On Routing a Political Party
Political parties that stop serving the purposes of their members and voters, in favor of the interests of their leaders or their candidates need to get what they deserve, “good and hard.”
Dear Friends,
Our country is going through some incredibly exciting times as we approach the 250th year of the American experiment. Historical events are happening every week and we’re more exposed to the entire world than ever before. It’s all a bit overwhelming.
Politics has been part of my life since I was a kid at Maricopa county meetings with my father. We would gather ballot access signatures together, driving around Phoenix with a list of voters who supported our political party, because they were the most likely to sign. He drove, I navigated.
The responses we got at the door of fellow supporters were invigorating. We all got a sense of working together to build an Arizona that would be even better than it used to be, back when his father moved there from Indiana in the early 1940s because the dry climate was better for his tuberculosis-scarred lungs.
I got a sense of the ability to apply our efforts together with other people to create the kind of world we wanted to live in. It was a gift that has shaped my life in so many ways. Like so mane gifts we are given by our parents, we don’t know how valuable they really are until it is too late to tell them.1
My father Frank Sarwark is retired from public life, much like Sandra Day O’Connor did near the end, and for more or less the same reasons. The last time I saw him, he couldn’t speak properly, with random sounds coming out where there used to be funny stories and dad jokes, and the intersting trivia he had read in the Arizona Republic that morning.
In 2000, I brought my father to his first national political convention in Anaheim, California, where Harry Browne was nominated for the second time to run as a Libertarian. Living in Maryland for college, I was also on the Board of the state Libertarian Party and a delegate for Don Gorman, a tugboat captain and state legislator from New Hampshire.2 Bringing the man who used to drive me around to gather signatures to the biggest event in American politics, the nominating convention was a joyous experience that will always make me feel better to remember.
Sixteen years later, the 2016 Libertarian National Convention was held in Orlando, Florida, where we nominated Gary Johnson and Bill Weld, who would go on to become the most successful ticket in Libertarian Party history.3 My father wasn’t able to attend, but I wouldn’t have been able to hang out with him anyway, since I was busy presiding as Chair of the Libertarian National Committee. We got him backstage to meet Gary Johnson at his Phoenix rally later that year, along with the rest of our family.
It’s eight years later now, 24 years after that first convention in Anaheim, and politics have gotten weird. Parties used to be like rival football teams, where you may not put the same jersey on when you went to watch the game, but your neighbors who did were still good people. And you said something when a fan from the other team took it too far, or when a team cheated. Fans wouldn’t stand for it, owners got fired, etc.
Today is, by the way, the 50th anniversary of Richard Nixon resigning to avoid impeachment. He was a pivotal actor in making our politics better, by first making them much, much worse. We wouldn’t have had the Church Commission, or the prosperity of the 1990s and 1980s if Tricky Dick hadn’t been caught cheating to win an election. The people prevailed, like they always do in the end.4
A little over a month ago, a coalition of long-time Democratic Party insiders, with the assistance of a media that needs to sell TV ads and newspapers, took a shot at Joe Biden after his bad debate performance. Politically, it seemed like a mistake and a recipe for Democrats snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Maybe it would have been, had Joe Biden not done the most unlikely thing, something that hasn’t been done in over 200 years. He set power aside for the good of the country and in response to the people.5
The way he did it made all the difference.
He worked behind the scenes to support Kamala Harris, protecting his Vice President from the people who wanted to throw her out with him.
He put her first.
Political parties are made up of the people who show up. The ones who show up to do the work. The ones who show up to vote. The ones who show up with time and treasure. And the ones who show up to run.
But they all have to work together as a team.
What we’re seeing in the national political scene is a contrast between campaigns that are oriented around the ambition of a single leader, and those campaigns that are oriented around a goal that is larger and more important than any single leader.
American politics converges around two dominant political parties for a period of time, until there is a crisis that changes the alignment, and new parties emerge with old ones collapsing. The parties have realigned at least six times since the founding, and they are due to get realigned again.
Political parties that are struggling get desperate and start threatening their base supporters, telling them that they have to come out to vote for the candidate now, so that they can fix the problems later. Later never comes.
Political parties have to suffer a rout in order to be reborn.
It happened to the Conservatives in the United Kingdom just a few weeks ago, not only did Labour come out ahead, but the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK worked to make sure that it was not a mere defeat for the Conservatives, but a solid trouncing.
They did it by targeting the Conservative voters who wouldn’t switch across to Labour, but might “send a message” by voting for a smaller party that is either more liberal or more populist than the voter wants.
Elections express the preferences of the voters in aggregate, but if you analyze the data, you can see who is being served and who is dissatisfied with the candidates they are being given by political party leaders.
The most critical part of any trial is jury selection, and in a criminal trial, a verdict must be unanimous. Helping jurors understand that it is not only their right to have a different view of the case than the other jurors, it is their obligation to stand up for their beliefs even in the face of peer pressure from a group of folks who really want them to change their mind.
People can do it, but you have to empower them, teach them the techniques they need to advocate for themselves, for their views, their values, and their preferences.
Being a part of a smaller political party provides a taste of what it’s like to be told that you should put your sincerely held values aside to “go along” with the group. If you believe the drug war is immoral, voting for a person who will continue it is taking part in that moral act.
Voting is a moral act, but political parties want you to think of it like sports. Picking teams is a matter of taste, but picking leaders is a matter of ethics.
Don't ever let a political party tell you who you have to vote for. Parties are built for the success of parties. When a party tells you you have to vote for someone who offends your ethics, they are telling you that they put their interests over your moral sensibility.
If someone aks you to do something wrong, you don’t have to participate. You should always do what’s right, even if it makes some people upset. You can vote your conscience. And you should.
There are some good people running for office in America right now and you should support them. There are some bad people running for office in America reight now and you should do what you can to make sure they don’t prevail.
That’s what my father would want me to do, and that’s what I hope my children do when they grow up.
Yours truly,
Nick
P.S. Thank you for reading and please feel free to share this with your friends if you think it will be of value to them.
If your parents did something for you when you are young that you are grateful for today, and they are still able to communicate, cal them or write them to tell them. That opportunity never comes back. Eulogies are powerful, but it’s infinitely better to give them while the person is alive.
Don and I kept in touch after that election, with me inviting him down to American University to give a political training class to our activists, and later me getting to take him to lunch in Manchester before my 2020 run for Hillsborough County Attorney.
So far.
If they haven’t prevailed yet, it’s not the end..
Also lost me a bunch of money, since I hadn’t hedged against a sitting President withdrawing after he had won the primaries.
No mention of LBJ?
"I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president."