Voices: A socialist, an anarchist and a libertarian walk into a bar...

Willie Burnley Jr | Emerson College

Corrections and clarifications: A previous version of this article misnamed the state Sen. Rand Paul represents.

In today’s hyper-partisan environment, many Americans have become dissatisfied with the performance of both political parties. In 2014, only 15% of Republicans or Democrats approved of Congress, according to a recent Gallup poll.

After years of watching political gridlock, some Millennials are turning to more obscure political parties.

Jacqueline Parchois, a student at Texas State University, began researching third parties in her junior year of high school after deciding that she didn’t want to associate with groups that were unrepresentative of her interests. That research led her to identify as a Libertarian.

“Libertarianism means to me that the government has limited powers and capabilities. The core beliefs being that the government is there to protect and safeguard our liberties, not to tell us what we can or cannot do,” Parchois says in an e-mail.

Considering herself socially liberal and fiscally conservative, Parchois believes that Libertarianism is the moderate choice between Republicans and Democrats. That said, she doesn’t believe in a “libertarian party” -- mainly because it's unlikely that one could break into the United States’ two-party system.

“I definitely see an increase in people identifying more with the libertarian ‘party,’ but I don't think there is a broad enough support to win any major elections,” Parchois says. She adds that the lack of a party platform allows for a wider spectrum of Libertarianism.

The main planks of the Libertarian Party Platform are based on the importance of personal and economic liberties. It's the contention that the government should not infringe upon the rights of private businesses -- going along with the logic of limited government and the protection of personal property and choice -- that has made Libertarians both lauded and criticized.

Rand Paul (R-KY), arguably the highest-profile Libertarian in Congress, highlighted the legislative limits Libertarianism allows in a recent interview with the Louisville Courier-Journal.

In the video below, Paul tentatively asserts his ideological opposition to the Civil Rights Act’s ending of segregation in private businesses, based on his belief that what people do with their private property should not be infringed upon by the government.

Ricky Downes III, a senior at Emerson College, takes issue with Paul for stating that Eric Garner -- an unarmed, black man in Staten Island whose death and lack of trial intensified protests against police brutality -- died for breaking a cigarette tax law.

Downes began identifying as a Libertarian after he says he realized the bigotry and prejudice embedded within the extreme conservatism he grew up with were incompatible with his Catholic beliefs. He believes that Libertarians could make an exception for legislation like the Civil Rights Act.

He is a registered independent.

Like Parchois, Downes believes that Libertarianism combines the best of the two-major parties and could better the country. To do this, though, requires a restructuring of the federal government and its scope.

“I think the FDA should be applied for regulating larger corporations and businesses. But state-level agencies should be implemented for smaller businesses and local farms,” Downes says.

At the opposite end of the political spectrum from those who believe our right to have our private property not infringed upon are those who don’t believe in private property at all.

Ali Reitzel, a sophomore at Emerson College, says she has “always been too leftist and too radical” to identify with Republican and Democratic beliefs. She identifies as an anarcho-socialist. She has not yet registered for a party, but believes her political affiliation is a large part of who she is.

“I am a working class citizen, but I should have the same opportunities that upper-middle class and wealthy citizens have,” Reitzel says in an e-mail. She holds that socialism in the United States would take away the necessity for people to have a certain amount of money or social standing to be able to live well.

A certain amount of anarchy is necessary to tear down the prevailing capitalist system before a socialist government can be put in place, says Reitzel. Believing that governments and societies need to have structure, anarchy is simply the means through which to arrive at a more ideal system.

Toward that end, she makes sure to distinguish herself from the stereotypical view of what an anarchist is.

Unlike individualist anarchism, Reitzel says, “anarcho-socialists believe that personal freedom depends on a sense of community, social equality and mutual aid.”

This is a different path than what Michael Vitz-Wong, also a sophomore at Emerson College, saw growing up in what he calls “far-left Seattle.” Vitz-Wong began identifying as a Democratic Socialist after Kshama Sawant, of the Socialist Alternative Party, won a seat on Seattle’s city council.

A big part of Sawant's campaign was a promise of raising Seattle’s minimum wage to $15, a measure since set in motion.

“When Sawant won a seat, I realized that there was finally real change with a legitimate voice in Seattle politics. I quickly joined Socialist Alternative and haven't looked back,” Vitz-Wong says in an e-mail.

He said the Socialist Alternative provided an escape from the gridlock of the two-party system, “in which the only left choice are Democrats beholden to corporate interests, unable to take any steps forward without bending to the middle in the name of compromise.”

For Vitz-Wong, establishing democratic socialism would mean, in the long-term, democratizing the economy by establishing public ownership of all economic ventures, ending the war on drugs, establishing a single-payer healthcare that covers contraceptives, access to abortion, equal pay for everyone and reigning in police brutality.

In the short-term, it would mean dealing with the consequences of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United case, which allowed super PACs to accept unlimited money to be used in defense of candidates.

“We would start with taxes -- closing tax breaks for big business while taxing the rich,” Vitz-Wong says. “We would reshape the budget to not spend $600 billion on the military industrial complex, instead investing in American jobs by expanding our crumbling infrastructure and a massive move to clean energy.”

He admitted that a democratic socialist state would be both “quite radical and not very likely in today’s political climate,” but held that the Socialist Alternative would still be very influential.



Willie Burnley Jr. is a student at Emerson University and a spring 2015 USA TODAY Collegiate Correspondent.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.