Who Is Really Playing Theater?

The Claim

End The LP dismisses the Libertarian Party as "theater-kid roleplaying and intra-party infighting." It's a clever rhetorical move — painting principled people as LARPers to avoid engaging their arguments. But consider the source.

The "Serious" Parties' Track Record

The Republican and Democratic parties — the "serious" options — have delivered:

• $36+ trillion in national debt, accumulated through bipartisan agreement to spend more than the government collects, every single year.
• 20+ years of war in Afghanistan, ending in a chaotic withdrawal that left billions in weapons behind — after both parties promised it would be over "soon" for two decades.
• The Iraq War, launched on false pretenses, which destabilized an entire region and cost thousands of American lives and trillions of dollars.
• The 2008 financial crisis, enabled by bipartisan deregulation of mortgage markets followed by bipartisan trillion-dollar bailouts of the banks that caused it.
• The highest inflation in 40 years (2021-2023), caused by bipartisan money printing and spending during COVID.
• The War on Drugs, a 50-year bipartisan failure that has imprisoned millions, decimated communities, and cost $1 trillion — without reducing drug use.

What the LP Said

On virtually every one of these disasters, the Libertarian Party was on record opposing it — often decades before the consequences became undeniable:

• The LP opposed the Iraq War before it started
• The LP has opposed deficit spending since its founding in 1971
• The LP has called for ending the War on Drugs since the 1970s
• LP economists warned about the housing bubble before 2008
• The LP opposed the COVID spending programs that fueled inflation

Who is playing theater — the people who were right and got ignored, or the people who were wrong and kept getting elected?

Internal Debate Is Democratic

Yes, the LP has had internal conflicts. So has every political party in American history. The Republican primary in 2016 featured 17 candidates and months of public infighting. The Democratic Party split over Vietnam, over civil rights, over abortion. Internal debate is not a sign of a dysfunctional fringe — it's a sign of a living democratic institution wrestling with real questions.

Conclusion

The parties that bankrupted the country, fought unnecessary wars, imprisoned millions for victimless crimes, and bailed out the banks that caused the 2008 crash are not in a position to call anyone "not serious." The LP has been right about almost everything the major parties got catastrophically wrong. That's not theater. That's principle under pressure.