This week I was co-hosting a YouTube interview courtesy of the San Francisco Review of Books. My cohost for this weekly program, Joseph Cotto, and I had brought on as our guest the Libertarian candidate in the New Jersey senatorial race Murray Sabrin. Murray, whose friendship I have enjoyed for decades, is polling somewhere upward from one percent, while Republican candidate Bob Hugin is only trailing the scandal-ridden Democratic incumbent Robert Menendez by a few points. The question I kept asking Murray, directly and indirectly, is why he bothers to stay in this race, given the improbability that he’ll be a significant factor in its outcome. Murray had run in other statewide races in which he polled several points higher. But what Murray is selling, a combination of moral traditionalism (he is pro-life and pro-traditional marriage) and an “end to the welfare-warfare state”, has about as much chance of attracting a sizable number of votes in an East Coast state like New Jersey as Elizabeth Warren would at a gathering of the National Right to Life.

According to Murray, there are over two million voters in his state who are not affiliated with either party; and he believes it’s possible to draw them toward his candidacy by explaining to them the benefits of voluntarism. Voters, Murray insists, should be given the chance to invest in their own retirement plans rather than have to pay into a government program that may be doomed to bankruptcy. They should also be allowed to create their own insurance arrangements for medical care after they retire instead of being forced to contribute to Medicare. Murray is further convinced that if voters only knew how much money is being poured into the “warfare state” they would support his policy of avoiding overseas military commitments.  Most of all, Murray is incensed that there is so little space between Hugins and Menendez when they talk about social issues and spending programs. He kept assuring us that if the media allowed him into the debates between the “D and R candidates,” then the voters would be open to his positions.

I personally would be delighted if Murray became a U.S. senator from New Jersey and for full disclosure, sent him money for a past political campaign. But it’s hard to believe that millions of voters would flow to this septuagenarian professor of economics if only they were “informed.” Nor do I accept Murray’s faith that people are eager to return to the “founding principles of this republic” and to abandon “government centralization in favor of localism.” What evidence is there for this in his state?  Why shouldn’t I believe that Menendez’s Republican opponent, who favors a large centralized welfare state, extensive abortion rights, and gay marriage, is not on board with New Jersey voters?

According to Murray, “our two parties are just interested in winning votes.” That may be true, but it’s also safe to assume that opportunistic politicians win votes by promising voters what they already want. I can’t imagine that liberty or strict constitutional limits on the power of the administrative state is anything of special value to most New Jersey voters. Murray admitted as much when he explained that college-educated women mostly want different things from what he’s offering. The dominant interests of this demographic are government protection against what women regard as “discrimination,” government programs that will specifically benefit them, and lots of abortion rights. It may be a bridge too far for Murray to reach these voters.

Although emotionally and morally I’m with Murray, we should recognize that his stands don’t resonate with voters in large parts of our country. And even in areas in which one finds social conservatives and apparent advocates of decentralized government, voters are not likely to accept any major rollback of the welfare state. It’s one thing for Republican politicians to announce “government is the problem” or that their party is committed to “getting government off our backs.” It’s another matter to scare voters by advocating sizable cuts in entitlement programs or to speak about entirely “privatizing” medical care.   

We also have to be more precise when we refer to ‘the people” or even “the voters.” Those in the Republican media, and not only my friend Murray, identify the populace with those on their side. Or else with those who would side with them if only they were properly “informed.” The reason people are not acting politically as they should is that those at the top are supposedly concealing the truth. But there is no reason to assume that political choices are made on the basis of received and verified data. Emotions and prejudice may be more important factors in all social classes in shaping political attitudes. This was made obvious to me earlier in the week when I heard an impassioned black activist on Fox News attack Trump as a “Nazi” and presumably raging anti-Semite. Another black guest pointed out that in view of the president’s extensive Jewish and Zionist connections it would be hard to prove that he’s anti-Semitic. The anti-Trump black persisted in leveling the same charge, not because it’s provable but because for personal or ethnic reasons, he hated our Republican president. This hate led him into ignoring the economic improvement in the black community that has taken place under the current administration. But again I would doubt that “lack of information” had anything to do with the feelings expressed. Just as I doubt that women who vote against the Republicans as the “sexist” party are totally ignorant of the far greater problem of sexual predation in the party they support. Loyalties and hostilities are not always reducible to a question of information.