Posts Tagged ‘libertarian’
Could “progressive conservative” work in the US?
Thinking about liberalism in Europe, Tim Lee writes:
The [recent] British and German experiences also provide support for the Boaz/Kirby argument about the libertarian vote in the US. The FDP and Lib Dems have historically gotten around 10 percent of the vote, on par with Boaz and Kirby’s estimates of the size of the libertarian vote in the United States. Boaz and Kirby also argued that the political effectiveness of libertarians is maximized when libertarians aren’t too closely tied to either end of the political spectrum. A credible threat to walk away from the Republican Party and support Democrats will give both major parties an incentive to take libertarian voters. That certainly seems to be confirmed by recent developments in the UK, where the Liberal Democrats were able to push their coalition government in a direction more friendly to civil liberties.
It occurs to me that there’s another way libertarians in the US could learn from the British example. In the US, the libertarian movement has been tarnished by the confusion over the word “libertarian,” and its many negative connotations. In Britain, David Cameron described his vision for liberalism as “progressive conservatives.” While libertarians wouldn’t agree with everything on Cameron’s agenda, could this be a better label for the libertarian brand in the US?
Wrong method to identify libertarians
George Mason University economist Dan Klein had an op-ed in yesterday’s WSJ arguing that the Left flunks Econ 101. Using data collected by Zogby, Klein argues that liberals perform worse than conservatives or libertarians on a series of eight questions testing basic economic concepts. The longer paper that inspired the op-ed is here.
Nate Silver criticizes the question wording and survey instrument here. I just wanted to add a quibble with the method Zogby continues to use to identify libertarians. Zogby includes the word “libertarian” as an option in the traditional conservative-moderate-liberal ideology question. Using this method, Zobgy finds that about 7% of respondents are libertarian. And while this is certainly an improvement over the traditional method, it still underestimates libertarians by at least half. David Boaz and I have shown that between 14% and 23% of Americans hold libertarian beliefs. But data shows that there is much confusion about the word libertarian and that the word remains unfamiliar to many people who hold libertarian beliefs.
There is a better method to parse out ideology to identify liberals, conservatives, and libertarians. David Boaz and I have suggested using a three question screen to identify ideology, combining the best question wording from Gallup and the University of Michigan’s American National Election Studies. Researchers at TargetPoint and Politico used this method to parse out ideology in survey of Tea Party participants, finding that half were libertarian and half conservative. The questions are:
- I am going to ask you to choose which of two statements I read comes closer to your own opinion. You might agree to some extent with both, but we want to know which one is closer to your own views: The less government, the better; or, There are more things that government should be doing. [ANES]
- We need a strong government to handle today’s complex economic problems; or, The free market can handle these problems without government being involved. [ANES]
- Some people think the government should promote traditional values in our society. Others think the government should not favor any particular set of values. Which comes closer to your own view? [Gallup]
Of course, additional polling questions cost money. And three questions cost more than one. So if I had to choose only two, I’d pick 2 and 3.
Still, ideology matters. And pollsters do their clients a disservice if they overlook important trends in ideology that make a difference in reading the electorate. For instance, I suspect that pollsters would have detected the rise of the Tea Party, or at least better understood it’s causes and roots, if they had been using this method earlier.
Tea Parties and future of politics
Don’t miss this AEI panel next Wednesday, June 9 at 2:00 about what the Tea Parties mean for the future of politics with Ross Douthat, Kristen Soltis, and Dave Weigel. Fun fact: Cheryl Miller, the organizer of this event, says
According to my highly unscientific count, they have the youngest average age (28!) of any AEI panel. If we include the moderator, Jonah Goldberg, we’re still at a record-making 31.
Young people’s attitudes towards the word “libertarian”
Many bloggers commented on last week’s Pew survey that asked whether respondents had positive or negative feelings towards the word “libertarian.” I was curious how this would break by age, and Pew kindly provided us the crosstabs, below:
Two observations. One, young people have more positive feelings towards the word “libertarian” than older Americans and fewer don’t know the word. That’s good news for libertarian brand. But two, young people seem to have more positive feelings about most words, including “progressive,” “civil liberties,” and “family values.” I wonder if young people really know what any of these words mean, or whether this reflects a certain sunny generational optimism? I’d be interested in your thoughts in the comments.
The flip side of tolerance
As I had noted before, TargetPoint and Politico had commissioned a poll of attendees to a DC Tea Party rally, including questions to separate libertarians from conservatives. Alex Lundry has been blogging new bits of analysis the last week. I found this observation particularly interesting:
However, while [Ron] Paul does not perform well among traditional values promoters, Palin does perform decently among the more libertarian group, indicating some potential crossover appeal between the two camps of the Tea Party. Beyond that, Gingrich and Romney perform adequately enough in both groups that they too have potential to be a bridge between the libertarian and socially conservative sects of the Tea Party.
So it seems libertarians can live with conservative politicians, while conservatives have a harder time living with libertarian politicians. Is this the flip side of the social tolerance that differentiates libertarians from conservatives? Perhaps. And I wonder if this helps explain why the historical alliance between libertarians and conservatives has often favored conservative politicians.
David Brooks misreads the “center”
David Brooks laments the rise of the “libertarian/Goldwater-esque” streak of the Republican Party and the re-emergence of what he describes as the “government war,” the “stale” debate over “big government-versus-small government.”
To each his own, I guess.
But what I find interesting is Brooks’ historical narrative of where this libertarian streak comes from. The story begins with Obama. By his reading, there was a glimmer of hope for centrists like Brooks, with Obama and his band of “brilliant pragmatists.” But the financial crisis and Obama’s attempt to push too many big-projects too fast, soured the countries’ centrist mood. And now, “politics is more polarized than ever.”
I think this story misses the mark on two counts. First, the story doesn’t start in the right place. As David Boaz and I have shown, this libertarian streak began with Bush. As early as 2004, polls detected the dissatisfaction of small-government libertarians towards the Bush administration’s more big-government policies. This libertarian-inspired anger has been growing and gathering since. Libertarians have led the way.
Second, I don’t think calling this sort of politics “polarized” accurately captures it. Brooks writes, “The Democrats have become the government party and the Republicans are the small government party.” True, this libertarian streak is mad at Obama and the Democrats. But it’s not really a polarized, red-team, blue-team thing. Polls show that these libertarian-inspired voters are just as mad at Republicans. If Republicans are indeed the small government party, they certainly haven’t sold many voters.
Perhaps in recent history, libertarians occupy the “center” of American politics–though certainly drawn on a different map than Brooks imagines.
Tea Party split 43% conservative to 42% libertarian
Fascinating new poll out today from Politico & TargetPoint. For the first time, researchers have measured the two camps of the Tea Party ideologically, conservative versus libertarian. Interestingly, Tea Party supporters are split down the middle:
Indeed, combining the responses to some of these questions is a revealing ideological exercise: 43% of attendees said government is doing too much AND that government should promote traditional values, a distinctly conservative view; 42% said government is doing too much AND that government should NOT promote any particular set of values, an ideological view used by the Cato Institute as an indicator of libertarianism (currently 23% of all Americans fit into this category).
Also at Politco today, Boaz and I explore where these libertarians come from. We see the origins of this shift as early as the Obama election, when libertarians swung away from Obama and the Democrats after supporting them in greater percentages in 2004 and 2006. This 2008 swing seems to be an early indicator of the libertarian-inspired anger of the Tea Party that Alex Lundry and his colleagues at TargetPoint are finding today.
UPDATE: Dave Weigel points out some potential biases in the TargetPoint / Politico poll, since they surveyed only DC Tea Party attendees. Nonetheless, this is the first data point on ideological breakdown of Tea Party and an important finding for other pollsters and researchers to verify nationally.
Libertarian sentiment has finally gone mainstream
Or so says Chris Stirewalt, political editor of the Washington Examiner:
Three years ago, the Republican establishment piled scorn on the presidential candidacy of Ron Paul. Today, he is in a statistical tie with President Obama in 2012 polling… Paul will not likely be the next president… But there’s no doubt that hating the government and the powerful interests that pull Washington’s strings has gone from the radical precincts of the Right and Left to the mainstream.
Libertarian Vote
At Foundation for Economic Education, I talk with Mike Van Winkle about the libertarian vote, libertarians uneasy relationship with conservatives and Republicans, and the prospects of libertarians becoming a political force in the 2010 elections and beyond.
For listeners who are joining us from FEE’s website, I’d welcome your comments and thoughts here.
Political future of Millennials uncertain
Much has been written about Pew’s recent study on Milliennals, showing a generation that is more ideologically liberal and pro-government than previous generations. But a counter narrative seems to be emerging, reported at the Fiscal Times:
[Millennials are] collecting unemployment, signing up for food stamps, moving back home, and growing increasingly concerned about the future. A New York Times/CBS poll showed that 46 percent of Americans think the younger generations will be worse off than their parents, up from 32 percent last year. The Millennials — people born around 1980 and coming of age at the turn of the century — are the largest generation in the history of the country, about 80 million strong. In The Trophy Kids Grow Up: How the Millennial Generation Is Shaking Up the Workplace, Ron Alsop wrote, “If there is one overriding perception of the Millennial generation, it’s that these young people have great — and sometimes outlandish — expectations.” Described as confident, tech-savvy and optimistic, they are now seeing the American dream they once felt entitled to slipping through their fingers.
What will be the impact of this trend? Will Millennials become dependent on government or disillusioned with government? As David Boaz and I argued in our Cato study, “Libertarian Vote in Age of Obama,” Millennials seem prone to disillusionment, given the evidence of 9/11 and the Iraq war. And it is also true that there is a larger percentage of libertarian-leaning Millennials than in previous generations. But the ideological outlook for this generation seems very much uncertain.
Regardless, this is an opportunity for us in the business of educating about free markets. We should connect the dots for this generation, between the world of limitless opportunities they have come to expect and the structures of a free society that produce them.
Tea party as “radically anticonservative”
Every once in awhile, David Brooks just nails it:
But the Tea Partiers are closer to the New Left. They don’t seek to form a counter-establishment because they don’t believe in establishments or in authority structures… For this reason, both the New Left and the Tea Party movement are radically anticonservative. Conservatism is built on the idea of original sin — on the assumption of human fallibility and uncertainty. To remedy our fallen condition, conservatives believe in civilization — in social structures, permanent institutions and just authorities, which embody the accumulated wisdom of the ages and structure individual longings.
I think this helps explain why it makes more sense to call the Tea Party movement libertarian than conservative.
This is my favorite Brooks column since “Ward Three Morality”, on the new social code for the rich set by the Obama aides, Democratic staffers, regulators, and senior civil servants who live in Washington, DC’s Ward 3. Still a good read.
