It’s interesting to take a look at what people are saying about libertarian populism, but I think it is more interesting to just look at how the Republican Party is behaving in the post-2010 Tea Party environment. It used to be that the national U.S. Chamber of Commerce had decisive influence with the GOP, so if they wanted a stimulus bill or they were for a grand bargain and against a debt ceiling default, or they were in favor of immigration reform, then that was going to be what the Republican Party produced. But the Republicans aren’t listening to the Chamber of Commerce anymore. They aren’t really listening to Wall Street, either. They aren’t listening to their consultants and they aren’t listening to their leadership.
So, we have to begin wondering if the GOP is still the party of big and small businesses. If they are, they aren’t any good at it. At some point during the Bush Era, something broke. It was stunning to see how few precautions the Republicans took in 2005 and 2006 to protect themselves from a political backlash. They needed to create some distance between themselves and a failing administration, and they just refused to do it. Since 2010, they have needed to stop alienating huge blocks of voters, but they can’t stop. They don’t seem to have the most fundamental of political instincts, which is self-preservation. It can be annoying when Democrats look at an opinion poll and get all wobbly, but a political party has to be cognizant of public opinion.
There is a bit of libertarian backlash right now on both sides of the aisle, but it has relatively little to do with economic populism. With fast-food workers on strike and asking for a doubling of their wage, an economic populist would be at the barricades taking their side. That’s about the last thing I can imagine a Rand Paul-Republican doing. So, if these libertarians are pissing off the military, Wall Street, the Chamber of Commerce, and the poor working class, who are they pleasing?
Maybe there is a segment of the oligarchy that figures it all causes chaos and discredits government which will benefit them in the long run, but most people in the market are making money and don’t want to see a bunch of ideologues shut down the government and kill our credit rating. As far as I can see, the only people who are actually happy with the libertarian trend in the GOP are the nativists and xenophobes and anti-government religious fanatics. And that’s why we are seeing more and more traditional Republicans start to rebel against the idea of shutting down the government. It’s not good for business.
