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Why I’m a Democrat… For Now.

Sunday, September 8, 2024 12:46

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It’s election season again; a season I despise but am obsessed with nonetheless. Since I’m sure you’ve seen the title of this essay, you are probably confused, especially since this is being published on an anarchist website. But bear with me here as I explain.

When the Mises Caucus took over the Libertarian Party, I, like many people, left. Now I have never been particularly attached to electoral politics in the first place, seeing voting as primarily a tool to wield defensively; only able to keep away the worst fascists rather than provide a real avenue for change. I joined the LP not because I saw it as a valid means of achieving electoral change or even a viable defensive vote, but because I realized that electoralism could provide something else: a soapbox.

The LP wasn’t created to win elections, but to share libertarian and anarchist ideals to a mass audience whose main interaction to politics was electoralism, and show them that there are non-state alternatives that can be achieved by means other than voting. The LP ran candidates to soapbox ideas with no dillusions of actually winning, but on the off chance they did, they planned to dismantle as much as possible before leaving office. A worthy goal, but one that was sadly derailed as some pushed it to be a more serious vehicle for electoral politics.

I, however, joined to help those fighting to bring the party back to its roots. As such, I helped to cofound the Libertarian Socialist Caucus of the LP as a platform to soapbox libertarian socialist ideas to a largely libertarian capitalist audience, and became a bootlicker for Vermin Supreme’s 2020 presidential campaign as a means to soapbox libertarian socialist ideas to an even larger national and international audience. And both saw amazing success in those efforts, with the LSC quickly becoming one of the fastest growing caucuses in the LP and Team Supreme signing up more people to the LP than any other campaign in the race.

But alas, the soapbox began to rot when the Mises Caucus took over and eventually, it became too dangerous to stand on. While some amazing dedicated libertarians did decide to yo stick with the party, a large number of them fled to the greener pastures of the Forward Party, the Liberal Party, the Pirate Party, and even the Republican and Democratic Parties.

While I find the Forward Party to be pretty weak centerist trash, I do see the value in their focus on electoral reform. The Liberal Party USA was formed by several LP affiliates which chose to disaffiliate from the LP and form their own party but the Liberal Party is explicitly anti-anarchist and only exists in seven states so they’re fairy irrelevant to me although I do wish them the best. The Pirate Party is amazing and I’ve always admired their platform but they haven’t achieved much and aren’t even a particularly big soapbox to utilize. The Republican Party has their libertarian-leaning Republican Liberty Caucus (RLC) and libertarian-influenced politicians such as Rand Paul, Thomas Massie, and Justin Amash (who famously split from the party but more recently rejoined) but the RLC is too culturally conservative for my taste, to put it kindly, and so are Massie and Paul who both spout queerphobic rhetoric, medical conspiracy theories, and climate change denial. The only good to come out of that scene seems to be Justin Amash, who I wish luck in his upcoming election but I am not in his region and I will not be joining the Republicans anytime soon.

Then there’s the Democratic Party. A party I’ve always despised despite supporting Obama’s 2008 election as a high schooler. When I came of voting age a few years later, I signed up as No Party Affiliation. I did not support Obama’s reelection campaign, instead voting for Jill Stein. I later switched my registration to Green Party in an effort to help my local Green Party affiliate with their numbers but I never really got involved with electoralism beyond that. Then I joined the LP after cofounding the LSC and officially switched my registration so I could act as a delegate at conventions.

Being part of the LP taught me more about the electoral process. Showing up to local affiliate meetings allowed me to combat the fascist entryism present by helping run opposing candidates in an otherwise unopposed race and taught me the value of local elections. The success of the DSA and the Justice Democrats in utilizing the Democratic Party also gave me some minor hope for local elections as a vehicle for at least minor changes. So when looking for a new electoral home after the takeover of the LP, I wanted one that could act as a good soapbox with a great reach and one that had a chance in local elections. That’s when I realized that many left-leaning Libertarians had hopped ship to revitalize the Democratic Freedom Caucus (DFC) of the Democratic Party.

The DFC is a largely geolibertarian caucus of the Democratic Party and one that I had some familiarity with but had been mostly dead aside from a website and some social media presence. I had actually been previously kicked out of their facebook group due to my claim that DSA-backed candidates like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are more libertarian than neoliberals like Joe Biden. Obviously, I have my gripes with AOC and related candidates but the fact that some of them are fighting for or promoting causes such as prison and police abolition, LGBTQ+ rights, immigration reform, decriminalizing drugs, ending war, cutting military spending, preserving privacy rights, etc. means that they are definitely more libertarians than status quo neoliberals than Joe Biden. But apparently some of the people running the caucus at the time disagreed, instead seeing neoliberalism as closer to classical liberalism and therefore more libertarian than the libertarian socialist policies of certain democratic socialists, and so I was booted. I did however join the DSA’s LSC which was far more active and a much better soapbox, pushing for DSA to take on non-electoral projects such as building dual power and engaging in direct action and mutual aid.

But with this new wave of Libertarian refugees to the DFC, all of whom had been exposed to libertarian socialist ideas to some degree or another by the LP’s Libertarian Socialist Caucus, things were different. Many understood and were sympathetic to libertarian socialism, the DSA, and the DSA’s LSC and so I was allowed back into their Facebook group and eventually was convinced to switch my registration to Democrat. Between the DFC and the DSA’s work with the Democratic Party, their platforms can be utilized as effective soapboxes that can reach a large audience and both already have ballot access in all 50 states so it is far easier to run local candidates without that barrier.

That being said, I still haven’t put too much of my time into those efforts and am mostly just supporting the efforts of others, but I still see the DCF as a viable alternative to the LP for the very few benefits electoralism offers. Although now that the Mises Caucus presidential candidate just lost in favor of Chase Oliver, a woke gay drag queen from Atlanta that openly calls the genocide in Palestine a genocide, I am paying more attention to the LP again. I doubt I’ll be rejoining the LP anytime soon but I may toss my presidential vote their way since the Democrats won’t offer any great options except on a local level anyway. But obviously at the end of the day, I remain an anarchist and prefer direct action, mutual aid, and agorism over participation in electoral politics. Use the electoral soapbox wisely and recruit people to better tactics.

The Center for a Stateless Society (www.c4ss.org) is a media center working to build awareness of the market anarchist alternative

Source: https://c4ss.org/content/59853

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