uh political parties and and uh elect people to public office?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_04: Matter of fact, in the last uh presidential election, the Green Party actually got more votes than the Libertarian Party did.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and and that's not because of what the parties did internally, it's because uh specifically the uh Democrats and Republicans and their all their ancillary supporters have targeted specifically the Libertarian Party to not mention them, to keep them in the back burner and everything else.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: They'll they'll talk about the Green Party, they'll talk about it by name, they'll talk about the Freedom Party by name, they'll talk about all these other parties by name, but when it comes to the Libertarian Party, it's just the third party or or the independent.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_04: In an era of$40 trillion national debt, we are definitely a threat to their uh modus operandi.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, yeah, yeah.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, so uh local libertarian party meetings are different from local Republican or Democrat party meetings for one reason.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_04: The basis for libertarianism is political and economic philosophy, not power-based political science.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_04: Amen.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_04: And you said that at the beginning.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_04: Amen.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_04: So see, we're on the same wavelength.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_04: Ooh, cool.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_04: So so what exactly does that mean?
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_04: If you're a libertarian, you probably went to libertarian meetings because you read one of the books by some of these individuals, by John Locke, David Hume, Adam Smith, Frederick Bastias, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Ludwig van Mike Mises, the Mises Caucus, uh Frederick Hayek, Ann Rand, Murray Rothbard, Milton Friedman, or Robert Nozick, Nozick.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_04: Nozick, or even Thomas Sowell.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, there you go.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_04: There's a lot of them out there.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_04: And uh so you probably went to these libertarian meetings because you you read the latest book and you wanted to discuss that book with a bunch of like-minded people.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_04: And the way the place that you could do that is a libertarian party meeting.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_04: We loved philosophy.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_04: We loved talking about that stuff.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: And uh even those misguided people like Randy O who think Hume is the above-average philosopher, which he's not.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: Take that, Randy.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_04: Well, the the thing is that though that while it's great that we're really into philosophy, we we know all of the the the quotes from Bastiak.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_04: We've we've read uh the anarchy of uh uh anarchy, uh Anatomy of a state by Mert Murray Rothbaugh.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_04: We know that government is evil.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_04: That that's great to have that philosophical outlook, and it definitely frames our message.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_04: It frames what we stand for.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_04: But it's philosophy.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_04: What we lack is education and political science.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_04: So uh a lot of uh libertarians we we we put ideas over strategy, and because of that, we've struggled we've struggled to build durable coalitions.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_04: Yay, good.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_04: We've struggled to compromise to win elections.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_04: Libertarians don't compromise.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_04: Good.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not gonna compromise my my core beliefs for for this or that.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_04: And we struggled to maintain consistent messaging.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yay, yeah.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_04: Remember, we have different factions within the Libertarian Party.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_04: And these factions, they'll we have a convention every two years, and one faction will take over, then another faction will take over.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_04: And they don't have the the same messaging.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_04: You know, they come from a different philosophical standpoint.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: But we do have and you'll probably uh come across across this, which is unique to any other parties.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: We have N A N A O N O T A, NOTA.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: NOTA, yeah, none of the above.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: So when we have elections and we don't care for the candidates, we will vote to have no one.
• 19:01
  unknown: Yeah.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_04: Matter of fact, uh, I was talking about the the last presidential election.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_04: That particular candidate, the the number two on the that won that election was NOTA.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_04: That's how many people did not want him as a candidate.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_04: So but that but I uh I digress.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_04: We also have difficulty.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: And Chase, I still love you, but yeah, and I watch it on the show.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_04: So uh but yeah, yeah, we we uh have developed we have difficulty developing professional campaign infrastructure.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_04: Spend a lot of time on philosophy, but very little time on campaign methodologies.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_04: And that explains why uh the Libertarian Party has had minimal electoral success, despite having a rich intellectual tradition.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_04: Again, we're idea-driven, not power-driven.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_04: Our party grew from intellectual circles, not mass political organizing.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_04: Our culture emphasizes debate, philosophy, and ideological purity.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_04: Scholars have described our party as more of a movement of thinkers than a traditional political party.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_04: And they they're correct.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_04: Now that doesn't mean that the Libertarian Party can't be successful.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_04: So can contrast this to my days working with the within the Republican Party.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_04: When I went to Republican Party meetings, our meetings were about how to win elections, how to organize voting precincts, not just counties, how to um use campaign tools like voter gravity, I-365, how to raise funds.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_04: We we uh learned about the what are the local issues facing the public, you know, what do they care about?
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, a lot of people can look at these as tools and strategies.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: All it is is how can we cheat?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: And the the the Democrats are doing the same thing.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_04: They they um they give the voter what they want, you know, they're they're buying to buying the voting.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_04: Deceive the voter.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_04: Deceive the voter.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_04: There's not there's no discussion about philosophy.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_04: No, there's no discussions about our founding fathers and the constitution and all that stuff.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_04: They're there to do one thing and one thing only, to win elections and maintain power.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_04: Why through their teeth to do it?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_04: So their meetings are down in dirty politics as opposed to you know philosoph philosoph philosophy or economic discussions.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_04: Therein lies the rub.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_04: And that segues to my next segment of what do we need to do to improve our effectiveness.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, one is not act like those other parties.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Don't talk about strategies for getting people elected.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: Don't be an idiot, don't fall into that problem.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_04: So I I got into my uh I talked to my uh Japanese buddy, Mr.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_04: Ai, and he came up with 10 suggestions on how the Libertarian Party could be more effective.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_04: And it's based on political science, it's based on electoral history, and OD, organizational behavior.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_04: And it all suggests how a minor party can break through, break through the barriers and actually become relevant in the political arena again.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_04: Number one, professionalize the party organization.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_04: Have full-time professional staff.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_04: I can see I'm pissing off most of my libertarian friends, but now I'm pissing off my own executive director.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm looking, I'm looking at dollar signs, you know, thrown down the thiefdoms and that's part of why you have to have a uh professional staff.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_04: Uh huh.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_04: And we have to have centralized strategic planning.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_04: Centralized planning.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_04: Hmm.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_04: That would sound very um socialist.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_04: Uh huh.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_04: You have to have candidate requirements.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_04: Recruitment pipelines.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_04: How many times have we tried to field a candidate here in our county and we haven't found anybody that wants to run for public office?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_04: You don't have that problem in the in the local GOP party.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_04: They have all kind of people wanting to.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_04: Are you going to be running?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_04: No, I'm never going to be able to do that.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_04: Uh-huh.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_04: Now you figure it out.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_04: Another weakness we have is the data operations.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_04: We've got a really good candidate down in this in the Charleston area.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_04: Fantastic candidate.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_04: He's got all kind of money and stuff.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_04: But when he goes to the the state party or the national party and tries to get a voter list or a walk list or something, he can't, it's not there.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: Well, even what is given to him, and I've I can say this from firsthand knowledge now, um, is garbage.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah it is because it the the the the list is never been maintained.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: And here's my I'm gonna go on a little bit of a side diatriebe here, that that what you're saying is the ineffectiveness of the the political party.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: We um are are bloated with falsities.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: We think we're we're a party that's so big.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: Well, guess what?
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: If you went through that list, you'll find out uh a big percentage have dropped out um and or has passed on or moved out or something like that.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: We're not as big as the numbers say, and so um it's like when somebody has a uh a Facebook page and they say, Oh, I've got two thousand followers.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: No, you have 35 followers, but you have 2,000 people who hit the follow button but never followed you after that.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_04: When I joined the Republic uh the Republican Party, or where am I, what day is it?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_04: The Libertarian Party.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, we had 18,000 paid Libertarian Party members.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_04: Over 20 years later, I looked at the numbers.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_04: 18,000 paid libertarian party members.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_04: We didn't reduce it?
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_04: No.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_04: It's say it's state level.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_04: What are we are we are really that's sad.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_04: I want to hear I want to see it down to 12.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_04: Well, that's that's the last item on having uh uh professionalize the party is having a uh a fundraising infrastructure.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_04: We always suffer from lack of funds.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_04: We uh we our budgets are are just skimpy, and our candidates really can't rely too much on the on the state party or even the national party to help them finance their campaigns.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_04: They they better they better be uh rich people, you know, rich.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_04: Have some deep pockets, yeah.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_04: Number two, we should be focusing rather than having a presidential candidate every year, we should be focusing on winnable local races first.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_04: We've we've we've stressed that before.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I've talked a lot about that.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: I like that too.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_02: That keeps one, it keeps the national LP out of it, and um it it it gets the activism that is really the heart of the the movement uh to to be you know really involved.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_04: You build from the bottom up.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_04: A focus on uh city council elections, county commissions, school boards, sheriff's office, clerks, and even state legislative seats.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_04: This way we build credibility and we might even get some repeat incumbency there, you know.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_04: Some and and get our name would become more common with the common man be out there.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: But let's also acknowledge something else.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: A majority of local seats do not have party affiliations attached to them at the elections.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, now when you study the Greens, the Green Party in Germany, that's how they succeeded.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_04: They started small at the local level and eventually grew, grew, and grew, and now they're an actual political force in Germany.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, uh as of maybe two years ago, they're not anymore.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: They got absolutely decimated.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they're they're almost in non-consciously.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_04: Green policies always leave the failure.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_04: Socialism always leaves the failure.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_04: But people it takes a while for people to realize that.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_04: You have to hit rock bottom after you when you go socialism to say, whoops, that didn't work.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_04: We got to try something different.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: The ADF came around and whom they're gone.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_04: So one one of the other recommendations, and and here you're gonna probably laugh at this, we have to reduce internal factionalism.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_04: And I uh I even had an episode about this.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_04: You know, uh, you're not a real libertarian if where I talked about all the different types of libertarians, all the different caucuses, all trying to get power within the Libertarian Party.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think I think I have a solution to that, Steve.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: What are you laughing for?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: Come on.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm listening.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh just like we have a uh you have to swear on for the non-aggression principle to become a libertarian, you I think you should have also have to swear on to only support free market capitalism and no socialism.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what are you gonna do about the libsocks in the party?
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they're gone then if you have that as part of your of your uh you know joining the party.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that would get rid of 99% of the factionalism that you're talking about.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: I I totally agree with you.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: So there everybody he he he acknowledges I have the solution to our problem.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_04: Well, we need to elect you to the uh Libertarian National Committee, it sounds like well, there you go.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_04: So anyway, this internal conflict drains energy, confuses messaging, and alienates voters.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_04: So why can't we all just get together?
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_04: Why can't we all just you know?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that would that would separate us from all the other major parties, too, if we were the free market capitalist party, because it would it it would definitely separate us from the Republicans who are not free market capitalists.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and now with the the uh DSA taking over the Democrat Party, it would really set us apart.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_04: Definitely.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_04: So the fourth suggestion is to simplify our messaging to the mass audience.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_04: We uh we tend to be you know highly intellectual, theoretical, and we use absolutist terms.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_04: Most voters respond to concrete benefits like this policy will reduce your rent.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_04: They respond to simple narratives more freedom, less government waste.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_04: Or or clear priority.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_04: We're focused on reducing taxes.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_04: We're here to defend your privacy, or we're here to defend your civil liberties.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_04: So the Libertarian Party needs to shift away from the philosophical language, you know, where we come up with 20 different things that we throw at you at one time, yeah.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_04: You know, based on all these economic and political philosophers of the past, and just stick to small, short messaging.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_04: Also, um I think we talk I talked about this a little bit.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_04: Number five, build coalitions instead of standing alone.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_04: Boo.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, you don't like that one.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'm an individualist, yeah.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: It I I I'm very uncomfortable with it.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but coalitions that are temporary coalitions.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_04: And and matter of fact, these should be issue-specific coalitions.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_04: Correct.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_04: Like I'm big on hemp and marijuana.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_04: So why not form a temporary coalition with the Democrat Party to help pass legislation that would legalize marijuana or would reduce the barriers for hemp farmers?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: I can tell you exactly why.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_02: Because the Democrat Party, even though you're expousing their external stuff, have been preventing that.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know who's actually gotten the laws passed for legalization?
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: The Republicans.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, then then form a coalition with like-minded Republicans.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_04: Republicans, yeah.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_04: But here again, even though the Republicans do a lot of other stuff that we totally disagree with, yeah, there's no reason why we can't form alliances or coalitions on individual-specific issues.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, look at Thomas Massey you know, reaching out to AOC and some of those others uh to to get uh legislation going.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_04: We should also partner with local interest groups.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_04: Now here in our county, we've done that a little bit.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_04: You know, we've we've fought some of the uh rent control and property control uh laws that they they've tried to CBD control.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_04: C B D control.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and the and the and the the flock cameras and stuff.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_04: So we but but the thing is we've done that kind of on our own.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_04: There's other organizations out there, local community groups that are doing the same thing.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_04: And we should be going to them and saying, hey, we'd like to uh align with you, we'd like to put out joint messaging with you, joint resolutions, joint press releases.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I want to reach out uh if anybody heard our uh our uh episode with the flock group that was headed up by Jennifer, that's exactly what they're doing.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, great.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you I mean that was part of your your podcast.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: They were telling how they were doing that.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_04: And but we need to do more of it.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_04: The Libertarian Party has historically avoided coalition politics.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_04: But coalition building is how minor partages uh parties gain leverage.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, one of the major ways that they gain leverage.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_04: Also, invest in ballot access and legal infrastructure.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_04: Uh Larry Sharp, if you listen to my episode of him, you can see how states really put a lot of barriers out there to to prevent third parties from actually getting on the ballot.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_04: And I talked about it when I was in Georgia, we had to get more signatures, ballot access signatures, than the previous guy who won the election got votes.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_04: So we really have to have a lot more um ballot access uh uh initiatives.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_04: We might have to f hire some legal advice, get some lawyers in our organization who can fight that legislation.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_04: Right now, we got no money, my funds are low, and how are we gonna get how are we gonna hire lawyers?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_04: Well, what you do, you you find lawyers who are actually libertarians, you get them into the party, and then have them work with the party to help us with ballot access.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the two of them that are are very busy.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_04: Oh.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, we do have uh two lawyers in our organization.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_04: Unfortunately, uh there's a little messaging issue there.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_04: Uh-huh.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_04: Also, we have to develop serious fundraising capability.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, even uh I listened to the uh stuff coming out of the Libertarian uh national committee and stuff, and they're always having trouble with fundraising.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_04: They're always criticizing the previous leadership team for lack of fundraising.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_02: We've never had an effective fundraising uh well and and it's and like we went back to it's the factionalism.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: If if my side didn't win, then I'm not going to support the current administration, so I'm gonna withhold funds.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: And um so uh it shows that neither side is uh financially more powerful than the other.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: Although they both they both have this delusion, like they they do have more influence and more power, which is hilarious.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_04: So the factionalism gets in the way of a lot of this.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_04: Now we need to build donor networks, we need to find high net worth supporters.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_04: Hello, Elon Musk, hello out there.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_04: He's got a lot of libertarian ideas, uh-huh.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_04: And we need to create recurring donor programs and have the one one thing about uh federal law if you're gonna have get donors, if you're gonna have a lot of financing in your party, yeah, you gotta have professional compliance and reporting.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_04: You've got to keep up with that, otherwise the fines are massive under various ethics laws.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_04: So along with fund fundraising, you gotta have a good uh CPA or somebody.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_04: So money isn't everything, but without it, nothing else works.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: So if you'd like to donate to Liberty Crack Media, go to LibertyCrackmedia.com and hit the donate button.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_04: Number eight is we have to show that we when we do win, we have governance competence.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_04: And you get this by winning local offices, deliver delivering viable results.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_04: Look what we did.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_04: We uh we helped to lower the property taxes in our county.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_04: Or look what we did.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_04: We stopped developers from building on wetlands.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: Look what Larry uh I mean Larry, well look what Gary Johnson did to bring, was it New Mexico out of the brink of disaster and he got rewarded by getting the biggest share of uh third party or libertarian uh votes.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_02: And you're right, yeah.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_04: So by by showing that we're we have uh governance credibility, it's one of the biggest barriers right now to the LP growth.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_04: Because we haven't done that yet.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_04: You know, we've got to start winning local elections.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_04: We've got to actually show that we can bring results.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_04: Once we start doing that, I think you're gonna see more and more people turn to the Libertarian Party.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_04: And uh prioritize key a few key issues.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_04: I talked about this a little bit before, instead of dozens.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_04: Um, for instance, uh our strategy would be to emphasize economic freedom or tax reform.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_04: A candidate should go out there and emphasize civil liberties or privacy issues.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_04: Or non-interventionist foreign policy.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_04: That would be a big one today.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_04: Look at gas prices because of our uh intervention in other countries.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_04: Or criminal justice reform.
• 38:14
  unknown: Yeah.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_04: That would be be a one that uh we we could emphasize.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_04: That's a key issue.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_04: How many Americans today are sitting behind bar bars because they sold or distributed a plant product?
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_04: Totally ridiculous.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_04: So I think Americans could could relate to that.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, so we have to all in all, we have to shift the debate from being like a a debate society or a or a to be in a political institution.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_04: We're not a literary it can't be a liter literary society.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_04: We have to actually shift our debate to be in a um a political institution.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_04: We need to prioritize winning over debating.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_04: We have to value coalition building over purity.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I'm not gonna join them because you know I don't want to sacrifice my beliefs or whatever.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_04: We need to reward practical organizers as much as theorists.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_04: We need to treat elections as operations and not philosophical contests.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_04: Well, we lost this election, but at least we got the message out there.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_04: That's nice.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_04: No, I do.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_04: A lot of us like that.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_04: But we're not winning elections.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_04: So what?
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_04: So we need to start prioritizing uh winning elections.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I uh the only reason I would want us to have power is so that we could put out one mandate, and that is to make a dissolution of all political parties, make it illegal to have a political party.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_02: And that would force then everything to be independence.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody has to go on their own uh thing.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_02: I don't like parties, I hate them, I hate collectives, collective groups.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_04: I think you've been reading too much Murray Rothbard.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but no, not enough Murray Rothbard.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's the whole thing.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_02: No, we do need to see if we can get rid of political parties.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_04: So in closing, uh at some point, every movement must decide what it truly wants to be.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_04: For more than 50 years, the Libertarian Party has carried the torch of individual liberty, free markets, and voluntary cooperation.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_04: It has defended liberty that matter, the ideas that challenge power, expand freedom, and remind Americans of the principles that once defined our constitutional republic.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_04: But our ideas alone are not enough, not anymore.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_04: A political party cannot survive as a philosophical club.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_04: It cannot win elections by hosting debates, publishing essays, or arguing over the footnotes of long-dead economists.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_04: Let's debate this further.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_04: A party that spends more time defining purity than building coalitions will never earn the trust of the voters.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_04: The voters who live in the real world with real problems, demanding real solutions.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_04: The libertarian has the passion, the intellect, and the conviction.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_04: But conviction without strategy is just noise.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_04: Passion without organization is just energy wasted.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_04: And philosophy without power is just a book on a shelf.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_04: If the Libertarian Party wants to shape the future, instead of commenting on it, it must evolve.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_04: Ah! It must become a party that recruits candidates, wins local elections, builds credibility, and proves, not theorizes, that liberty works.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_04: It must learn to persuade people who don't already agree.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_04: It must learn to compromise without surrendering its soul.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_04: It must learn to fight for victories that change lives.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_04: The simple truth is America does not need another literary society.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_04: It needs a political force capable of defending freedom where it matters in city halls, in state legislatures, and eventually in Congress.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_04: The Libertarian Party can be that force.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_04: It can be the movement that breaks the two-party monopoly, restores constitutional limits, and gives Americans a real alternative.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_04: But only if it chooses to stop admiring the philosophy and start adapting it, start making it happen.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_04: This is the moment.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_04: This is the turning point.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_04: The Libertarian Party must decide whether it wants to be remembered as a gathering of thinkers or a generation of leaders.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_04: Ideas light the flame.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_04: Action will carry it forward.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_04: And the time for action has arrived.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, so now that I've alienated just about all of my libertarian friends, it might be a good time to cut to our glorious leader and executive producer of Liberty Crack Media, Trip Detmering.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_02: Well, folks, please do give us some comments in our uh in our section.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, is is Steve right that we should abandon being um intellectuals and and uh take up uh being leaders.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what leaders are, but we'll we'll see if that that is something that we'd need to be.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_02: Or uh do you have ideas for yourself?
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_02: Is it uh am I one of those libertarians that the problem with the party and party success?
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: Or um is there something else?
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_02: Please let us know.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_02: Go to libertycrackmedia.com too, and you can uh put your ideas there and explore other podcasts and other interesting things we have.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: We've got two new ones that have come up just recently.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: One's a sports podcast with Mafia Mike called The Sports Shakedown, and then we have that kind of mysterious one, the one that has conspiracies, monkey wrench in the system with Bill Sevier and uh special guests like that.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: So explore, expand, and uh have fun.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, this is uh trip deppering along with Steve Hoffman and Conversations with the Hoff.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: Leaning close.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: Got a question of the close from the camp of the squad to the camp of the post.