Monthly Archives: August 2022

You can see in the polling that everybody kind of hates the two major parties and increasingly dont like where the country is going, said Ryan Graham, the Libertarian candidate for lieutenant governor and a former party chairman. We are giving voice to an underrepresented voting bloc in America.

Brett Larson, from left, Nathan Wilson, executive director of the Libertarian Party of Georgia, and Libertarian U.S. Senate candidate Allen Buckley watch election results on a computer during a Libertarian watch party in November 2016 at the Mellow Mushroom in Atlanta. (BRANDEN CAMP/SPECIAL)

Credit: Branden Camp

Brett Larson, from left, Nathan Wilson, executive director of the Libertarian Party of Georgia, and Libertarian U.S. Senate candidate Allen Buckley watch election results on a computer during a Libertarian watch party in November 2016 at the Mellow Mushroom in Atlanta. (BRANDEN CAMP/SPECIAL)

Credit: Branden Camp

Credit: Branden Camp

There are 10 Libertarians on the ballot this November in statewide races, including for the U.S. Senate, governor and secretary of state.

But voters wont have a Libertarian choice in any congressional and legislative races because of Georgias ballot access laws, which are among the strictest in the nation. No third-party candidates have ever been able to run for the U.S. House under a 1943 state law that requires them to gather signatures from 5% of registered voters.

One of those Libertarian candidates, Angela Pence, tried to challenge Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in a solidly conservative northwest Georgia district. Pence fell far short of the 25,000 signatures she needed, gathering about 6,000.

I could have shook things up, but instead were going to have Marjorie again for another two years, Pence said. A Democrat isnt going to win in this district, but a Libertarian could have given her a run for her money. Its going to take enough people or the system getting so bad that theyre finally willing to change it.

The two big political parties have stymied Libertarians chances to field more candidates, leaving state law unchanged.

Libertarian challenges have also fallen short in court. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in January reversed a ruling that would have lowered the number of signatures needed for a third-party candidate to get on the ballot. The Libertarian Party of Georgia appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court this week.

Both major-party candidates for governor, Republican Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams, plan to try to get Libertarians to vote for them.

The stakes in this election could not be higher, Kemp campaign spokesman Tate Mitchell said. Gov. Kemp will continue reaching out to voters in every community and on every side of the aisle.

Abrams campaign spokesman Alex Floyd said, She understands how voters are frustrated with the current political status quo in Georgia and has spent her career advocating for Georgians right to participate in our democratic process so they can make their voices heard regardless of the candidate they support.

Stacey Abrams is focused on reaching out to voters all across our state to talk about how her plans work for them.

Neither candidate has announced plans to expand ballot access to third parties if elected.

Under Georgia law, third parties can nominate candidates for statewide offices as long as at least one of their candidates received votes from more than 1% of registered voters in the previous general election. But candidates for district races must meet the states 5% signature requirement.

Republicans and Democrats often shy away from proposals that could weaken their duopoly control of Georgia politics.

You dont want my opinion on it because Id probably get thrown out of the Republican Party, said state Rep. Steve Tarvin, a Republican from Chickamauga and chairman of the House Interstate Cooperation Committee. I would say we need easier ballot access, but I dont think just anybody can get on the ballot. I dont know what the answer is, but I dont think its 25,000 signatures.

House Minority Leader James Beverly said hed consider bills expanding ballot access if Democrats took over a majority of seats in the House, which is unlikely to happen this year.

Everyone who wishes to vote should be able to vote, and you should choose a candidate who best represents your interests. Having a third party isnt bad, said Beverly, a Democrat from Macon. I suspect Libertarians will be more inclined to vote for Democrats now because their basic philosophy upholds liberty as a core value.

Libertarian candidates know they dont stand much of a chance of winning this year, but they hope to make their case to voters and grow their base for the future.

The AJC poll showed 3% of likely voters support Libertarian U.S. Senate candidate Chase Oliver and less than 1% backed gubernatorial candidate Shane Hazel. The highest-polling Libertarian candidates were Graham for lieutenant governor and Ted Metz for secretary of state, both at about 7%.

The poll of 902 likely voters was conducted July 14-22 and has a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points. It was conducted by the University of Georgias School of Public and International Affairs.

Support for Libertarians tends to decline by the time elections arrive. In 2020, Libertarian candidates received between 1% and 3% of the vote.

But that can be enough in a tight race between Republicans and Democrats to throw the election into a runoff, as has happened several times in the past 30 years.

When you have third parties, those two major parties know that if you dont keep your promises, you do have options, said Elizabeth Melton Gallimore, executive director for the Libertarian Party of Georgia.

Libertarian candidates 2022

U.S. Senate: Chase Oliver

Governor: Shane Hazel

Lieutenant governor: Ryan Graham

Secretary of state: Ted Metz

Attorney General: Martin Cowen

Agriculture Commissioner: David Raudabaugh

Labor Commissioner: Emily Anderson

Public Service Commission District 2: Colin McKinney

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Libertarians see opening to gain ground in Georgia 2022 elections - The Atlanta Journal Constitution

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State Libertarian Party asks for 'relief from oppressive ballot laws' - The Albany Herald

(The Center Square) Michigans state primaries are in the rearview, but voters wont know the full slate of candidates for Nov. 8 for another few weeks.

Candidates for three of the states highest-ranking offices attorney general, lieutenant governor, and secretary of state are not determined by state primaries. Instead, candidates for these offices are determined by party conventions.

Additionally, candidates for Supreme Court, and the boards of Michigan State University, Wayne State University, the University of Michigan, and the state Board of Education are nominated at conventions.

The two major party conventions will be held later this month, with the Democrats meeting Aug. 20-21, and Republicans convening Aug. 27. The Libertarian Partys convention was held July 10.

According to Ballotpedia, Michigan is one of 43 states to elect an attorney general whereas seven states either allow appointment by the governor or legislature.

Incumbent AG Dana Nessel is running unopposed by other Democrat candidates. Joe McHugh was selected as the Libertarian Partys candidate at the partys convention last month. Three Republican candidates are vying to unseat Nessel: State Rep. Ryan Berman; attorney Matthew DePerno; and former state Rep. Tom Leonard, who squared off against Nessel in 2018.

The attorney general serves a term of four years with no term limits. For example, Frank Kelly was nicknamed the Eternal General because he served from 1961 to 1999, making him both the youngest elected at 36 and the oldest at 74.

The lieutenant governor field includes Democratic incumbent Garlin Gilchrist, Libertarian Brian Ellison and Green Party candidate Destiny Clayton. A Republican contender for the office has yet to be determined.

Incumbent Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, will be challenged by one of the four Republican candidates: Cindy Berry; Kristina Karamo; state Rep. Beau LaFave; or Cathleen Postmus. Additional challengers are Libertarian Gregory Stempfle and Green Party candidate Larry Hutchinson Jr.

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Election 2022: Primaries clear Michigan fields; more will come at conventions - The Center Square

The governments corner on the education market is a common enemy among liberty lovers. Throughout the country, government-funded public school systems are outdated and broken. They push values and ideologies that make parents uncomfortable, they systematically waste taxpayer dollars, and, worst of all, they fail to equip future generations with the tools they need to succeed in the wider world. Even basic literacy has been declining for decades, and children who are behind in reading by third grade may never catch up.

For these reasons, its easy to see why free marketeers such as Clemson professor C. Bradley Thompson, libertarian activist Jacob Hornberger, and Fox Newss Kennedy Montgomery have publicly embraced the idea that public schools should simply be abolished all at once.

But the chances of that happening are slim to none. Every state has a compulsory schooling statute, and eliminating these statutes would be arduous, especially when most parents are satisfied with their childrens education. Believe it or not, parental satisfaction in public schools has remained above 67% over the past two decades, and public school is still the first choice for 41% of parents today.

In short, it isnt politically viable to pursue an agenda of abolishing public education in our current moment (and it may never be so). If free marketeers wish to make a real impact on education in America, theyd do better to embrace educational freedom of all kinds.

Advocating incremental change to improve our K-12 education system by empowering parents with educational choices is a much more popular and effective strategy for freeing students from the failing government schooling apparatus. For example, education savings accounts, which let families use their childs education funds on private education expenses, including tutoring, special needs therapies, and private school tuition, poll at about 75% favorability among parents of various backgrounds.

Yet some libertarians make perfect the enemy of the good by opposing school choice since it does not meet their standards of market competition. Students dont have time for libertarian pipe dreams no matter how just and right they may be. Children and their families dont care that education savings accounts arent the perfect market solution. Theyll settle for the boosts to test scores, civic values, and educational attainment that all stem from the opportunity to choose an academic environment that suits them best.

Furthermore, free marketeers who oppose school choice havent looked deeply enough into their own philosophy. Adam Smith himself observed in The Wealth of Nations that for a very small [expense] the [public] can facilitate, can encourage, and can even impose upon almost the whole body of the people, the necessity of acquiring those most essential parts of education [to read, write, and account].

In essence, Smith believed that universal education was of the utmost importance, as it would offset the harmful effects of the division of labor. It was the responsibility of any prosperous society to ensure that workers and elites alike had access to at least some form of learning.

However, Smith was careful to note that education should be a partnership between public authorities and the market because if [the teacher] was wholly, or even principally paid by [the government], he would soon learn to neglect his business. Smith wasnt alone either. Other classical liberal or free market theorists such as Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, Milton Friedman, David Friedman, and James Buchanan recognized the positive role government financing can play in promoting parental choice in education.

Liberty is rarely expanded in one fell swoop. It is a long march that takes time, effort, and persistence. Libertarians should continue to follow these theorists lead and unite with a public thats open to reforming a broken system. Libertarians could help students and their families by embracing incremental educational choice reform. The future of American education requires innovation, and educational freedom can improve the educational system immediately while also upholding free market ideals.

Garion Frankel (@FrankelGarion) is a graduate student at Texas A&M Universitys Bush School of Government and Public Service and a Young Voices contributor. Cooper Conway (@CooperConway1) is a national voices fellow at 50CAN and a Young Voices contributor.

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School choice is the free market solution to failing public schools - Washington Examiner

It is often argued by the classical liberal thinkers that ideas of individual liberty were the driving force behind the Industrial Revolution. Intellectuals like Steven Pinker and Deirdre McCloskey see the revolution in a very linear fashion. They argue that people lived in pitiful conditions before the great industrial revolution came as a knight in shining armor to lift them up. However, the Industrial Revolution also provided newer tools which acted as catalyst for the exponential growth of colonialism, which curtailed individual liberty across the continents. Can we then, as classical liberals/libertarians, claim the credit of the Industrial Revolution, but choose to overlook the loss of liberty in the colonies established by the newly industrialized nations?

It is time for the libertarians of the 21st century to acknowledge the elephant in the room: colonialism. Its essential because many argue that the Industrial Revolution or even the ideas of Libertythat Pinker and McCloskey cherishwere the causal forces behind colonialism. I am not suggesting that these people are correct; however, their point resonates favorably among a sizable population group, even beyond the former colonies.

If the history of enlightenment and Industrial Revolution has to be seen in a linear fashion, what should we make of colonialism? A part of the linear transformation towards the Liberal world order? If liberty should be valued for its consequences, why should postcolonial thinkers go down the path? History, as some argue, perhaps, is the history of discourse and discourse, in itself, is a game of articulation. If we as libertarians lose the game of discourse and articulation, what lies ahead for the movement?

When the Britishwho kick-started the Industrial Revolutionbecame better-off and moved to distant lands for more opportunities to trade, they forgot the values of liberty. In my country, India, they stole over 45 trillion dollars over the years of their rule. Not only that, they went on to acquire the forests by alienating local communities and forest dwellers, who lived there for centuries. Throughout, they acted as if the notion of property rights was not relevant in colonial India. Lets not forget that property rights are intrinsic to the ideas of liberty. Libertarian thinkers like Murray Rothbard consider property rights as the sine qua non of Human Rights.

There may be an argument that the ideas of liberty helped in the development of countries which went through the industrial revolution. As per McCloskey, the ideas of liberty allowed the English people for the first time to experiment, to have a go, and, especially, to talk to each other in an open-source fashion about their experiments and their goings, rather than hiding them in posthumously decoded mirror writing out of fear of theological and political disapproval. Furthermore, others argue that the Industrial Revolution could very well have happened in China, but it didnt, because the rulers there did not support innovators and in fact restrictive on them when they started attaining success.

China did not have an Industrial Revolution and the British did. However, we must note that Chinaat that pointdid not go on to take away resources of people across the globe, but the British did. Business is not a zero-sum game of resources, but a positive-sum game instead. While exploring the newer lands for business opportunities, had the British adhered to their liberal principles, the British would still have grown, and so would have been the other countries.

Liberty, we must remember, is not relative. If the ability to choose is violated, even for a single human being, there is no liberty. It is still not late. Libertarians of the 21st century should stop resting on the laurels of the Industrial Revolution, and look into the degeneration of newly industrialized nations into illiberal colonial powers. We should do some soul-searching and try to understand these ideas of the Enlightenment- what was their soul, what went wrong, and why it went wrong. This will help us to present a strong narrative about a world based on the soul and principles of liberty for all.

Adnan Abbasi is currently pursuing Bachelor of Arts (Hons.) degree majoring in Social and Political Science from Ahmedabad University. He is a Writing Fellow at Students for Libertys Fellowship for Freedom in India.

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The Industrial Revolution and the Colonial Conundrum - Econlib

There are several federal, state and local elections on the ballot for the upcoming general election see who is on the docket. File photo.

Unofficial results from Tuesday night show that Johnson County voter turnout hit more than 53% for the 2022 primary election.

Next up is the Nov. 8 general election, during which voters will decide who becomes the new chair of the Board of County Commissioners, as well as races for U.S. Senate, the Third District U.S. House of Representatives seat, a slew of local statehouse contests and some other statewide and local offices.

The Post put together the following list using Johnson County Election Offices unofficial final results and the Kansas Secretary of State unofficial Kansas election results of candidates who have either already filed for November or who won their primary Tuesday and are set to advance.

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The primary is over Here's who you can expect to see on JoCo ballots in November - Shawnee Mission Post

West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, which in June gutted the Biden administrations ability to reduce the electrical power industrys carbon emissions, may be the Supreme Courts most reckless and lawless decision (in an extremely competitive field). The court comes close to anarchism, crippling Congresss capacity to protect the country from disaster and undermining the fundamental purpose of the Constitution.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the court, embraced a newly bloated version of the major questions rule for interpreting statutes, one that Congress could not have known about when it gave the president the power to create environmental regulations: there are extraordinary cases . . . in which the history and the breadth of authority that the agency has asserted and the economic and political significance of that assertion provide a reason to hesitate before concluding that Congress meant to confer such authority. The challenged Obama-era plan would have restructured an entire industry, and Roberts declared that there was little reason to think Congress assigned such decisions to the Agency.

If you need a reason, how about the plain words of the statute? Section 111of the Clean Air Act instructs the EPA to select the best system of emission reduction for power plants, as part of its mandate to regulate stationary sources of any substance that causes, or contributes significantly to, air pollution and may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.

Roberts says the court should look to the history and breadth of the authority asserted by the agency as well as the economic and political significance of the regulation, and then speculate as to whether Congress really meant to confer such authority. But the best evidence of what Congress meant is the language it enacted.

The current Court is textualist only when being so suits it, wrote Justice Elena Kagan, dissenting. When that method would frustrate broader goals, special canons like the major questions doctrine magically appear as get-out-of-text-free cards. (A few months ago, she made the same point about the courts invalidation of OSHAs rules to limit COVID-19 in workplaces.) The courts decision is already being cited in challenges to regulations of pipelines, asbestos, nuclear waste, corporate disclosures and highway planning.

Roberts observes that the EPA has rarely used its Section 111 power. But statutes dont disappear because they arent being used. They remain in effect until they are repealed. Right now, we are seeing antiabortion laws that have been dead for half a century suddenly spring back into life.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, concurring, offers a more specific account of how one decides what counts as a major question, explaining that the first question a court should ask is whether an agency claims the power to resolve a matter of great political significance.

How does a court know what gives a matter great political significance? Gorsuch cites earnest and profound debate across the country not at the time of enactment, but decades later. OSHAs effort to prevent thousands of COVID-19 deaths was improper because it came at a time when Congress and state legislatures were engaged in robust debates over vaccine mandates.

I thought I was offering a reductio ad absurdum last January when I wrote that the Supreme Court was making Fox News a source of law. But Gorsuch isnt even hiding it: If the conservative press raises enough of a fuss to trigger a political fight, then government action that was previously authorized will become illegal.

Congress in the 1970s was under the impression that air pollution and workplace dangers were unquestionably evils, and that creating agencies was the best way to address those threats. The court declared way back in 1819 that Congress has broad discretion to choose the most convenient means for carrying out its powers. Kagan observed: A key reason Congress makes broad delegations like Section 111 is so an agency can respond, appropriately and commensurately, to new and big problems. Congress knows what it doesnt and cant know when it drafts a statute.

It knew that scientific knowledge would improve. For instance, now we understand that coal the leading source of water and air pollution is the worst fossil fuel: When one accounts for the costs it imposes, every unit that is burned has negative economic value. The EPA aimed to have coal provide 27 percent of the nations electricity by 2030, down from 38 percent in 2014.

Most Americans once would have been astounded to learn that anyone would ever try to block efforts to contain a pandemic or prevent environmental catastrophe. The courts decision reflects the growing influence of libertarianism, which thinks that liberty means a government that is small and weak. Libertarians have been unable to think clearly about environmental harms. Thats why, for all their purported cold rationality, they are drawn to daffy climate change denialism and, more recently, antivaxx ideology. The libertarians capture of the Republican Party is so complete that its members will not give President Biden a single vote for his climate plan. Actually, from a libertarian standpoint, the effects of climate change involve clear violations of property rights that the state must remedy: One isnt permitted to devastate other peoples land.

The slogan abolish the police, embraced by some on the left, is foolish because it focuses on government dysfunction while failing to notice what government is for. The court has now embraced its own form of reckless anarchism and at the worst possible time. In the midst of a deadly plague and worsening climate catastrophe, it has blocked Congresss ability to choose the tools it deems most effective and left unclear what Congress or the EPA is now allowed to do to protect the human race from impending disaster.

Gorsuch presumes that an agency exceeds its authority when it seeks to regulate a significant portion of the American economy, or require billions of dollars in spending by private persons or entities. Both he and Roberts tell us, in effect, that the bigger the problem, the less capacity Congress has to address it by delegation. This is like a weirdly selective form of police abolition that abolishes only the homicide squad or yanks police out of high-crime neighborhoods.

There have always been some Americans who did not like the Constitution, who thought that it created government that was too powerful. In 1788 they almost prevented it from being ratified. Most voters, however, have repeatedly rejected the radical libertarian notion that liberty means a government too feeble to solve the nations most urgent problems. They voted that way when the Constitution was adopted, and again when Congress created these agencies. Todays Supreme Court perversely interprets law as if the Constitutions opponents had won.

Andrew Koppelman, John Paul Stevens Professor of Law at Northwestern University, is the author of Burning Down the House: How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted by Delusion and Greed (St. Martins Press, forthcoming).Follow him on Twitter@AndrewKoppelman.

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Climate change and the Supreme Courts version of police abolitionism - The Hill

Hey,

I set out to write this new effort to launch a third party and then, a few hundred words in, I started putting out a cigar on my face just to remind myself Im alive. So, Im starting over.

Dont get me wrong, Id be delighted to see a third party emerge that could send either the GOP or the Democrats the way of the Whigs. Its just that the topic has been so exhaustingly chewed-over you could drink it with a straw. So let me at least try to come at it from a different angle.

First, I do think that conditions have not been better in my lifetime for a third party to emerge.

Think of it like a man with three buttocks. No, wait, dont do that.

Think of it like our national forests, where bears continue to defecate with libertarian impunity. Weve spent a century suppressing natural fires to the point that theres an enormous amount of fuel lying around, making a much bigger fire inevitable.

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Discontent Is Never Enough - by Jonah Goldberg - The G-File - The Dispatch

Q&A with Frank Buckley

With polls showing that Republicans stand a good chance of recapturing control of the U.S. House and possibly the Senate in the November election, many Americans are asking what the party will do if it holds the reins of power next year.

In the House, Republicans are attempting to provide an answer to that question by rolling out a series of proposals which they are calling their Commitment to America aimed at addressing high energy prices, rising violence, and some of the other key challenges Americans face.

In the Senate, Republicans appear to be of two minds about which is the proper course to take. Some, such as Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, believe the focus of the upcoming election should be on what Democrats have done or failed to do over the past two years. Others, such as Florida Senator Rick Scott, believe the party need to follow the Houses lead and put down in writing what they hope to achieve if they hold the majority next year.

Frank Buckley is taking an even broader view. Buckley is a professor at George Mason Universitys Scalia School of Law who is perhaps better known in Republican circles as the author of several speeches Donald Trump delivered during the 2016 presidential campaign. Buckley is no longer a supporter of the former President he calls him toxic. But he is a supporter of some of the positions that Trump took and some of the messages that he conveyed.

Buckley believes it is time for Republicans to move beyond the former President and get behind a vision that not only encapsulates some of these positions and messages, but appeals to the broad swath of working class Americans who supported Trump in response. Buckley lays out just such a vision in a new book. Called Progressive Conservatism: How Republicans Will Become Americas Natural Governing Party, the book recommends that members of the GOP look to three leading statesmen from the GOPs past for guidance about the path to follow, and argues that issues relating to improving economic mobility, fighting corruption, and making government work will be keys to the partys success in the years ahead.

The Forum spoke with Buckley recently about his book, his vision for progressive conservatism, and where he would like to see the party go in 2022 and beyond.

________________________________

RF: First things first explain to our readers, what is a progressive conservative?

FB: A progressive conservative is someone who is faithful to the leading statesmen of the Republican Party Eisenhower, Theodore Roosevelt, Lincoln. There are several themes that are associated with those statesmen.

Lincoln was the one who invented the American Dream the idea that whoever you are, wherever you come from, you should be able to get ahead and your kids will have it better than you did. When polled in 2014, Americans said, We no longer believe in the American Dream. We dont think its happening. And the economic evidence bears them out. That should have been a sign of a revolution in American politics. But the only person who picked up on that was Trump, and they elected him president.

So I think the Republican Party has to take on mobility economic intergenerational mobility as a big theme, and specifically point out how its the Democrats who are holding people back with their immigration policies and their education policies and their regulatory policies. They have placed a boulder in front of the people who want to get ahead. So that should be an important element of what progressive conservatism means. And it all goes back to Lincoln.

Teddy Roosevelt came to government as a reformer an anti-corruption reformer. And, you know, the GOP has given away the issue of corruption to Democrats. And thats just wrong. There are things we should be doing. We should be taking up the issue of corruption, specifically with respect to regulating lobbyist contributions to politicians and closing the revolving door between K Street and Congress. Those should be Republican themes.

And then finally, like Ike, we have to make our peace with the welfare state and recognize, as Lincoln did, that we want equality of opportunity, not equality of results. And the government has a role to play in achieving this goal. The government has a role in providing good, decent school choice, for example. Were on the right side of that. These are all themes that define progressive conservatism.

RF: Lets talk about the progressive conservative vision on some of the challenges facing America today. You mentioned school choice. To expand on that, where do progressive conservatives come down on the issue of education?

FB: Well, were in favor of good education. The guy who really was an education president was Lincoln, who supported the land grant colleges through the Morrill Act, and who was not merely in favor of the equality of opportunity, but who lived it himself, rising from a hardscrabble farm to the presidency. What was really basic to Lincoln was the idea that all Americans both white and black should have the opportunity to get ahead. And a good part of that is education. Lincoln is the only president to hold a patent, and loved the idea of education for farmers as a means by which everybody can get ahead.

RF: Were in the middle of a heat wave right now. What about climate change?

FB: Climate change is an issue on which I think one is permitted to be skeptical. Ive read what Bjorn Lomborg has had to say in the Wall Street Journal. I agree theres such a thing as global warming. Im something of a skeptic as to the subject of spending a vast amount of money to try to cure the problem. At this particular point, you ask whats to be done today. Well, the big issue today is inflation. So big government spending programs right now arent going to be the answer.

RF: What about defense and foreign policy. What is the progressive conservative view towards Ukraine and the importance of American leadership abroad?

FB: You know, if there was a pro-Russian fellow in the Trump campaign, that wouldve been me. I helped draft Trumps foreign policy speech in the beginning of the campaign, I put in a line to the effect that I could see why the Russians were troubled by the expansion of NATO. That line was taken out. And what was substituted was a line that said, They say we cant trust the Russians to cut a deal. I intend to find out. Thats what Trump said. I think thats, thats what we should have done.

The tragedy of the idiotic Russian collusion paranoia was it prevented anything like a deal with the Russians. And clearly, a deal was the way to solve the problem. Even now in Ukraine, even at this moment, we should be getting on the blower with Putin as Macron does, as the Pope does and try to craft a deal. I mean, you do peace deals with your enemies, not with your friends. Putins very much an adversary who we threw into the lap of the Chinese, which is madness.

I dont think we should be spending money fighting a proxy war which gets Ukrainians killed. I think what we should be trying to do is craft a peace treaty that would solve the problem. Indeed, the opportunity for such a deal even now I think exists with Putin. That also, by the way, is what Henry Kissinger thinks.

RF: Picking up on your earlier point about corruption, you dedicate an entire chapter in your book to draining the swamp, First, what is your definition of the swamp? Is it entrenched bureaucrats, entrenched special interests, or both? And how do you propose to go about doing it?

FB: Well, I have some specific suggestions geared towards reining in the lobbyists and closing the revolving door between K Street and Congress. Its been said that Congress is a farm team for K street, right? People come here and they never leave they just move down to K Street. Those are the kinds of issues that I think Republicans should take on.

RF: You write about the importance of having a government that is aligned to the whole of the voters and say Republican Virtue will be required to reach that goal. Could you talk about that for a moment?

FB: The idea of Republican Virtue is traced back to the Founders in 1776. They thought that the revolution wouldnt succeed unless it was supported by Americans who had a disinterested desire to promote the common good of Americans. Republican Virtue is also something I identify with the West. Im from the West. And so I buy into Frederick Jackson Turners story of the frontier as being crucial in American history and, and history as being a contest between the West which is democratic, egalitarian, mobile, and virtuous, as opposed to an aristocratic and corrupt East. So Republican Virtue thus means that what is for the common good of all Americans let us support that.

The cynical view, which I associate with Madison, is that were also intrinsically corrupt and we cant be trusted to promote Republican Virtue. Were disinterested in virtue in any way, and the best we can do is just have people bargain with one another. Thats called pluralism, and its an idea that traditionally was associated with the Democratic Party a party of coalitions. The notion is that everybody is bargaining at the table. Everybody will be well taken care of. And that obviously didnt happen.

I think we have to break away from that idea of dividing us up by race or gender or whatever leave that job for the Democrats. Instead, ask for people to speak to that which is for the common good of all Americans. And that historically has been what the Republicans have done as opposed to the Democrats.

RF: Lets return to progressive conservatism and the politics of today. You wrote speeches for Donald Trump in 2016, yet write that you believe Republicans need to move beyond Trump in 2024. Why do you no longer support him? And what kind of candidate do you believe the party needs to get behind the next time around?

FB: Well, I think hes toxic for any number of reasons. January 6th, obviously, but even before that, he was a failed President by virtue of his inability to know which levers to pull when he was in office. He didnt have a sense as to the kinds of people who should be appointed. He surrounded himself with the most knavish of people. I hope that the January 6th hearings persuade the American people that the fellow should be toast. If they do that, what theyll have done in the end is help the GOP more than the Democrats.

So yes, we have to say goodbye to Trump. But I think what we want to do at the same time is remember that this guy won in 2016, and he brought to the party a whole bunch of people who had never voted Republican before. And were not going to win an election if we say goodbye to them. If we revert to the old right wing party of Barry Goldwater, thats not going to work.

What well need is a party that recognizes the limitation of 60 years of libertarianism and of being a party that was indifferent to issues like mobility and corruption.

RF: I think the term you used in your book is that Republicans need a happy warrior in 2024

FB: Which is to say I rather like Ike. We need a smiling person who doesnt communicate a sense of hostility. And thats certainly not Trump. Its more like Ike.

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Progressive Conservatism: How Republicans Will Become America's Natural Governing Party - The Ripon Society