Toward a Libertarian-Progressive Alliance

An article by Ted Becker at The Last, Lost Empire argues that the basis for a "real" third party can be found in the convergence of libertarian-leaning Republicans and progressive-leaning Democrats, in other words, the libertarian-progressive alliance.  Excerpt:

The Real Third Party, whatever it finally calls itself, will be a previously implausible coalition that will span the political continuum from Libertarianism to Social Democracy.  The major themes that their president and Congressional candidates will run on will include most of the following:

• Ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—all troops and security guys out
• Ending the war in Libya—no military or covert action funds spent there
• No more “Imperial Presidency” wars; Return the war power to Congress
• Radical restructuring of The Fed—investigate lack of transparency and clear conflicts of interests between Wall Street and Main Street
• Rebuilding the American capitalist infrastructure and manufacturing base;
• Balancing the budget immediately;
• Start to deal seriously with climate change as a major national security issue..

Do most Americans trust either President George W. Obama or the Congress run by either the Democrats or Republicans to do any of these things? Public opinion polls repeatedly show a big majority would say “No way.” More than 80% think that the United States is headed in “the wrong direction.” So, if not the Dems and the GOP, then who?

The piece goes on to detail the convergence of opinion between the likes of Ron Paul and Ralph Nader, Rand Paul and Dennis Kucinich, and so on.  It concludes:

Our point is that many very prominent, articulate Americans—who are politically visible and who hail from widely variant ideological positions are now deeply contemplating their mutual antagonism towards the Democratic-Republican regime that controls all three branches of the federal government  What is crucial is that they are doing this, not by arguing, but by exploring innovative solutions, from their divergent points of view. They are emphasizing similarities, not differences.  This has been at the heart of all successful third parties in the U.S.  Such a Third Party can either win or change the game, put in play major solutions, policies and/or constitutional amendments that the established parties ignore. Anyone who thinks this is impossible or even improbable does not know his or her American history . . .

Update:  Via email a reader asks if Politea has discussed this general topic in the past.  Indeed, we've discussed the progressive-libertarian alliance strategy at some length before.  Long time readers might recall my PLEA for political independence with the Progressive Libertarian Electoral Alliance, or the libertarian-progressive populist front against the two-party state.  See also past posts on the Green-Libertarian alliance strategy.