Libertarianism has become a major part
of the political conversation in the United States, thanks in large part
to the high profile presidential candidacy of Ron Paul, the visibility
of his son Rand in the United States Senate, and Vice-Presidential
candidate Paul Ryan’s well-known admiration of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas
Shrugged.” And the tenets of libertarianism square with the attitudes of
an American public dissatisfied with government performance,
apprehensive about government’s intrusiveness into private life, and
disillusioned with U.S. involvement overseas. Libertarianism is also
distinct from the social conservatism that has handicapped the
Republican Party in many recent elections among women and young people.
Within this context, libertarians seem
likely to exercise greater sway on the Republican Party than at any
other point in the recent past. But a closer look at public attitudes
points to many factors that will limit the ability of libertarians to
command greater influence within the GOP caucus.
First, according to the PRRI poll,
libertarians represent only 12% of the Republican Party. This number is
consistent with the findings of other studies by the
Pew Research Center and the
American National Election Study.
This libertarian constituency is dwarfed by other key Republican
groups, including white evangelicals (37%) and those who identify with
the Tea Party (20%).
[1]
While these groups are similarly
conservative on economic matters (indeed, libertarians are further to
the right than white evangelicals or Tea Partiers on some economic
issues, such as raising the minimum wage), they are extremely divided by
their views on religion. Only 53% of libertarians describe religion as
the most important thing or one among many important things in their
lives. By comparison, 77% of Tea Party members say that religion is
either the most important thing or one among many important things in
their lives, and – not surprisingly – 94% of white evangelicals say that
religion is either the most important thing or one among many important
things in their lives. A full 44% of libertarians say that religion is
not important in their lives or that religion is not as important as
other things in their lives. Only 11% of Tea Party members and 1% of
white evangelicals say that religion is not important in their lives.
Additionally, libertarians are among
the most likely to agree that religion causes more problems in society
than it solves (37% total: 17% completely agreeing, 20% mostly
agreeing); the least
likely to agree that it is important for children to be brought up in a
religion so they can learn good values (35% total: 13% completely
disagree, 22% disagree); and the least
likely to think it is necessary to believe in God in order to be moral
and have good values (63% total: 30% completely disagree, 33% mostly
disagree).
These stark differences in attitudes
toward religion help explain the large difference in view between
libertarians and other conservatives on social issues such as abortion,
physician-assisted suicide, and marijuana legalization. Given their
positions on these contentious social matters, it is very difficult to
envision Libertarians gaining the support of socially conservative
voters in the Republican Party.
Libertarians’ influence on the
Republican Party is also limited by geography. Libertarians are broadly
dispersed across the country – and even where they are most regionally
concentrated, they are outnumbered by Tea Partiers and White
Evangelicals. According to the PRRI survey, of the 7% of the American
public that is libertarian:
- 22% live in the Northeast
- 22% live in the Midwest
- 18% live in the West
- 38% live in the South.
By contrast, of the 10% of Americans who consider themselves members of the Tea Party:
- 18% live in the Northeast
- 17% live in the Midwest
- 22% live in the West
- 44% live in the South.
Of the 18% of Americans who identify with the religious right:
- 12% live in the Northeast
- 22% live in the Midwest
- 17% live in the West
- 49% live in the South.
These numbers strongly reinforce the
notion that the South is the center of gravity for the Republican Party,
with nearly every major constituency within the party (perhaps with the
exception of the business community) seeing its highest levels of
support in the region.
According to a
study on the ideological compositions of individual states,
published by Jason Sorens, a political scientist at Dartmouth College
and founder of the Free State Project, the ten states with the largest
libertarian constituencies are (in descending order) Montana, Alaska,
New Hampshire, Idaho, Nevada, Indiana, Georgia, Wyoming, Washington, and
Oregon. By this analysis, the states with the highest levels of
libertarian support are predominantly rural, sparsely populated, and
share a frontier past, with the partial exceptions of Indiana, Georgia,
and New Hampshire.
Of the 10 states that Sorens identifies
as having the most libertarians, only New Hampshire, Nevada, and
Georgia had spreads of 8 points or less in the
2012 presidential election.
The other seven were either solidly red (Montana, Alaska, Idaho,
Indiana, Wyoming, and Utah) or solidly blue (Washington and Oregon).
As such, there seems little impetus for
any ideological change of course in these states—not to mention the
South writ large, the region with the greatest level of libertarian
support—since they are already so stoutly Republican. Perhaps in
individual districts with a particular libertarian bent, libertarian
candidates could have some electoral success. But any candidate running
as a libertarian would, by the nature of libertarianism, have to
emphasize their laissez-faire values on social issues. If running for
higher office, this would surely alienate more socially conservative
voters, so strongly represented in the Republican Party in these areas.
The business establishment of the
Republican Party would seem a natural libertarian ally, given its
moderate views on social issues, opposition to government regulation,
and natural sympathy for classical economics. But this view is contested
by Henry Olsen of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. At
the recent Brookings discussion,
Olsen argued that the business community consists of “people who are
generally but not intensely opposed to government expansion, people who
are generally but not intensely supportive of personal social liberties,
people who are generally but not intensely suspicious of intervention
abroad. That is the center of the Republican Party, not the libertarian
alliance.” The very intensity of the libertarian movement is, as Olsen
observed, “a bit off-putting to the person in the middle.”
There is also a kind of limiting
syllogism: Though the states with the most libertarians are primarily
rural, libertarians are also wealthier than average, better educated
than average, and young (indeed, 62% of libertarians are under the age
of 50)—three demographic sets that tend to live in densely populated
areas. Heavily populated areas are overwhelmingly Democratic. It is not
clear how many of voters in these areas would support a more libertarian
Republican. Regardless, it is even less likely that libertarianism
would tilt the balance in urban counties towards the GOP’s way. Writing
in the
New York Times, Thomas B. Edsall pointed to a
study showing that “98% of the 50 most dense counties voted for Obama. 98% of the 50 least dense counties voted for Romney.”
For a variety of reasons, the burden
falls on libertarians to demonstrate how they will change these
dynamics. While there may be real appeal for some for Republicans to
embrace a more libertarian approach, the undercurrents of the party do
not paint an encouraging picture for this as a successful electoral
strategy.
The cornerstone of libertarianism—a
fervent belief in the preeminence of personal liberty—leads libertarians
to hold views on social issues that fall far outside of the mainstream
of large portions of the Republican Party. In addition, libertarians’
greatest concentrations in numbers tend to fall either in small,
sparsely populated states with less national political power, or among
younger individuals who live predominantly in densely populated,
Democratic areas. This culminates in an environment where political and
demographic forces across the United States and within the Republican
Party itself severely limit the power and growth of libertarians as a
force within the GOP.
[1]
Tea Party members are much more likely to identify with the religious
right than they are with libertarianism. More than half of Tea Partiers
(52%) say they are a part of the religious right or the conservative
Christian movement, and more than one-third (35%) specifically identify
as white evangelical Protestants. In contrast, only 26% of Tea Partiers
were classified as libertarians on PRRI’s Libertarian Orientation Scale.
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