Economic Liberty Now Has No Place In Either Party

The rise of neopopulism means those who prioritize free markets have no political home.

For years, populists on both the left and right have griped that Washington is in the thrall of libertarians, market fundamentalists, or perhaps neoliberals—despite the rarity of any politically powerful figure identifying as such.  

Recent events should put those complaints to rest: With the elevation of Sen. J.D. Vance (R–Ohio) to the Republican presidential ticket, and, in a different way, Vice President Kamala Harris, American politics is now in the grips of a kind of neopopulism, one implicitly founded on the rejection of that synthesis, and in particular on the abandonment of the free-market, limited-government worldview. 

That, in turn, has created a new class of politically homeless: Call them fusionists, call them classical liberals, call them libertarians—but those who prioritize economic liberty have essentially no place in either major party. That's a significant shift away from foundational American values—and an unsettling departure from the worldview that made America prosperous and powerful. 

The transformation is clearest in the GOP, thanks to the elevation of Vance to the GOP presidential ticket. Vance, according to most accounts, was selected in a moment of confidence, as an heir apparent meant to extend and intensify Donald Trump's core appeal rather than as a counterweight to the former president's electoral weaknesses. 

Vance spent the last half-decade transforming himself into one of the GOP's most prominent neopopulists. He's an advocate of tariffs and trade restrictions, a walker of auto-worker picket lines, and a harsh critic of foreign labor. He's even complimented Lina Khan, the Federal Trade Commission chair who has helped lead the Biden administration's newly aggressive (if mostly unsuccessful) approach to antitrust enforcement. Vance, who is among those who have a habit of taking swipes at libertarians, combines a rejection of individual liberty with a rejection of economic liberty—and he's Trump's newly anointed successor. 

Modern Democrats have never exactly been the party of limited government. But Harris looks primed to expand on the big-government largesse of the Biden era, during which the party pursued a variety of policies designed to prop up labor unions and industrial policy to support favored industries and factory jobs through multiple large-scale spending bills.

That spending legislation was followed by, and helped cause, the largest inflation spike in four decades. So now Harris is also running on a policy of prohibiting food and grocery price gouging. Some Harris backers have defended the policy as merely an exercise in antitrust enforcement, but critics have argued quite persuasively that the policy as described amounts to a worrying new system of federal price controls. 

She's also proposing a large-scale program of subsidies for first-time home buyers, paired with $40 billion in tax incentives for builders to construct new homes.  

If Biden was a big government liberal, then Harris is a bigger government liberal. 

What's striking about this particular political moment is that on both the left and the right, a new elite consensus appears to be forming, one that is skeptical of, and in some cases quite hostile to, free market ideals and principles. 

The neopopulist consensus is still rough, but in broad terms, it favors propping up domestic labor, cracking down on immigration, using taxes and spending incentives to carry out industrial policy, and implementing tariffs and trade restrictions for reasons of national security, job creation, or international competitiveness. Notably, the Biden administration left most of Trump's tariffs in place—and in some cases increased them. 

Whatever their other disagreements, the leaders and rising intellectuals in both parties seem to agree that the important thing is to leave out classical liberals, libertarians, and believers in economic liberty. 

It's true that the parties have never fully embraced these values, and at times have distanced themselves from them. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), a self-described socialist, has long helped pull Democrats to the left on economics. Former President George W. Bush implemented tariffs on imported steel, and his brand of "compassionate conservatism" was partly an attempt to dampen the party's libertarian tendencies. 

Until recently, there was a place for those who prized individual freedom and markets. They were seen as valuable, or at least necessary, partners: As recently as 2012, none other than Democratic stalwart Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) pitched herself to libertarians. That same year, former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R–Wisc.), who was probably most well-known for proposals to reform entitlements, appeared on the GOP ticket. Trump's first vice president, Mike Pence, was similarly a link to the GOP's Reaganite past.

There may be some holdouts in the party who still embrace a more orthodox pro-market economics. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson's Republican National Convention speech paid homage to the "core principles of American conservatism," which included "fiscal responsibility," "free markets," and "limited government." But with Trump and Vance as the party's reigning avatars, it seems likely that these values will remain only as limp, legacy platitudes. 

That's a shame. Personal liberty and market freedom are bedrock American political and economic values: That synthesis is explicit in the American founding, and it has long been deeply embedded in American life. In the 1830s, when America was still a young nation, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that "boldness of enterprise is the foremost cause of its rapid progress, its strength, and its greatness." That boldness has made America wealthy on a scale that is almost taken for granted: Today, the vast majority of American states are richer than most European countries. The neopopulists take this wealth for granted, and then propose policies—tariffs, labor regulations, vast new spending programs—that would make America poorer, that would slow its progress, that would deplete its strength and greatness. 

The rise of neopopulism, and its rejection of the free market, means that those who still favor boldness of enterprise have no one to root for in this year's presidential contest. 

What are the politically homeless to do? Besides mourning—and, perhaps, drinking—they can advocate for narrowly focused cross-partisan dealmaking. This is, after all, where some of the country's most effective—if not always most heralded—policy advances, from prison reform to pot legalization, have come from. And they can lay the groundwork for a comeback, by building (or modifying) institutions to support their ideas, understanding that this approach may take years to pay off. 

Mostly, they can look beyond the current moment, knowing that their outlook is embedded in America's constitutional design, with its checks and balances, judicial review, suspicion of both mob enthusiasms and individual power, and guarantees of individual rights.

In the meantime, if nothing else, today's politically homeless can take solace in the fact that at least no one can credibly complain that libertarians are in charge right now.