take the long view and build a voter base from the ground up by starting with town councils, county commissioners then state legislators etc etc. I might take 50 years to achieve any level of representation in National Politics but so what.
"So what?" Let me show you what.
Totalitarians have two advantages over libertarians:
1. Totalitarian government enforces its own rules, making it far more difficult for a libertarian revolution to occur. The opposite, of course, is true when a government is libertarian. Would-be totalitarians find it far easier to organize and take over, if the government can and will do little to stop them.
2. Totalitarians are faster. If there's a crisis, we libertarians don't HAVE 50 years. We don't have 50 months, or even 50 days, necessarily.
How long did it take for countries to be taken over by Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler, Mao, Castro, Pol Pot, Gaddhafi, Khomeini, Hussein? Certainly not 50 years! Have those who crave more power over individuals ever desisted even in the US, the UK, Australia, or any other place that has been a model for libertarian ideals in one way or another? Has their power increased or decreased in the past 50 years? Is the average citizen of the US, UK, Australia, or the EU freer or less free than 50 years ago?
Either we look for ways to influence things here and now, or we look at the reality that we can't win over 50 years, either.