BLOCK: Political Distance
Recently, I published this essay in which I urged libertarians to vote for Donald Trump in the purple states. I favored supporting the candidate of the Libertarian Party everywhere else. In the blue or red states, the vote of freedom supporters would not help Mr. Trump, since he would lose, big, in the former, and win by large majorities in the latter. But in the half dozen or so swing states, a few thousand ballots from liberty-oriented people could be a great help to him.
Pierre Lemieux was not at all convinced that my claim would promote liberty, or was even rational. In this essay of his, he takes issue with me on several points.
For one thing, he maintains that “the ‘swing states’ (his scare quotes) … are only known after the election.” But we have elections all the time, every few years. It is not at all debatable that in recent times these states have had very close results: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Indeed, that is why they are considered purple, neither red nor blue. As I mentioned in my initial Wall Street Journal op ed on this matter “Libertarian nominee Jo Jorgenson received roughly 50,000 votes in Arizona in 2000, when Donald Trump lost the state by about 10,000 ballots.”
The second arrow in this Canadian libertarian’s quiver is to maintain that in effect there is no such thing as political “distance” and thus my claim that Trump is “a lot better than Joe Biden” in terms of adherence to libertarian principles is not only false, but actually logically incoherent. Why does he make such a strange claim? It is due to the fact that there are no political metrics, such as in the case of height, or weight, or speed, or pulse rate. Why in turn is this the case?
Even if there were only one consideration, one variable, such as tax rates, we still could not make sense of one politician being closer to libertarianism than another. First, not all libertarians agree on the ideal rate of taxation. Therefore, there is no way to measure the “distance” between the ideal level of taxes and the goals of the two major candidates for president. Second, although he does not mention this point, there are many types of taxes: suppose Kamala Harris wants to lower social security taxes by 15% but raise income taxes by 10%, whereas Trump seeks the inverse. What is a poor libertarian to do but throw up his hands in confusion, if I can put accurate words in my critic’s mouth in such a case.
But matters are far worse than that. For there is not just one dimension to be considered; there are dozens, scores, maybe hundreds of them. Yes, Trump beats out Biden (and by extension, his successor Kamala Harris) on pardoning Ross Ulbricht, Lemieux could reasonably concede, but suppose the Democratic candidate is closer to libertarians on issues such as the trade he mentions, but he could have added abortion, or drug legalization or rent control, or a myriad of other issues. He concludes: “Minimizing the distance between ‘us’ and the presidential candidates becomes impossible.”
I am not at all convinced. Of course this commentator is correct in pointing to difficulties in measuring political distance. But, surely, it is obvious that Ron Paul is closer to libertarianism than is Bernie Sanders; that Rand Paul beats out AOC in this sweepstakes by a large margin; that Gandhi is closer to our philosophy than is Hitler. And, yet, according to this theorist, all of these comparisons are “impossible.”
What error is he committing? It is one of perfectionism. The perfect is the enemy of the good. Yes, we cannot easily specify objective numbers depicting political position, but it can be done! The Nolan
Chart is one primary example. Another is the attempt to determine which country is freer than which other. There are numerous dimensions here, too. Yet, it take no great wisdom to know that Switzerland is freer than Cuba, and that Venezuela lags, greatly, behind Lichtenstein in such a characteristic. Strangely, Lemieux himself acquiesces in, acknowledges, the logical coherence and productivity of attempts to rate countries in terms of economic freedom. Why he cannot do so in this present context must remain a mystery.
The third reservation pointed to by this scholar is that no one voter can, all by his lonesome self, change any electoral result: “we must not lose sight of a simple but often ignored reality: the tiny probability that an individual vote will be decisive, that it will ‘swing’ anything. It never happened in a presidential election and is unlikely to ever happen. A rational individual will not vote with the intention to change the election’s result.”
But this, too, is highly problematic. It implies that no one should vote. No one at all. I tell you, if everyone in the country decides to follow his advice, apart from me, I, alone, will determine who will be the next president of the United States. Hint: it will not be the Democrat.
Originally published here.
Dave: Thanks for your thoughtful comments. Best regards, Walter
I couldn't find Pierre Lemieux's essay, so my comments are based on what you say about it.
Since Lemieux is a Canadian, he may be insufficiently familiar with US political terms. Apparently, he understands a swing state to be one in which the vote totals were unusually close in an election just concluded. In the US, a swing state (aka battleground or purple state) is commonly understood to be an unusually competitive one that's swung between voting for different parties during several recent elections and could easily be won by either major party. Most states are dominated by one party the great majority of whose voters consistently vote either Republican or Democrat and are therefore considered red or blue safe states, respectively.
Lemieux is wrong about political “distance.” Perhaps the best way for a libertarian to determine whether the Republican or the Democratic presidential nominee is closer to being a libertarian is to take the political quiz at iSideWith.com, said to be the world's most popular voting guide, and compare one's answers to those of the two candidates. My test results show that the candidate with whom I most strongly agree is Chase Oliver, the Libertarian. I agree with Donald Trump on 64% of the issues and with Kamala Harris on 26%. Before Harris moderated some of her policies, we agreed on 23%. Before Joe Biden dropped out, I agreed with him on 24%. (Perhaps Biden's stated answers were those of someone else running his administration, but answers attributed to Harris are consistent with her Senate record.) Of all presidential candidates I agreed less with the Democrats than with anyone else—including the Socialist Party candidate! My test results show that in general, I agree with Republicans on 76% of the issues and Democrats on only 23%--less than I agree with Harris, which seems odd because FiveThirtyEight previously picked her as the most “liberal” (i.e., progressive) member of the Senate, with Bernie Sanders in second place.
On Bryan Caplan's Libertarian Purity test, I scored 160 (the highest possible score), which indicates I'm an unusually consistent individualist libertarian. The extent to which I disagree with Harris and Biden (not to mention the Democratic Party) indicates they're authoritarian collectivists. That places them in the same category as Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, the Kims, Castro, Maduro, Hitler, and Mussolini—whose ideologies are just more extreme versions of authoritarian collectivism. The most extreme version of authoritarian collectivism is totalitarian communism, the exact opposite of anarcho-capitalism. Ironically, Democrats call Trump an authoritarian. On the third night of the recent Democratic Convention, the theme was freedom. Apparently, the Democrats lack self-awareness or are dishonest.
Lemieux is right about this: One person's vote is extremely unlikely to be decisive. That's one reason not to vote; for an individual, it's a waste of time and effort. Some anarchists object to voting on the moral ground that it allegedly recognizes the legitimacy of the state. Even if noticed, their absence of votes is more likely to be taken as evidence of apathy than of lack of consent to be governed. Resistance can better be expressed by voting “none of the above” where that's an option or by submitting a ballot with all names crossed out together with the message “I don't consent to be governed.” However, if no libertarians vote for candidates, politicians can be expected to become increasingly authoritarian in response to the perceived preferences of voters. Also, votes for a Libertarian are needed to save the party's ballot status.
Lemieux may be right that following your voting strategy wouldn't promote liberty. If libertarians in swing states vote for Trump, that would increase his chances of winning. But you seem to assume that his victory would result in more liberty than a Democratic win. That seems more likely in the short run than in the long run. As with weather forecasts, there are too many variables to justify confidently predicting the long-term consequences of an election outcome. As Casey Stengel said, “Never make predictions, especially about the future.” So the following won't be a prediction, just possible scenarios that cast doubt on the desirability of a Trump win.
Apparently, both Trump and Harris tried to pick ideologically compatible VPs. If Trump wins, Vance will be the most likely Republican presidential nominee in 2028. By that time, Trump's populist nationalism will probably have completely replaced the more liberty-oriented Reaganism as the dominant Republican ideology. If Vance wins in 2028, he might serve for eight years, during which time he could continue his predecessor's big-spending, tax-cutting policies, which will add to the rapidly growing national debt. That debt is currently over $35 trillion, which doesn't count unfunded federal liabilities and state and local debt. If present trends continue a fiscal crisis is inevitable. Whichever party is in power at that time may lose credibility and support for generations.
It would be more conducive to liberty if that were the Democratic Party--which would be more likely if the Harris/Walz team wins in November. The consequences of a Democratic presidential victory will depend on who controls Congress. According to the betting odds shown at electionbettingodds.com, said to more accurately predict election results than either polls or pundits, Democrats are heavily favored to gain the House, but Republicans will likely win the Senate (by a margin of 51 to 49 seats) and check Democratic power. However, if Democrats control both houses, the Federal Government may ultimately face bankruptcy. In that case, Republicans may win the next election by a landslide and initiate a Milei-style bloodless revolution. That would seem to be a more liberty-promoting long-term outcome than could be expected from a Trump win this November.
Furthermore, If Trump loses this year, Republicans may abandon Trumpism and return to small-government conservatism perhaps spearheaded by Vivek Ramaswamy, which would also more greatly promote liberty in the long run than another Trump presidency and a continuation of populist nationalism.
Above I said I'm an unusually consistent libertarian. I'm almost certainly not 100% consistent (nor is anyone else) because there's an indefinitely large number of political issues and it's almost impossible to avoid making any factual or logical errors. I wish all libertarians who consider themselves individualist anarchists, voluntaryists, or anarcho-capitalists would take the iSideWith test and compare their answers. I doubt that any two would agree on all the issues. However, by arguing them, they might discover the right answers.