You’re just not accurately describing American libertarianism…it does, indeed, have wealthy people behind it, because American libertarians also loves a strong state that can fix regulations in their favour. Peter Thiel and some of the Koch’s are “libertarians”, ffs. “Freedom for me but not thee”, etc. American libertarianism is synonymous with hypocritical.

I think what’s happening here is you’re describing the Dave Smith party/partisan type libertarians, and not the movement at large. The niche that runs a presidential candidate and puts small business owners on stage at the convention is a “boutique” brand of libertarianism, and doesn’t represent the much larger group of people who, for example, Donald Trump shows up and tries to woo: yeah, he got bood in the building…but he was talking to the broader libertarian movement, some of whom were threatening to abandon his coalition - and it appears to have worked.

I mean…I stand by what I said…your definitions weren’t accurate…but knowing that you’re a Marxist now means this is likely just an “academic” issue. Your leftist definition was confusing without that context. I don’t call myself a Marxist because I don’t look at Marxism as a template for a political system, but rather an effective way to moderate capitalism. But I also think everybody who talks about economics is a Marxist to one degree or another. I’m likely preaching to the choir here…but the genius of Marx isn’t that he outlined a functioning communist state…but rather that he gave us a philosophical foundation for why capitalism cannot work, and how socialism can - full stop, end of story.

I don’t care for anarchists, really…even tho I occasionally caucus with them. I used to hate them as much as right libertarians - horse shoe theory and all - but I’ve softened because it’s time to coalesce…strategy almost doesn’t matter any more…we need action. I am super thankful they haven’t been polluting “our” protests to the degree they used to.