Read on Twitter
I’ve never said, and am happy to disavow, any idea that LP should be in the business of factions making up lists of who they’re gonna kick out and purge by “taking over” the party.
I support & voted for most of the folks running the party right now, who are doing no such thing.
I support & voted for most of the folks running the party right now, who are doing no such thing.
I have strong views about what the party’s messaging and strategy should look like. I think our appeal should be across the spectrum and not narrower edgelord stuff or leaning far-right.
But literally anybody can join as a member and I don’t want to change that.
But literally anybody can join as a member and I don’t want to change that.
If somebody proposed to somehow cancel the membership of people I disagree with or who don’t vote for the same party officers I support in internal elections, I’d oppose that. Even the ones who’ve said they want to do that to me.
We have internal elections; there are real and substantive disagreements that play out in those elections; and the winners get to hold those party offices and pursue the strategy they ran on.
But they don’t then kick out their opponents, and have no such power to do so. Good!
But they don’t then kick out their opponents, and have no such power to do so. Good!
If anything, the idea that party leadership does or should have that power has been one of the points of contention, and a big part of why the faction saying they want to do it has tended to lose. They’d actually be more successful & have more influence if they dropped such talk.
I came into the party w/ Gary Johnson; I'm a big fan of Justin Amash; I'm more Hayek than Rothbard.
But I've never been under any illusion that the party can or should consist solely of people who share those preferences, nor that they should "take over" and purge all others.
But I've never been under any illusion that the party can or should consist solely of people who share those preferences, nor that they should "take over" and purge all others.
...not what @LPCaucus is about, either. We promote focus on elected officials, good electioneering, and party officers who agree.
But I want nothing to do with saying support my caucus or like my favorite podcaster or you're not a real Libertarian and we're gonna kick you out.
But I want nothing to do with saying support my caucus or like my favorite podcaster or you're not a real Libertarian and we're gonna kick you out.
So that's my long-winded twitter-thread way to say: I don't think @ComicDaveSmith or @LPMisesCaucus etc., however much I strongly disagree w/ them and vote the other way at convention, should be kicked out or banned from the party. Not how it works, and I don't want it to.
/fin
/fin
