Bill Quick's post (via InstaPundit) about whether libertarianism might find a better home in the Democratic Party prompted an initial outburst from me:

The problem with the Democratic Party is that Hillary Clinton will be the nominee in 2008, and I can't support someone with far worse baggage than John Kerry's 1971 flirtations with North Vietnam or lies about Cambodia. The crass sale of pardons to rich criminals, and (worse yet) the pardons of terrorists, happened in 2000, and it was all swept under the rug. She is unfit to be president, yet I see no alternative on the Democratic horizon.

Other than this stubborn problem, you have a good point overall. The Republican Party is more hostile to libertarians than ever, and I guess I could switch parties again -- as if anyone cared.

The fact is, the socialist, antiwar, left wing of the Democratic Party has held power in a sort of stranglehold (a deathlock, if you will), since 1972. People speculate about a new generation taking over, that the Democrats are willing to change their position in order to win, but the fact remains that the ideologues and activists are the ones who make things work.

This is also true in the Republican Party. Religious activists tend to be the only reliable people -- the ones who staff the phone lines, man the tables, show up at every committee meeting and platform discussion, etc. While they might not have the actual, castable, votes it takes to win an election, it takes them to win anyway, because as a practical matter where is a candidate going to find people who don't just say they'll show up, but who actually will?

The same applies to activists on the left, and of course this is why the parties tend to be dominated by ideological extremists whose views are not in the mainstream.

Saving for now the issue of which side has more of a deathlock on its particular party, what matters in elections is not who does the behind-the-scenes gruntwork, but public perception. I think that in general, left wing activists do a far better job of cleaning up their public image than do their religious counterparts. This is because socialism (particularly its more extreme forms) is not palatable to the majority of free people, and the activists, not being stupid, know this. Religious activists hail from a very different space. Their goal is not merely power, but evangelism, salvation. This, in my view, prevents a conspiratorial mindset from taking hold in the same way.

And overall, I think it makes the latter less dangerous politically.

I have only to read the last post (and its link to a typical example of the left wing mindset) to remind myself of how the left succeeds in imposing its views at the local level. They are far more relentless, far more organized, and far more successful than religious conservatives. They're willing to sell their principles down river at the drop of a hat in order to win. But this "selling out" is always strategic -- for appearances' sake -- and meaningless once they hold power.

There's not much selling out going on among religious conservatives. It's just not their style. So, let us assume for the sake of this discussion that religious conservatives have the GOP in a deathlock, and the McGovern socialist antiwar left have the Democratic Party in a deathlock.

Long term, I'd say it means the antiwar left wins, provided they change their color scheme. As to which party is more amenable to change from within, it boils down to degrees of entrenchment. The religious conservatives have not held the Republican Party in a deathlock for nearly as long, and there's still debate over whether they do now.

But I see a troubling -- perhaps the most troubling -- tendency in the Republican Party.

If history shows one thing, it's that when enough people want something to happen, it will happen. People can want things to happen for some very strange and divergent reasons, too. I think that the election of Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2008 will be facilitated by three groups of people:

This last group would be making a terrible miscalculation, of the sort which comes from taking power for granted. Assuming that Hillary will be perceived as "far left" -- and therefore as a license for religious conservatism run amok -- is exactly what HRC is counting on, and I think it will work.

Returning to my initial question, I'm still not sure which party is more amenable to libertarianism. Left wing activists seem more "tolerant" of libertarianism than ever before, and I think they're delighted to see a war breaking out between libertarians and moral conservatives. But in the long run, which party is more likely to really consult libertarians and take their views seriously? A party of antiwar socialists promising all things to all comers? Or a party wracked (should I say "racked"?) by fractious internal debate?

I may be mistaken, but I think a bitter internal debate is a better indicator of being taken seriously than official "tolerance" and the usual condescension.

Putting aside the war, libertarians not only are not socialists, but libertarians hate socialism. Socialists do not like people who hate socialism. They only pretend to.

For what it's worth, I'm still registered Republican, and although I've changed parties three times in the last five years, I don't see much point in it. I don't feel especially welcome in either party, but I did learn that opposition to socialism in the Democratic Party is a dead-end. In the Republican Party, there still exists solid, legitimate opposition to socialism.

They need to remember that it's not "socialism or death."

Socialism is death.

(Above picture originally expropriated from Samizdata.)