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Notes -
What are "Mises-Caucus types"?
I'm using the term broadly (types) rather than specifically (the actual org) to refer to Right-Libertarians who are more right wing than they are libertarian.
The historical dynamic circa Obama era college campuses (when Dennis was a punchline) was for right wingers to claim to be fiscally conservative (sane) but socially liberal (live and let live) in order to avoid being treated poorly by left wingers of the time. Libertarianism offers an intellectual framework to argue against the Civil Rights Act without having to argue against black people, and argue against legal protections for homosexuals without arguing against homosexuality.
Over time that cover has worn thin, as it has been overused by people who WANT to argue against black people and homosexuality, and are willing to sacrifice a lot of legacy libertarian intellectual priorities (anti police, anti death penalty, anti government regulations of private sexual or pharmaceutical life) to do so.
The mises caucus itself has largely been a small and weird group concerned with trying to hijack the libertarian party and tie it as a junior branch of MAGA, in hopes of getting some libertarian priorities passed by Team Trump. This may be a shrewd move as sausage making weather vane politics, and reflects a broader feeling that the greater threat to personal liberty is no longer PATRIOT Act Republicans but woke Democrats.
But the point of the reference is basically that as the people using Libertarian as code for"not left" have increasingly used it as code for "right wing," the rhetorical gambit for young men has lost its value as cover.
For a comparison: American Catholics who gesture vaguely at Liberation Theology as a defense when leftists attack the Church.
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They are the "pragmatists" who caused the Libertarian Party to effectively endorse Trump rather than supporting its own candidate, Oliver.
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To be honest, I consider myself a libertarian, but never had any desire to support any of the LP candidates. Oliver personally checks too many woke boxes for me (no, it's not about him being gay, that part doesn't bother me at all). And in practical terms, between woke takeover and compromising on some libertarian principles to stop the woke takeover, I think it is prudent to choose the latter. When the choice is between Hamas-supporting racist trantifa totalitarian marxists and somewhat-bigger-government conservatives, I think a practical thing for a libertarian would be to vote for the lesser evil. If the woke threat ever goes away, we can go back to the discussion about making somewhat-bigger-government into smaller-government, but I personally think positioning it as "both are equally impure and there's no difference" to me is childish and silly.
Imagine if you will the early Christians, hiding in the catacombs. Leaders are debating amongst themselves about missionary plans for the future. One stands up and says "You know, the sun-worshippers have a lot in common with us, and on a few issues they really aren't that bad, maybe we should join up with them instead of calling them demons. At least we'd get a few wins in the books!"
Perhaps they would have been right about the sun worshippers being preferable to the other pagans. Perhaps such a combination might even have achieved some noteworthy goals in the second century. But it is overwhelmingly likely that such a move by Rome's Christians would have precluded the future Constantine, and the empire would never have been converted to Christianity.
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