> or the blog post he wrote for Cato in 2009 lamenting that women had obtained the right to vote?
He said no such thing in that article[1]. I have no idea about the rest, or about Thiel in general, but I did read the article. Your statement is as bad and inaccurate as any one-liner soundbite on right wing media.
The section in question (emphasis mine):
As one fast-forwards to 2009, the prospects for a
*libertarian politics* appear grim indeed. Exhibit A
is a financial crisis caused by too much debt and
leverage, facilitated by a government that insured
against all sorts of moral hazards — and we know that
the response to this crisis involves way more debt and
leverage, and way more government. Those who have
argued for free markets have been screaming into a
hurricane. The events of recent months shatter any
remaining hopes of *politically minded* libertarians.
For those of us who are libertarian in 2009, our
education culminates with the knowledge that the
broader education of the body politic has become a
fool’s errand.
Indeed, even more pessimistically, the trend has been
going the wrong way for a long time. To return to
finance, the last economic depression in the United
States that did not result in massive government
intervention was the collapse of 1920–21. It was sharp
but short, and entailed the sort of Schumpeterian
“creative destruction” that could lead to a real boom.
The decade that followed — the roaring 1920s — was so
strong that historians have forgotten the depression
that started it. The 1920s were the last decade in
American history during which one could be genuinely
optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast
increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of
the franchise to women — two constituencies that are
notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the
notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.
He's talking about the poor receptivity he (and apparently other libertarians?) believe those groups have to libertarian ideals, specifically of getting them to vote for libertarian policies; he's not lamenting their existence per se.
Indeed, there's a follow-up on this exact topic posted at the bottom of the article:
It would be absurd to suggest that women’s votes will
be taken away or that this would solve the political
problems that vex us. While I don’t think any class of
people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope
that voting will make things better.
And finally:
I believe that politics is way too intense. That’s why
I’m a libertarian. Politics gets people angry, destroys
relationships, and polarizes peoples’ vision: the world
is us versus them; good people versus the other.
He may be naive or disillusioned or depressed or whatever, but your misleading soundbite perfectly illustrated his point.
[1] https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...