Hello there, I'm Chuck Todd.

This is the Chuck Todd cast.

You'll be forgiven for wondering whether the Republican Party still has an engaged libertarian

wing when you consider the way the party's been legislating particularly on the state level

in recent months.

Many lawmakers at the federal and state levels have focused bills around bans and restrictions.

There are threats of a TikTok ban because of national security concerns, the banning

of some children's books in Florida, a new Utah law, restricting children's social media

use.

These are just a few in a list of policies that have made their way through conservative

state legislatures.

Some of them have actually passed on a bipartisan basis.

Earlier today though, it is notable and today being Wednesday for those of you wondering

as you're listening this week, Senator Rand Paul, the party's closest libertarian stalwart

these days, did break from his Republican colleagues on opposing a federal ban on TikTok

arguing that it is a form of censorship to similar to the kind carried out by the Chinese

government itself.

So all of this though does raise an important question.

Where is the state of libertarianism?

Both parties talk about freedom these days when it's convenient and neither party seems

to be totally, let's say, free from not being libertarian on certain things.

So where is the libertarian movement headed?

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