Nicholas Sarwark, the head of the Libertarian National Committee from 2014 to 2020, recently attacked the nation’s largest libertarian think-tank, the Cato Institute. On Bluesky, he reposted an attack on the Cato Institute, saying that “No real libertarians would work at Cato or Scalia Law or AfP. Those are at the top institutions of authoritarianism and control — the opposite of libertarianism.”
The attack came in a Bluesky thread that attacked Cato Institute scholar Ilya Somin, a high-profile advocate of free trade, as a “paid” shill for a “fake-libertarian oligarch institute” — a disparaging reference to the Cato Institute. Somin, who is also a law professor, had brought a lawsuit challenging certain tariffs that led to the Court of International Trade declaring those tariffs unlawful. The court issued an injunction against those tariffs, that has temporarily been stayed by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.
Sarwark has also reposted many Bluesky posts supporting the self-described “Democratic Socialist” candidate for mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani. Zohran Mamdani supports having government-run grocery stores, even though they lead to rotting food of certain types and shortages of other types of food. Socialist Mamdani also supports arbitrary, extreme restrictions on rent that would leave landlords with too little money to maintain housing units, turning much of New York into a slum. The extreme restrictions that Mamdani backs would prevent rent from rising with inflation, even when landlords need to raise rent to keep up with inflation in order to maintain their properties. Mamdani is a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Nicholas Sarwark has also peddled the idea that “what the Democratic Party is doing” is “generally good.” As Kevin Langston pointed out, “Sarwark defended Joe Biden’s student loan bailout, which would cost taxpayers at least $427 billion, and perhaps well over $1 trillion. It was blocked by the Supreme Court as illegal…All libertarian and conservative economists think the bailout is a bad idea,” as did moderate Democrats like Matthew Yglesias. And “Sarwark likes government handouts, approvingly retweeting a leftist who claims that Christians can’t be Republicans because Republicans support cutting welfare spending.”
BELOW ARE SCREENSHOTS OF SOME OF THE BLUESKY POSTS ATTACKING THE CATO INSTITUTE & ILYA SOMIN:
Below are some of the relevant posts on Bluesky, such as this one found at https://bsky.app/profile/protecttruth.bsky.social/post/3lrbsfptxd223
Reposted by Nicholas Sarwark
No real libertarians would work at Cato or Scalia Law or AfP. Those are at the top institutions of authoritarianism and control — the opposite of libertarianism.
— Eric Blair (@protecttruth.bsky.social) 2025-06-10T21:07:59.733Z
The attack came in a thread on Bluesky that attacked Ilya Somin, the B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute.
The thing about Ilya Somin is that he’s paid by Charles Koch at Scalia Law.And Koch pays Tom Cotton and Ron Johnson and other Repubs who support the utterly bogus emergencies to destroy the US Constitution.Being a libertarian is fine; working at a fake-libertarian oligarch institute is not.
— Eric Blair (@protecttruth.bsky.social) 2025-06-10T21:02:22.781Z
No real libertarians would work at Cato or Scalia Law or AfP. Those are at the top institutions of authoritarianism and control — the opposite of libertarianism.
Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social· 5d
Libertarians at Cato and in the Fed Soc: the deer
Rightwing billionaires without whose money Cato and the Fed Soc would not exist: the leopard
(The above Bluesky thread is also found at https://bsky.app/profile/protecttruth.bsky.social/post/3lrbs3oizmc23)
