On the “Takeover,” Party Purges, and the 3Ds

The following article was submitted to LNC News by the Mises Caucus of Florida on July 28, 2026.

We keep hearing talk about “takeovers” and “purges.” Let’s be clear.

We’re not Communists. We don’t purge people because they disagree with us.

Political organizations are supposed to have debate. People should disagree. They should challenge leadership, offer competing ideas, organize, recruit, persuade, and ultimately let members decide. What we oppose is something different.

Too often, opposition to building an effective Libertarian Party follows what we call the 3Ds: Deny, Disrupt, Destroy.

• Deny people meaningful access to party activity.
• Disrupt the work of people who are actually organizing.
• Destroy the organization’s ability to take sustained political action.

Sometimes people doing this may not even recognize the pattern. For decades, a culture has existed within parts of the Libertarian Party where staying small is treated almost as a virtue — endless internal procedure, ideological gatekeeping, personal feuds, and cycles of infighting while Republicans and Democrats build political machines around us. That cannot be our model.

And we should reject any arrangement in which Libertarian candidates exist primarily to advance another political party’s electoral strategy. Republicans and Democrats will naturally calculate whether a Libertarian candidate helps or hurts them. That is politics. Our responsibility is different: build a Libertarian Party strong enough to advance libertarian objectives on its own terms.

Coalition-building is not surrender. We should work with Republicans when they are right. Work with Democrats when they are right. Work with independents, populists, Bitcoiners, MAHA activists, antiwar voters, civil-liberties organizations, and anyone else when there is genuine common ground. But a coalition has to produce something for our mission, too.

The goal is not to become somebody else’s auxiliary organization. The goal is to grow a political movement capable of influencing — and eventually directly competing in — American politics.

The 2024 Libertarian National Convention offered an example of using access as leverage. Whatever anyone thought of Angela McArdle’s strategy of engaging Donald Trump, the encounter produced public commitments on libertarian priorities, including Ross Ulbricht and including libertarian voices in an administration. The Mises Caucus itself described those commitments at the time as evidence that the LP could exert political influence rather than simply observing from the sidelines. That is the larger lesson.

Don’t shrink from the political process. Engage it. Build. Negotiate. Organize. Recruit. And make people compete for the liberty vote.

That’s the decentralized revolution.

Read more on what is causing all the party infighting here.

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