Grace and elegance: those are the two words that best characterize the moment Rand Paul dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination. There was no feeling of loss, much less tragedy. It was a good run and he made his points, and rose above the clamor. The voters, in a different mood this season, weren’t buying it.

Republicans — the activists still remaining in the party — don’t want to hear about the blowback of U.S. foreign policy, don’t want to hear about the injustice of “criminal justice,” and don’t even want to hear about cutting government. It’s not the year for that. The GOP hasn’t been this in love with government since the days of Hoover.

Commentators from all sides have noted how much Rand’s absence has diminished the intellectual climate of this political season. True, things didn’t go as planned, and the turn of events were a surprise to me. Only a few months after I had speculated what a Rand presidency would be like, I was writing a retrospective dated September 15, 2015. By the time he dropped his bid, he had established himself as a serious person, a new voice in politics that challenges conventions, and laid the groundwork for a future for liberty. This is all to the good.

Looking back, it appears that the appearance of both Trump and Sanders changed everything for him. He set out to be the outsider, the rebel bucking the party establishment and taking on the powers that be. The role was taken from him by the rise of louder, populist, and more demagogic voices from the left and right, both of which attracted what would have otherwise been his base. Crucially, both Trump and Sanders have a gigantic agenda for the state to enact; Rand, in contrast, came with a list of things government shouldn’t be doing.

I have no insider knowledge of the man or the campaign, but my spider sense is that he knew exactly what was happening. He was being outgunned by fanaticism from either side. He was surrounded by men with dog whistles and their respective constituents were being called forth.

Rand faced a choice. Would he try to outdo them in their frenzied campaigns that draw on demonizing others — immigrants on one side and the rich on the other — or would he keep his integrity and speak clearly and coherently about real problems and solutions? He chose the latter route, knowing that it probably wouldn’t pick up any support; quite the opposite.

After the surge Trump experienced in August of 2015, I can recall thinking: if this is what primary voters want, no person of integrity should seek to win. In fact, a loss would be to anyone’s credit. I do wonder if Rand was thinking something similar.

It must have required a mental adjustment in light of all the talk of the “libertarian moment” and his prospects for riding that wave. What if, however, that whole libertarian moment thing was an illusion, or, at the very most, a temporary and unsustainable mood adopted by a small minority? All the evidence suggests it was, at least, wildly overblown, given that so many of the folks who were supposed to be part of this moment turned so easily to back two of the least-libertarian candidates in the race.

It’s become increasingly clear over the last several years that those who imagined a country-wide political groundswell for liberty were not looking closely enough. Today, many of those same people who were said to constitute a base are now demoralized, and turning towards indifference or cynicism or both — the sad result of inflated political expectations. The libertarian diaspora is upon us. We are back to the hard work of cultivating a culture of liberty rather than seeking political victories.

This is precisely why Liberty.me exists. It is not a political solution. It is a life solution. It draws us into a productive relationship with each other so that we can discover practical ways of acting building a sustainable liberty. It is not a tool for gaining power over anything but our own lives. In this way, it is a more productive solution to the problem of human freedom. It doesn’t take the illusory shortcut that politics seems to offer. It cultivates habits of mind and life that seeks actionable solutions.

That’s not enough for people who have developed a taste for blood. They want movements. They want leaders. They want victories. With that desire comes a demand for homogeneity in thought and uniformity in action. This requires litmus tests, smears, and purges. Public persuasion requires propaganda, manipulation, and fear mongering. And with all that ultimately comes moral corruption. What begins with a beautiful ideal ends in the loss of soul.

Rand knows this. He has been around the block a few times. He sees how politics at the national level works. He doesn’t have the stomach for it, and for that he deserves credit. He never wanted to be the leader of a national movement. He followed the injunction given by Ludwig von Mises in 1927: it will not be with banners, flags, songs, and rallies that liberty will win but through rational argument. Even the best political campaign cannot bypass that step.

Waiting for politics to grant us liberty is a sure path to failure. Liberty emerges from below as an extension of the choices we make and the lives we lead. If the libertarian diaspora inspires people to see and act on the truth, it will be all to the good.