So writes Michael Lind (New America Foundation) in Thursday's Financial Times. Lind argues that every significant proposal of America's libertarians has been rejected by elected representatives and the public, and we can now expect a shift in what is considered the political center.The "demise of socialism and libertarianism" will limit the field to "moderate social democracy and big-government conservatism" Lind believes. The limited options will coincide with growing top-bottom divide between globalist elites in favor of mass immigration and promoters of populism and nationalism. (Pat Buchanan charges a "third-world conquest of America" in a book to be released this week.) "If this replaces the older horizontal left-right divide" then a "third way" may emerge Lind speculates, which "positions itself between the crudest forms of populism and utopian forms of transnationalism."
"The libertarian moment has passed. It will not come again, and its defeat as a force in US politics will change the definitions of right, left and center -not just in the US but also, the world."
