by Sean Dempsey
The tragedy of the Libertarian Party is not merely that it has become weak, but that it has become weak while imagining itself righteous.
At the very hour the republic sinks beneath debt, inflation, censorship, endless foreign entanglements, and the slow strangulation of liberty by the administrative state, the self-congratulating play-actors of the LNC busy themselves with the truly pressing matter of … disaffiliating the LPNH.
Rome burns, and our Libertarian stooges from on high inspect parchment for bylaw violations.
The enemy stands beyond the gates while the self-appointed guardians of liberty barricade themselves indoors to wage holy war against their own state affiliates.
Why? Because fighting the real enemy requires courage. Fighting the LPNH requires only procedural motions and the sort of theatrical indignation beloved by small men on small stages.
And yet perhaps we should not be surprised. America itself has grown fat, complacent, and drunk on the narcotic of temporary prosperity! The beloved stock market, as @POTUS reminds us every day, has reached record highs. Suburban kitchens overflow with food and debt-fueled economic bubbles blown by the @federalreserve convince the average citizen that tomorrow shall forever resemble today.
And a people that feels no pain demands no strength from its leaders!
Thus the LNC becomes precisely what the age requires: soft, pliable, inward-looking bureaucrats terrified of conflict with real power yet endlessly eager to posture against dissidents within their own ranks. It is far easier to denounce the LPNH than to confront the Federal Reserve, the surveillance state, the war machine, or the armies of lobbyists who openly purchase influence in Washington.
Internal purges are safe. Principle and defiance is dangerous.
But perhaps this softness is not an accident at all. Strong leaders are not born from comfort. They are forged in collapse, humiliation, hunger, and fear. The kind of men who would truly terrify empire … the Ron Pauls, the Thomas Massies, the stubborn and unbreakable archetypes of history. Men and women of fortitude emerge ONLY when the populace awakens from its stupor and realizes the walls are already crumbling around it.
And are we truly prepared for that? Are we truly ready for strong leaders if the crucible required to forge them means shattered markets, empty shelves, bursting bubbles, and the destruction of the leisurely lives to which we have all become so attached?
I do not think most Americans are. Truthfully, I do not think I am either.
I don’t think I’m yet ready to live in the world in which the Libertarian Party matters to a plurality of people and strong leaders emerge to take up the mantle because that means the world has fallen into ruin.
Yet ruin is upon us. The enemy is at our gates, despite how hard we close our eyes and pretend it is not. Strong leadership is therefore inevitable. But, thankfully, we don’t have it today. And I pray, for the sake of my child and the children of this world, that stalwart political leadership isn’t required for a long, long time.
