Iowa's First Libertarian Officeholder Just Called Out Both Parties — and He's Running for Senate
Everybody says third parties can't win. Greene County, Iowa just ran the live test — twice.
Dr. Thomas Laehn won as a Libertarian in 2018 and again in 2022 — first Libertarian to hold partisan office in Iowa history. Now he's running for U.S. Senate on one banner: People over party.
Both parties keep selling the lesser of two evils. Laehn's pitch: keep voting that way and you're still voting for the system.
Negative Partisanship Is the Trap
About 30% of Iowans are registered independents — more than Democrats. Voters stuck in negative partisanship vote to stop the other team. Both parties know it — negative ads forever. Laehn left the GOP over the hypocrisy and still calls himself a conservative: conserve the Constitution.
Majorities Both Parties Ignore
Term limits? ~88% want them. Choking big money after Citizens United? Overwhelming. In Iowa, 78% oppose eminent domain for private farmland grabs. Frame: people vs. a parasitic elected class — not Red vs. Blue.
Executive Power Creep
He says he was the only Iowa county attorney who refused to enforce Biden's vaccine mandate. Mirror flip: a president cannot invent crimes by executive order. Same pattern on undeclared wars — heart of his book-in-progress, The Domestication of War.
One Term. No PAC Strings.
If elected: one six-year Senate term. Individual donors only. Nearly 10k petition signatures. Campaign: laehn4iowa.org.
Educated. Enlightened. Informed. 🎧 Listen to TBNS 1099 · Guest: Dr. Thomas Laehn
Host
I'm Brian Nichols... and I spent years watching the liberty movement lose arguments it should've won.
Not because the ideas were wrong. Because nobody knew how to sell them. That's where I come in.
I come from the world of sales and marketing - helping businesses communicate better, close more deals, and actually solve real problems. Somewhere along the way, I realized those same skills translate directly to politics, policy, and culture. So that's what TBNS is.
Sales. Business. Politics. Health. Taught like a real human talks. No partisan cosplay. No debating obscure philosophy. Just practical conversations about what actually works - one episode at a time.
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