America since its inception has been dominated by a two party system because our electoral system makes that the optimal way to play the game
So the only way for 3rd parties to become actual contenders is to replace first past the post with RCV
Do they refuse to accept this fact or don’t actually want to succeed?
EDIT: please read the top 5 responses before responding, I have seen too many instances of "libertarians are just republicans"
Their voter base also heavily overlaps (well, almost entirely overlaps) with the Republican Party, who are extremely anti-RCV (it’s been banned by republicans in a handful of states like Florida, Idaho, Tennessee, etc).
The Republicans know that their positions are in the minority. In the last 30 years, their candidate for President won the popular vote once. They know they would lose if it wasn't for gerrymandering and voter suppression and other such schemes, so they fight democracy at every turn, and have done for decades. And last time around, when voter suppression didn't work, they went for storming the Capitol to overturn the results of an election.
Being a small l libertarian is hard. Do I vote for the guy who lies and tells me he is going to be fiscally responsible or the guy that doesn’t even pretend?
The problem with republicans is that when they cut taxes, they don’t offset spending. Do you want to cut the military budget? No, that will lose votes. How about food for low income children and parents? No, that also lose votes. Do you want to cut farm subsidies? No. Police funding? No. Infrastructure? No. At the very least, when Democrats talk about fiscal responsibility, it’s because they realize you need high taxes to pay for high spending and lowering spending is always going to be unpopular.
Cutting spending is extremely popular, until you start talking about which spending you're gonna cut. It's pesky details like that that cause problems.
Lots of them believe in "waste, fraud, and abuse." Like we're trillions in debt because some federal bureaucrat is running off too many copies of an office memo or something.
We could cut the tax breaks for the rich….
I'm always confused by the "the rich pay almost all the taxes". Well...they have most of the money. But as a proportion of their wealth they pay lower taxes.
In some cases they don't participate in forking over revenue to the government to fund the government. Like the Social Security tax cap.
Most people that like to say the rich pay all the taxes usually are talking about Federal Income Tax rates that are on all those charts. Most of the rich pay no where near what’s on those charts. Iirc the very wealthiest were actually paying around 10% after the CPA’s and lawyers were done doing the taxes. Anyway the poor also pay property tax, sales and payroll tax tolls and users fees etc….. That are not on the charts and impact low income people a lot more than the rich.
Like the Social Security tax cap.
That's because Social Security was designed to tie your benefits to the amount of taxes you paid. Because your benefits are capped, your taxes are too.
Yeah because it's social security, not a retirement plan.
This is stupid It's an insurance.
You don't stop paying insurance because your payments eclipsed your possible payout.
Let me know where to sign for an insurance that stops my premium after I've eclipsed the payout.
Social security is not an insurance plan.
If I have insurance that covers up to $100,000 in value, then I usually pay less than somebody with the same details who’s gonna have a $200,000 payout.
I’m not arguing that Social Security contributions need to be capped. I think the caption should be removed.
I’m saying that the insurance example is not a suitable metaphor for that argument.
when they only thing that trickles down is the urine that those benefitting from those cuts provide to those below.
I support that
Too bad it is never about transparency in how that money is spent.
The finger thing means the taxes.
Get rid of art bursaries, that's like 90% of the budget/s
As it turns out, you cannot lower taxes and increase revenues. It's a tale as old as voodoo economics.
This is exactly what the UK conservatives did. They took over from Labour in 2010 and went on a 9 year program of austerity claiming that the previous government had been wildly overspending. The National debt was approx £1 trillion in 2010.
Budgets were slashed, public services were cut but they still kept on spending. Before covid hit, it had doubled to approx £2 trillion and they announced that the austerity program had failed.
One of the many things they cut was processing asylum claims so a backlog kept on building up. Asylum claims were taking up to 10 years to get processed but in the meantime, asylum seekers (who are not permitted to legally work) are costing the Treasury approximately £6-£8 million per day because the tories wanted to lay off some civil servants in pursuit of a small government/ low tax state. They literally block book 5,000 empty rooms in case of unexpected demand.
Every cut they made was a false economy, ignore potholes for a few years and they turn into resurfacing roads, far more costly. Same thing with public sector building maintenance, minor repairs turn into major repairs.
Labour had a school building RAAC replacement plan, the tories scrapped it as well as the home insulation program and many other public service improvements. RAAC was a known problem for decades, yet they ignored it.
The National debt is about to hit £3 trillion, the NHS waiting list has doubled since 2010 and every household will have to pay an extra £3,500 in taxes next year to service our debts. Their flagship project, HS2, was cancelled out of hand when costs spiralled out of control and was so badly managed that they hadn't even come up with a plan for Euston in 10 years.
Brexshit is a free market fundamentalist ponzi scheme that has severely damaged our economy, lost thousands of jobs and shrunk the tax revenues by billions.
The tax cuts that the tory faithful are demanding will be paid for by more borrowing against future austerity measures that are being kicked down the road for Labour to deal with.
They often talk about Singapore on Thames, what they delivered is Pyongyang on Thames.
GOP is always for more military and police spending even if they don't want or need it. Often they force through systems or things like ship refitting even when the miliary is against it.
Because they don’t give AF about the personnel of the military, just the industrial complex.
Sailors don’t like change, though, so I’m not sure the military being against it is such an issue.
That said I’m sure they do make a lot of dumb choices.
The military has a better idea of what they need than congress, the issue is congress is bought. Years ago early 2010s maybe the pentagon asked to stop being given jeeps for afghanistan, because they were triggering a ton of ieds and killing soldiers. Congress responded by saying republicans are in control, there's a republican in ohio who has a big jeep factory in his district and can't afford the popularity decrease from job loss or retraining, so have some more jeeps. Also the infamous case of the stealth fighter bomber that spent over a decade in development and cost over a trillion dollars and after jamming all the tech they could into the thing the navy deemed it unsafe to fly because light rain could cause it to crash. But hey boeing got a ton of government money so there was some private sector jobs waiting for the people who approved the project
The delay in transition from Humvees to MRAPs had little to do with Congress and pork spending and a lot to do with indecisive DoD leadership on how to address IEDs.
1st sentence spot on, it goes down hill from there. MRAPs vs Humvees came down to an indecisive US Army. Even if we had all the MRAPs we needed we still would have needed more Humvees for the 90% of missions and tasks that did not have IED risks.
The US Airforce has always been 100% behind the F-35, which is one of the most successful weapons projects of our time. The "rain issue" was actualy a lightening strike issue. Early F-35s had problems with their NGS's which pump innert nitrogen into fuel tanks. No NGS means no flying near lightning storms. The same system was also a problem of F-16s from the period, although no one talks about F-16s being grounded during storms.
For what its worth, the US Air Force consistently asks for more F-35s and more often then not Congress forces them to dump money in older legacy systems instead.
Also, Boeing lost the JTF competition and took a pretty big financial hit with their X-32.
Defense budget mostly goes to contractors. I know they buy $200 worth of metal and resell to the government for $8000 or $500 worth of armor for $10000 etc. etc. those contractors love to throw a portion of that back into their politicians pockets and the cycle continues.
Police give the illusion of safety and often make false arrests to keep the American slave trade going. Following the money isn't even a challenge honestly.
Actually they're completely fine with cutting food for low income parents and children.
Besides the military budget which could use a big investigation, I don’t really think you can cut anything tbh
The Pentagon has never passed an audit (but hey, they made "incremental progress to a clean audit" 🙄), yet despite that, the GOP-controlled House passed an $886,000,000,000 Pentagon bill in July.
In my opinion, they shouldn't get another penny until they pass an audit. Get to checking the couch cushions in the meantime.
Much of the reason why they don't pass audits is how property management works in the government. Things that get destroyed end up having to go through a special disposal process, and often end up in various storages as they go through the process. Then, offices and labs can take freely from this pile because it saves both the money that would've gone into that thing being bought and the waste of it being thrown away. The problem comes from tracking this inventory. If a chair doesn't have a paper trail leading to the day it was bought, the asset is unaccounted for, and the audit is failed. Same with computers, tools, and basically any other small assets.
cleaning up the pentagon's accounting should be a bigger focus than it is, but you're just being wildly unrealistic. you can't just stop paying the troops and their necessary expenses, and the government can't renege on existing contractual obligations to its contractors. none of that would do anything positive for the economy.
lol libertarians vote Republican because they want them to cut welfare. The libertarian platform literally calls for abolishing the income tax.
Well the vast majority of that is state level or lower where really state budgets really aren't that out of line. That is the federal budget that is nuts. The federal budget is almost entirely military, social security, medicare, medicaid, and servicing the debt. Boomers aren't going to go along with cutting entitlements after paying into them their entire lives and I certainly understand why. Shoot I haven't paid into them nearly as long as they have and I would feel ripped off, but ultimately it has to happen at some point.
How about trying 'hey if this guy is going to spend more than I'd like, maybe at least have some means of paying for it besides "let's cut taxes and then rely on theoretical growth to pay for it"'
How about the party that reduces deficits when In power, vs the party that only talks about deficits when out of power.
Are you unable to determine which of the two main parties is more fiscally responsible than the other? Because one of them absolutely is.
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Ironically, the guys making a big deal about their fiscal responsibility tend to be the least fiscally responsible out of everyone.
The GOP loves to sniff their fiscally responsible farts, but every GOP administration for more than the last half century have ballooned the debt and crashed the economy, requiring a Democrat administration to fix everything while simultaneously being framed by the GOP as the people who caused the problem in the first place. The GOP then says vote for us and we'll do everything we did that crashed the economy the last time, because we're fiscally responsible!
They just say the words, but there's no truth behind them whatsoever. You have to be a gullible rube to keep thinking Lucy isn't going to move the football this time.
This is so true and it is so infuriating. I've heard many, many Republicans say that the economy went south the day that Biden took office, like that is proof it's his fault. Like, oh yeah, Trump was steering the ship for the last 4 years but Biden is supposed to swerve to avoid crashing at the last second?
Yep, they're convinced they created the economic prosperity of the Democrat president that came before them (like Trump took credit for Obama's policy outcomes on economic activity), and then blame Democrats for the outcomes of their own economic policy (not seeming to realize or acknowledge that the Democrat president usually spends the first 2-3 years of their first term cleaning up the mess from the previous Republican president). Your last sentence is a perfect analogy for this deceitful and dishonest strategy they use.
They guy who doesn't even pretend, because besides fiscal responsibility, which is a lie, and boarder security, which they will never fix because it gives them something to scream about, the rest of their platform is batshit insane.
The solution to border security/immigration is spending more money on legal immigration. Change my mind
Not razor wire? /s
In the last fifty years, the rate of growth under Democratic policies has been eight times as fast, per year, as under Republican policies. If your concern is good economic policy, the choice is obvious.
Well if neither party does that effectively the obvious solution is to vote based on other things and push your issue once the president gets into office
The one who will spend the money in more effective ways.
You might not want them to spend it, but GIVEN that they will - do that.
Is that really a hard decision? Same outcome either way but one of them lies to you about it?
If that's a actually a hard choice for you, it confirms what I've long suspected and libertarians are quite possibly the dumbest of all political groups. You all overwhelmingly vote for the people who lie to you, so we see that you don't actually have any real convictions, you just want that safe feeling of a Nazi strongman telling you what you want to hear.
Do you vote for the party that says they're for small government and then worms their way into women's uteruses and the bedrooms of queer people or the one that actually leaves us the fuck alone?
Lets see the deficit goes down under democrats and up under republicans. I wonder which is more fiscally responsible
The one that isn’t a Fascist. It’s not hard at all.
Strange then how many libertarians are dismissed by subgroups like the Mises Caucus for being too aligned with Democrats. And when the MC took over, the LP had a massive exit of voters and donors.
It's almost like this idea of libertarians being closet Republicans is just an effort to avoid engaging with them.
I firmly blame libertarians for the push to dismantle regulations and education and most of the awful things republicans have advocated over the last decade.
Blame the corporate propaganda ops and astroturf groups that push this nonsense and sucker the run of the mill libertarians to gulp it down.
Lmao go talk to any libertarian or read the fucking libertarian platform. They explicitly support deregulation for literally everything.
And they're being spoon fed this by corporate propaganda ops
lol nope. Theyre just bad people who believe bad things.
And you’re the good person that believes good things?
Depends on your perspective
I am :) I'd wager most CEOs are libertarian in policy even if they don't say that part out loud. It's the best party for sociopaths. "Fuck everyone else, but give me mine."
I have seen many people that were small l start to echo MAGA sentiments. It’s a good recruiting ground for those angry at the system and want an immediate change.
They also get a lot of funding from the GOP to force runoffs since runoffs usually favor Republicans. So they can't deviate from their donors' priorities.
There are two types of Libertarians.
Those who vote for Republicans and those who say they don't.
Perfect example is when Gary Johnson got booed because he didn't think political capital should be spent trying to ban drivers licenses.
The party is trying to become relevant, but the members want to ban public highways and income tax. And then when some issue like abortion or gender affirming surgery comes up, suddenly a big portion of the member base stops being libertarian and wants the government involved with these decisions.
The Libertarian Party is the Footgun Party. They usually say something sensible, reasonable, with two feet on the ground. Then they blow one foot off with a shotgun.
For the AMA (Obamacare): "This is the big bill for the next year and a lot of money. You should make sure staffers have read the whole bill and that you can make a vote only after you really understand this one." pause. "And if you vote for it, you are a Nazi."
'
Libertarians are solitary creatures by nature
Sometimes eaten or driven off by bears
Also, for as much as I mock the Libertarian party as being the hipsters of politics, I'll also acknowledge the different types. There are the ones with excellent intentions in their thoughts and beliefs, who may be a little naive at the idea that people would be supportive of both individual liberty and willing to help with the greater good, while also realizing certain aspects of the current system are necessary (social programs, tax-funded projects such as infrastructure, etc). This sadly is not the case with many people across all political spectrums.
Then you have the ones who honestly are just clueless to everything going on in the real world. Spoiled brat types that became adults that never experienced real hardships in their lives, but somehow think they are entitled to a seat at the table. These tend to be the loudest of the party.
no, they mean alternatives to voting
In my experience, libertarians are just Republicans who don't like the label.
A party that promotes highly individualistic policies generally doesnt tend to unify.
My experience is they cant even agree on what Libertarianism even is exactly.
This happens with all the political parties, but its wildly rampant in Libertarianism.
No one in republican or Democrat can agree on what they are either
The Republican Party is ferociously pro corporations, anti union, anti worker rights, anti anything democrats like, pro their Christian beliefs, anti education, pro gun, anti government help to those in need, anti affordable anything (like affordable healthcare), and anti regulation. The Democratic Party is basically keep everything how it is now (shity/pro corporations most of the time) and help people a teensy tiny bit.
Pro-Xtian, yet anti-Christ
Adorable healthcare 😍
I disagree.
I think it’s easier to define what a Libertarian stands for than either a Republican or Democrat
With some limits sure. Libertarianism is a philosophy. Democratism is not.
Yeah, they don't think their girlfriend should have to use a car seat.
Good one?
I chortled.
than either a Republican or Democrat
Whatever the popular topic of the week that people get their panties in a bunch over. Every few years the values of both parties change, and it depends on who is in charge. Sometimes people care when kids are in cages, sometimes people don't. Sometimes people care when the debt is ballooning, sometimes people don't.
Damn libertarians they ruined libertarianism. I say this a libertarian myself
The libertarian party isn't really libertarian. Besides, most of them categorize themselves into hilariously multi-syllabic titles, like "I'm a neolibertariansocialconservativepaleocapitalistfiscalian.
Libertarians are notorious for using the no true Scotsman argument against other libertarians. If you 10 libertarians in a room and told them to define Libertarianism you'd end up with 12 different definitions.
Okay, but where does the People's Popular Front of Judea fit in?
Next to, but not overlapping with, the Judean Peoples' Front.
Fuck off splitter!
Yeah I’m with you there. I tend to group anyone from anarchism to minarchism to conservative but I don’t want to legislate it as libertarian, but anarchists like to say they are the only true libertarians.
Exactly. I consider myself a libertarian (formerly Big L), but I would end corporate capitalism (a state created socialization of risk) and support public healthcare (because health care operates counter to standard market principles).
We are all over the map.
I would eliminate corporate capitalism and like your definition, but don’t necessarily want public healthcare. The problem is that we in USA have the worst of both worlds with both education and healthcare. We could go free market for quality/efficiency, but instead we decided to artificially shield people from the price they are paying then act surprised when prices skyrocket so we get the worst of both solutions
Libertarians are notorious for using the no true Scotsman argument against other libertarians
Even worse, they love using the no true Scotsman argument against non-libertarians who are paraphrasing libertarians, but they love so much to pat their fellow libertarians on the back.
They're not just no true Scotsmans, they're hypocritical ones.
What people stereotypically think about libertarians today is actually true for paleo-libertarians and they seems to be in the mainstream.
Was national-socialist party actually socialist? Same here, paleo-libertarians aren't really pro-freedom.
Another thing is, there is a huge strife within the libertarian\anarchistic movement, mainly paleo-libertarian, which is a far-right, authoritarian movement and other libertarians, and many of them can be consireded anarchists as well, who are much more pro-freedom. Despite that, for outsiders, this strife is invisible.
People who aren't very interested in the intricacies of politics, aren't going to see the distinction, nor have willingness to get into the particularities. It's much easier to stereotypisize and make fun of everyone, regardless of their true views on freedom
Is paleocapitalism when your society only sells fruits, veggies and lean meats?
No, eggs are included.
TIL that eggs aren't considered meat.
They're more of a menstrual cycle
This is why I hate the term paleoconservative
neolibertariansocialconservativepaleocapitalistfiscalianexpialidocious
That means, "I like cocaine and want to have sex with (you know), but I hate poor people."
Add in, "I got to where I am because of other people helping me, but because I'm such a self-centered unappreciative fucktard, I don't care."
short answer, they do
Because libertarians tend to be republicans that want to smoke weed.
Because libertarians tend to be republicans that want to
smoke weedsnort cocaine.
Fixed it for you
Most of the ones I know just trying to be the smartest person in the room while having no idea how anything actually works.
I think Reddit just found its new slogan.
And molest kids.
Just say that you don’t know what libertarianism is and be done with it, why bother trying to explain something you don’t understand?
And cut government spending, and military, and allow immigration, and same sex marriage.
Wait, I'm lost now, I don't see any overlap?
Okay. Prove me wrong, vote straight ticket libertarian.
I do? Peep my username for as close to proof as I can give you.
Then you might want to divorce yourself in some way from the jordan petersonesque shitforbrains infesting the libertarian movement. The randian sociopaths. The entirety of the ancap movement. Christ, I’d be ashamed to associate with them.
Ranked choice won't help very much without proportional representation. RCV would only elect a libertarian/green/etc who leads in opinion polls but loses due to their supporters compromising for what they see as a coalition to stop the worse candidate at the ballot box, and that's not something that actually exists anywhere I know of. It's possible it exists in a few small local elections where polling is scarce.
And proportional representation requires a constitutional amendment. So that's not gonna happen any century soon.
The amount of users commenting for a party they don’t agree with is on par for this site.
The Libertarian party does advocate for advanced voting methods, primarily ranked voting. It’s also a common topic of discussion on Libertarian subs.
From what I have seen, most people who claim to be libertarian support the idea of ranked voting for the very reason you stated. They are perfectly aware that 3rd parties are weak in the US and this would give them a fighting chance.
I have seen Justin Amash speak in favor of RCV while Ron Paul has never, and most likely will never mentioned it
I'm not sure why Amash is catching strays here - he voted to impeach Trump and publicly left the Republican party.
I’m not giving him flak. He’s a good guy I just see him as being a little ways over the fence from where I am. That’s true of everyone in libertarianism, at least I don’t find him repulsive or hate his policies.
still have some semi-libertarian leanings.
you don't have to be a capital-L Libertarian to be in support of civil rights.
'Libertarian' as a term is thoroughly poisoned in the US, co-opted by people using it to push private property rights while pretending they're 'being fair' to others. The term is lost and can't be reclaimed, so talk about civil liberties directly rather than using the poisoned term, I'd say.
(Small-l libertarianism isn't about deregulating private industry so that they can fuck everyone over and only those rich enough to afford a court case can survive. But that's what big-L Libertarianism is about: "I already have money, so the system should protect me against you. Oh, and it's wrong for me to pay for that system to protect me")
everywhere i’ve seen RCV implemented, it increased voter confusion and increased polarization. more fringe people get elected because the average voter cant tell the difference between the mainstream centerists dem bureaucrats and the “tear down the system from the inside” dems on the extremes . see the election of Chesa Boudin and Pamela Price in the SF Bay Area. Pam Price won in the 8th ! round of RCV and she’s definitely going to get recalled. Voters by and large are not forming meaningful preferences between 8,9,10th places
People need time to adjust to new things, all big changes have learning periods
Current libertarian party exists to funnel voters back to the Republican Party. See the mises caucus.
Reading the NH Libertarian Party’s Twitter “X” posts is both fascinating and absolutely horrifying. It’s policies that make the Republican Party look like a Human Rights conference.
They have advocated the legalizing of child labour, the repeal of the Civil Rights Act, and that Black people are “in debt” to the US because “they receive so much welfare and affirmative action.”
Oh and the party also tweeted, “6 million minimum wage or you’re anti-Semitic.”
Jeremy Kauffman, who’s on the state party’s executive committee, advocated the killing of transgender people if it means lower taxes and that black people have “lower IQs”
And for the last treat, they are against abortion rights even though they are self-proclaimed Libertarians.
I’ve known people who were good people and had libertarian ideologies. We disagreed on things but I generally understood where they were coming from. They weren’t hateful, just wanted less government. The NH libertarian party is just a disgusting bigoted group(or user who controls it, idk) who says horrific and vile things thinking they are being edgy. Its even worse if they believe it
The rest of the party needs to really distance themselves from that group otherwise they will continue to be associated with those views.
The Mises Caucus has full control of the Libertarian party rn, it's too late for the party to distance itself
The Louisiana LP has denounced the MC, I hope more state chapters do so
Currently, the Mises caucus controls the federal party and 37 state parties.
Because libertarians don't support democracy, they support a free market for themselves.
"Only landowners should vote"
Yea the idea of democracy doesn’t mix with the idea of individualism. I can see how you wouldn’t be happy to be forced to pay for policies you didn’t vote for just because the majority did.
It depends on how radical of a libertarian you are, moderate libertarians are fine with democracies, radical ones want to abolish the state completely
Don’t try to explain things that you don’t understand
In the US liberarians are mostly "republicans but don't want to say" and ranked choice generally hurts republicans in the US so they don't want it.
Especially up in the northeast. It’s usually code for “I vote for Republican and justify it by talking about how I’m economically conservative, but I won’t talk about how my social views are also generally conservative.”
Why does ranked hurt republicans? Surely an overwhelming majority of libertarians would have republicans as their second choice anyway, eventually having the same outcome for republicans
America since its inception has been dominated by a two party system because our electoral system makes that the optimal way to play the game
That isn't actually true: In FPTP systems around the world, most have multiple significant parties (aka Duverger's Law was wrong).
The US has always had two major parties, but that's because they aren't really parties, but rather coalitions that shift and bend with the prevailing winds.
but rather coalitions that shift and bend with the prevailing winds.
This is something I don't think many understand, especially here in the states. Parliamentary systems do have more than two parties, but those parties always join up to make coalitions after the election. The Republicans and Democrats are practically pre-determined coalitions established before the elections.
I’ve been saying that on Reddit for years. Only to get downvoted. Democrats and Republicans are just pre-formed coalitions.
Do coalition governments share party funds between each other?
So, they can go from being a very distant third to a very distant third?
Libertarians are too busy arguing about a libertarian is. Besides, the liberal media and the conservative media won’t let them get a word in.
Because most libertarians are just embarrassed republicans
I'm no fan of libertarians, but I'm pretty sure they're actually at the forefront of the movement for pushing for alternative voting methods.
I'm a small-l libertarian. I support RCV.
The issue isn’t the libertarian party but the current system of government. If neither party offers ranked voting then they both maintain about 50% power in the two party system. If one party offers it then they might win the next election but eventually they lose power overall once the voting change is implemented. This is because over time ranked voting would essentially break up the two party system allowing for outsiders to win. Since it means it would be harder for their party to win there is no reason to change the voting system. Why would they offer ranked voting if they lose power overall?
Maybe its note exactly conservatives/liberals have 50/50 power but its close enough.
The initial parties were the Whigs and the Democratic-Republican parties. A far cry from what it has developed into today.
Don't fall into the no true scotsman fallacy yourself.
You're grouping everyone and wondering why they don't support it when it seems like many do - there's a question of how much overlap.
Additionally, if you have ranked choice, that often means you'll NEVER get the majority and the option to do what you think the other groups are doing.
Honestly you're wrong though. There is only one real path towards 3rd parties being significant - and it isn't RCV. With RCV you might get a few changes at the margins, a few more of the ron paul or bernie types. But doubtful you'd get more of the Jill Stein or Nader types.
The system would need to be revamped to country wide party voting system where votes would go to create coalitions and such. Otherwise you simply don't have high enough concentrations of alternatives in most places to matter.
Read more into Reagan's actions and how the GOP has tried being "big tent" before.
Libertarians are weird in the sense that they're not REALLY a separate party, they're just a branch of the Republican Party. Ranked choice voting would result in Republicans losing, so they don't want that.
Because Libertarians are just rebranded conservatives who want legal weed and Randian Objectivism.
Because the Republicans manipulating them would get very upset
The Capital-L Libertarian Party basically exists as a protest vessel and has never seriously attempted to win elections. Its leadership and supporters are more interested in maintaining rigid ideological purity and feeling good about themselves than making any sort of effort to influence elections.
Our slogan is “Libertarians fighting to take over to leave you alone.” Not popular with those whose lives depend on Govt handouts. Defense Contractors, NGO’s, crony Capitalists, etc.
I'll hazard a guess you haven't met many defense contractors if you think libertarian is a rare viewpoint among them.
It's so darling, you think that libertarianism would get rid of crony capitalism. It would just speed up a collapse into warlords and/or techno-feudalism.
So you don’t actually understand what that is. You can’t have it without Government. Smaller Govt means no subsidies to hand out. There would never have been a Solyndra or any other schemes with libertarians. We wouldn’t subsidize Wind Turbines or Solar Farms. If private businesses won’t invest in them without a subsidy it’s likely a scam.
Devoid of reality.
You didn't answer the question at all, you're just making a random comment. Read it again and get back to me.
I did answer. What libertarians want is to eliminate a lot of the things statists use to buy votes.
because Libertarians are mostly just republicans embarrassed to say it and neither want RCV as they’d wouldn’t win another election. 2 party system and voter suppression are the only reason the latter win elections and that’s 100% facts. Republicans are unelectable when voter turnout is high and it wouldn’t be any different with RCV
Libertarians I've met came in two varieties:
Wackadoos too concerned with economic ideas thought up by a housecat to worry about petty stuff like elections.
Republicans who want to get high but do whatever the GOP says otherwise (which includes hating RCV for very legitimate, not made-up sounding reasons).
Obviously, other types of Libertarians exist. Probably.
The LP's last chance at relevance was when former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson only got like 1% of the vote running against Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the two least liked presidential candidates one could imagine.
It's in the DNC's and GOP's interest to maintain the status quo duopoly.
I mean he got 3.3% in 2016. Not since Ross Perot has anyone gotten that much.
They do, they’re just completely incompetent and have no power. Ask any American libertarian or libertarian party member and they’ll support ranked choice voting. But the party isn’t unified enough to promote anything, even something they all agree on
Rigged choice voting. Blatently unconstitutional.
Ranked choice voting doesn’t help the third party. It only helps the most popular party. It’s another illusion to make people think they have a choice.
The libertarian party is operated by the MISES institute who wishes to change the 2 party system to a 1 party system and has been extremely unapologetic about it too.
You can rank on the American 2 party, plurality electoral system until the cows come home but let's be honest with ourselves here, the only actual appeal these 3rd parties actually have is the mere novelty of being 3rd party.
Because the libertarian party (or libertarian political groups in general) are closet aligned with the GOP and corporate interests and that is not in their interests.
How in the world are they supposed to change the system to RCV when they have 0 power?
Also, Libertarians are just GOP who want to do drugs legally.
Same way women with 0 power got the right to vote -- organizing within the system, persistence and patience. It's easy to complain and do nothing. It's much harder to go to work knowing that the seeds you're planting may not bear fruit for a couple generations.
If you think the libertarian party or libertarians are going to do this I've got some bad news for you...
Of course not. But the question was posed as if there wasn't an answer, when in fact others have proven that changes to our election system can be made. But yeah, nobody likes hearing that change is possible if you're willing to put in the hard work over a long period of time.
Plenty of other people including many independents and Democrats crave rank choice voting, it was just implemented in New York City
That may end up being a net negative, as people immediately started to hate it upon implementation. Our first ranked-choice election gave us a mayor even more widely hated than the last four.
They do, or at least did until the MC took over. Now all they do is lose ballot access, say racist shit on twitter and block the people who call them out for it.
they make a lot of money pushing a fantasy agenda they can't deliver on to suburban larpers.
you can't live 20 miles from civilization eating elk meat AND make policy in DC. you sure can take stupid people's money though.
if a libertarian actually won it'd be a nightmare for the party because they'd have to quit larping, move to the city and do boring, tedious political work. and no red-blooded libertarian is going to vote for a dweeb like that.
It seems to me that most “libertarians” (not the anti-capitalist kind) are actually just right wingers who support tyranny as long as they are not the ones being oppressed.
In highschool we voted on our class colors.
To all the guys I arranged to vote for the Cleveland Browns colors. (brown and orange) I got them overwhelmingly voting for that. To all the girls I pushed poped groups, Prince inperticuler. Purple.
Then I told all the nerds my plan and they voted orange and purple.
The results, the most rigged school vote in my schools history. Orange and Purple. Something no one wanted, but the result of a flawed system.
Ranked voting is not the utopia the internet says it is.
Nothing is perfect, still I believe overall RCV > FPTP
Libertarians generally don't believe in democracy because their policies would never be put in place in a democracy. A good example of libertarian policies in action is Chile in the 80s, entirely built on the corpses of dead union organizers and labor protesters.
Because you live in a healthy democracy, not like those other countries.
What makes you think libertarians are in favor of elections?
I think it's because libertarians are mostly just conservatives and gerrymander and the Senate not being population based works significantly in their favor.
Anything like an actual majority rule Democracy would be a big boost to democrats.
Libertarians might like the premise of Direct Democracy, but I think that's too much micromanagement to make sense.
Unfortunately Republicans have a point when they say it's Republic, not a Democracy. Majority rule was not the overwhelming focus, checks and balances and getting lots of states to agree were.
I find that most libertarians are not tremendously intellectually honest.
I'd love blind voting: you have Candidate A (their name and any other identifying info is not shown) and a list of their platform, you have Candidate B shown in the same way, and so on.
You would vote based on ONLY their platform. None of this "oh he seems like a likeable guy" or "I'd like to have a beer with him" or whatever. No weirdo baby-kissing and fake-as-fuck pandering to certain demographics. Just the platform, pure and simple.
It wouldn't matter if they did. They're not getting anyone elected.
I would LOVE for this to happen.
Ranked voting is a scam and should be eliminated.
Why?
You can get two people of the same party running in the general election.
You can crossover and vote "for second place" a person you know is easily beatable.
Please...this country went almost 250 years with elections the way they were meant to be.
And it worked just fine.
Why would it matter. The party has no say on anything and is ignored at every opportunity.
These are the kind of clowns running that party
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BAOiGTizU4
Dancing naked man, Vermin Supreme and Darryl "Legalize meth" Perry are too busy arguing if child brides and heroin should be legal to actually lead the party into more serious manners.
Because they’re republicans who like weed.
The Libertarian party platform does call for "alternative voting systems," which I would assume includes RCV.
The issue with libertarians (small L) here is that the majority of them are extremely disorganized, and the Libertarian (big L) party is extremely weak and ineffectual because of it.