GOP ’23: How libertarians interpret and interact with the Republican Party

Thus far on Detroit Today’s “GOP 23: Where the Party At?” series, we’ve discussed how conservativism is misaligned with Donald Trump, what Michigan Republican representatives want and the policies Republicans hope to enact if they hold enough power in office.

But there’s another, sometimes ignored, faction in our politics that often aligns itself with Republicans. Libertarians support free markets and free thinking, and play a significant role in our politics, though often as spoiler. That may be due to our political structure — America is unique in only having two competitive parties competing for power.

But none of that means Americans don’t hold libertarian beliefs and that their coalitions don’t impact our politics. Think about the libertarian policy victories over the decades: gay marriage under the Obama administration, tax cuts under the Trump administration and weed legalization across the country.

“At this point, I think the Republican Party has abandoned most of the places where libertarians once overlapped with it.” — Katherine Mangu-Ward, editor

Listen: What libertarians make of the modern Republican Party.

Guests

Shikha Dalmia is a visiting fellow with George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, where she started a program to study the rise of right-wing populist authoritarianism around the world and in America. Her Substack is “The Unpopulist.” She says libertarians have long been allied with Republicans in their efforts to lower taxes and maximize individual freedoms.

“Ronald Reagan very famously described conservativism, in his time, as a three-legged stool, and each leg consisted of one faction, and it consisted of foreign policy, religious and traditional conservatives and libertarians who were into fiscal discipline and free markets,” says Dalmia.

Katherine Mangu-Ward is the editor in chief of Reason, the magazine of “free minds and free markets.” She says libertarians are more distinct from modern Republicans today than in the past.

“At this point, I think the Republican Party has abandoned most of the places where libertarians once overlapped with it,” says Mangu-Ward.