The rise of Ron Paul and Rand Paul has brought great attention to such libertarian ideas as auditing the Fed and the need for an antiwar foreign policy. But because Ron Paul’s 2008 and 2012 presidential bids were GOP primary attempts, their net effect was to bring libertarianism into the GOP fold. The phenomenon was confirmed by Rand Paul's Senate victory as a GOP candidate, and by the fact that many Americans now associate libertarian ideals with the Tea Party, with which the Pauls themselves are associated, and think of the Tea Party as a Republican group.
Things were simpler when the GOP was for conservatives and the Libertarian Party was for libertarians. If, now, the GOP steals a large number of libertarians away from the LP, the LP will be doomed. Worse, Ron Paul's efforts have made mainstream America think of libertarianism as a right-wing political philosophy, more extremely to the right than conservatism. This is a tendency that Murray Rothbard, for one, would certainly have deplored. Rothbard fiercely criticized Ayn Rand's idea that "the businessman is America's most persecuted minority," asserting instead that many businessmen were statist hacks who benefited from corporate welfare. Yes, Rothbard might have felt differently during his paleolibertarian phase, but liberty has always been an ideal that paralleled leftist positions on certain social issues: drugs, immigration, gay rights, limits on police authority, and others. The danger now is that this parallel will be forgotten. The GOP will simply consume the LP, and true libertarians will have no political home.
Conservatives will always control the American Right because they vastly outnumber libertarians. If, then, libertarianism is considered a rightwing movement, it will eventually dissolve into nothingness. I fear that a steel curtain is going to be built, cutting libertarians off from our socially liberal positions, and fencing libertarianism in on the side of the conservatives. The Libertarian Party's national leadership has never been particularly clever or smart. It has often been obsessed with ideological purity at the expense of practicality and the possibility of winning elections. I doubt the leadership will have what it takes to save the LP from the Pauls’ implicit attack. To paraphrase Caesar, "Et tu, Paule?"
Things were simpler when the GOP was for conservatives and the Libertarian Party was for libertarians. If, now, the GOP steals a large number of libertarians away from the LP, the LP will be doomed. Worse, Ron Paul
