Why An Electoral Alliance Between US Greens & Libertarians Cannot & Should Not Happen

Sam Husseini, in sheer frustration witnessing the disturbing, dismal Biden v Trump 'debate' debacle, perhaps understandably suggested alliance between Greens & Libertarians. Here's why that won't fly.

Image by Randy Laybourne

While Sam Husseini presents an excellent global geopolitical analysis and championing of progressive change (especially in sounding an incisive clarion call for liberating the Palestinians from 76 years of genocidal occupation by Israel) his recent suggestion that US Greens and Libertarians form an alliance to save us from the Democrats and Republicans, is unfortunately fundamentally unworkable.

As a long time leader in the Green Party I can say unequivocally that an ‘alliance’ between Greens and the current Libertarian Party is not going to happen, and should not happen. Here’s why..

The Mises Caucus

The Libertarian Party has recently been taken over by a deeply reactionary faction known as the Mises Caucus, which is outright racist and fascist and must be boycotted.

Jacqueline Luqman for Black Agenda Report (not in any way a bastion of wokeism or culture war obsession) wrote a very good take on why the Libertarian Party-organized "Rage Against The War Machine" rally was seriously problematic due to this extremely racist Mises Caucus takeover. See: https://blackagendareport.com/why-rage-against-war-machine-rally-antiwarsowhite

Also see “Mises Caucus: Could It Sway the Libertarian Party to the Hard Right”
https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2022/05/25/mises-caucus-could-it-sway-libertarian-party-hard-right

and “Inside the Mises Caucus Takeover of the Libertarian Party”
https://reason.com/video/2022/06/15/inside-the-mises-caucus-takeover-of-the-libertarian-party

Because of the key problem of this new and disturbing toxicity in the Libertarian Party, a union between Greens and Libertarians is simply not on the table.

The Untenable Anti-Poor Anti-Worker Libertarian Construct

On a deeper level, even without the Mises Caucus problem, libertarians as an ideological group support incredibly stupid, vile economic policies based on unleashing unfettered selfish private profit interest - policies which are anti-regulation, anti-worker, and absurdly lionize wealth disparity as if it is a virtue and a public good.

If libertarians ever got enough power to implement these policies, they would devastate low income people, the working class, and people who are victims of structural racism, while further dismantling environmental protections, deepening the economic ruin that already impoverishes tens of millions, and wreaking further ecological havoc on our country, and the world.

Libertarian Economic Reactionism Reverses Key Domestic Gains of Peacemaking

As MLK, Malcolm X and many others made clear, a key objective in opposing war is to stop impoverishing marginalized communities, and the working and middle classes, by spending the nation's wealth into warmaking and the Military Industrial Complex.

Libertarians might help stop war, but they would also deepen worker and lower class impoverishment, and the dismantling of environmental laws.

That is just not tenable.

To Achieve Revolutionary Change Vote For Greens

If Libertarians get elected, so be it, then the Green Party will work with them to end war and defend civil liberties. But we absolutely will not help such people get elected.

If voters (and those currently refusing to vote) want to upend the decrepit US government in a truly revolutionary electoral uprising, all they need do is simply lose their fears and vote in large numbers for Greens, who when they get into office will end wars without disastrously pulling the rug out from under the poor, workers, people of color, and the global biosphere.

See the stellar Green Party US platform at: https://www.gp.org/platform

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Eric Brooks is a full time grassroots organizer specializing in the interplay of global capitalist economics and war with energy policy, the climate and extinction crisis, and environmental justice.