You’ll never guess the top political label in AmericaIf I asked you to name the most popular policy agenda in America today, what would you guess?
People on the right might cite decades of poll numbers which show more Americans identify as “conservatives” than “liberals”—by roughly a two to one margin. Left-wingers could point out that nearly a third of Americans count themselves as members of the Democratic Party, outpacing the GOP’s declining numbers, especially among young people.
What if both are wrong?
As the public’s trust in government hits new lows, libertarian positions on major policy issues are reaching record support across the board.
Polls show solid majorities of Americans agree with the libertarian perspective on:
foreign policy (let’s mind our own business),
nation-building (unwise),
warrantless mass surveillance (illegal, immoral, and just plain creepy),
domestic drone use (bad idea),
the national debt (it’s a big problem),
federal spending (waaaay too much),
the Federal Reserve (audit it),
health care (DC isn’t competent to handle it),
government welfare (inefficient and not helping),
the drug war (legalize marijuana),
food choice (don’t mandate nutrition),
marriage (let the couples decide),
Congress (passes too many laws and the wrong kinds of laws),
and our government in general (too big and burdensome).
This is not to say our government is even remotely close to reforming policies based on these public attitudes or even that a majority of the country identifies with libertarianism as a package. In fact, Washington DC is currently doing the exact opposite of everything on this list and only about a quarter of Americans identify as libertarians.
But it is to say that we have arrived at a historic moment, or consensus, for libertarians’ policy agenda—can any other major political perspective boast such comprehensive majorities on foreign, economic, and social policies alike?
read more:
http://rare.us/story/youll-never-guess-the-top-political-label-in-america/
