By Thomas R. Eddlem
When the openly neo-Nazi Azov Battalion was officially merged into the Ukrainian Army’s “Offensive Guard” in February 2023, the political establishment sighed in vindication, essentially saying “See! The problem went away!”
This, of course, would not be the political establishment’s opinion if a 2,500-strong Aryan Nations brigade was merged into the US Army. Not even close. One can only imagine the level of political outrage.
Then in September 2023, the Canadian Parliament gave Yaroslav Hunka, a volunteer soldier in a Nazi Waffen-SS unit implicated in hideous war crimes, two standing ovations. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rose with an upward fist too, at the same time.
And still, there was zero outrage from the political establishment.
But let’s consider the particular circumstances in Ukraine: It doesn’t seem very likely that a government with Jewish president Volodymyr Zelenskyy at its head―whatever its legion of other problems are, and there are many―will become openly Nazi. That’s why the political establishment is not honestly worried about the Azov battalion. And while some of the extreme partisans on the other side have also tried to make up some scuttlebutt about Russia having Nazis on their side in the Ukraine War, everyone knows that, with Russia’s history, inventing a narrative that “Russia is like the Nazis” is just as stupid.
This same dynamic has applications to the Libertarian Party.
Over the past few days, the perpetual natterers on Twitter clutched their pearls about an LNC tweet that said Gavin Newsome’s pilgrimage to the State of Israel, whose lobby is a duly designated subsidiary of the Military-Industrial-Surveillance Complex, marked him as being subservient to “the globalist interests of their true masters.” “Don’t you know that this is a reference to a blood libel against the Jews?,” the mainstream tattletales essentially say, without foundation.
A few months ago, former Congressman Joe Walsh (thankfully, not the excellent former James Gang/Eagles guitarist) idiotically fretted in an August interview with Libertarian Party Chair Angela McArdle that the Mises Caucus―and by extension, the party as a whole―was toying with anti-Semitism. His “evidence” is a bunch of inadvisable edgelording/troll tweets by the New Hampshire LP affiliate, none of which were explicitly anti-Jewish.
By comparison, a Nazi takeover of Ukraine is far more plausible than Walsh’s fever dream that the Libertarian Party or even the Mises Caucus majority subdivision of the party had turned anti-Semitic. Indeed, the libertarian movement as a whole, and its Misesian camp in particular, while not an exclusively Jewish movement, has always had among its leaders a disproportionately large number of Jewish people.
The caucus is of course named after Jewish Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises. (Of course, the whole Austrian school of economics, of which Mises was the greatest exponent, was founded by Carl Menger, also Jewish). Most of the Mises Caucus adherents self-describe as “Rothbardians,” after Murray Rothbard, also a famous Jewish economist (among many other talents) and co-founder of the Libertarian Party.
And most of the Misesians’ top heroes today are Jewish, at least ethnically if not also religiously (Jew, like Hindu, is one of those few words that can imply both a religion and an ethnicity): comedian/podcasters David Smith and Robbie Bernstein, economist Walter Block, former vice presidential nominee Spike Cohen, the Libertarian Institute’s Sheldon Richman, podcaster Michael Malice, and on and on. (Let’s also not forget the towering figures of Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand, both of whom enjoy a healthy level of respect among just about all libertarians).
In short, if not for―if I can say it―“the Jews,” there would hardly even be a libertarian movement. So it shouldn’t be difficult to dismiss out of hand any media charges against the party that it is flirting with anti-Semitism.
The political establishment is not honestly concerned that the Libertarian Party is becoming anti-Semitic, or racist, or anything similar to that; they’re just following their old three-W playbook of character assassination: wimmin, waysism and wush-ha (alleged personal sexual exploits, phony racism/anti-Semitism and fake Russia ties).
That’s literally all the Deep State Hydra’s got, and we should take heart in that this means they don’t have anything at all.
Thomas R. Eddlem is a freelance writer published by more than 20 periodicals, including the Libertarian Institute, LewRockwell.com, the Future of Freedom Foundation and this blog. He is also treasurer of the Massachusetts Libertarian Party.