Is the Libertarian Party Hierarchy Supporting Donald Trump Sub Silentio?
The question has to be asked: Is the Libertarian Party hierarchy supporting Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump sub silentio? There is certainly evidence pointing in that direction.
The L.P. antiwar rally
The Libertarian Party and national Libertarian Party chairperson Angela McCardle are co-sponsoring an antiwar rally in Washington, D.C., this month. The L.P. presidential and vice-presidential candidates, Chase Oliver and Mike ter Maat, are not included as speakers at that rally. Why not?
A meme that was initially being used to promote that rally depicted a picture of Donald Trump as a new George Washington at the head of a boat crossing the Delaware. The people inside the boat include depictions of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Tulsi Gabbard, two leftist, progressive, socialist, welfare-state-loving former members of the Democratic Party who are now MAGA-Trumpsters.
Unlike Oliver and ter Maat, both Kennedy and Gabbard are listed as speakers at that upcoming two-day L.P.-McCardle antiwar rally, where they will undoubtedly be exhorting people to vote for Trump. What’s up with that?
The Trump/George Washington meme is posted at the end of this article. Also, see my recent article “Why Aren't Chase Oliver and Mike ter Maat Speaking at the L.P. Antiwar Rally?”
FreedomFest
On July 10-13, the Libertarian Party had an exhibit table at FreedomFest, the annual libertarian/conservative festival, which was held in Las Vegas. At the L.P. table, a promotional brochure was being distributed that one could easily have mistaken for a pro-Trump handout.
The first two paragraphs of the center panel of the brochure are all about Trump. The Libertarian Party presidential candidate, Chase Oliver, is only mentioned at the end. The center panel of the brochure, a copy of which is posted below, begins:
“During his presidency, Donald Trump made significant strides in challenging deep state agencies within the Federal Government. His administration worked tirelessly to expose corruption, reduce bureaucratic overreach, and reduce individuals who perpetrated a system of secrecy and unaccountability. Trump’s efforts to drain the swamp brought much-needed attention to the pervasive influence of the deep state and restore the power to the people.”
L.P. fundraising appeal
In the last few days I received a fundraising letter from the Libertarian National Committee/Libertarian Party that solicited donations to a “Candidate Support Fund” to provide “valuable resources, training, and assistance to Libertarian candidates across the nation.” Yet, this fundraising letter failed to even mention the names of the Libertarian Party presidential and vice-presidential candidates, which seems somewhat odd given that the presidential election is less than two months away.
Trump’s speech at the L.P. national convention
Prior to the Libertarian Party national convention last May, the national Libertarian Party hierarchy invited Trump to address the L.P. delegates and seek their support, a highly unusual action, to say the least, especially given that the convention was nominating a Libertarian candidate who also would be running for president.
At the time, it seemed that Trump’s appearance at the L.P. convention was simply a matter of an invitation to speak and an acceptance. Yet, as time has gone on, it now is clear that Trump’s appearance at the convention was more in the nature of a negotiated agreement. In fact, last July McCardle expressed pride in the fact that Trump’s promise to appoint a libertarian to his Cabinet, which he made during his speech at the L.P. convention, was the “product of serious negotiations” on her part. McCardle also stated that that getting a libertarian appointed to Trump’s Cabinet is, in her mind, “advancing liberty at the federal level.” Rumor has it that she even traveled to Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, where presumably she met personally with Trump and quite possibly established a close working relationship with him and Team Trump.
In a negotiated agreement, normally each side agrees to things. As part of the agreement with the L.P. hierarchy, Trump promised to (1) appoint a libertarian to his Cabinet should he be elected and (2) pardon libertarian Ross Ulbricht.
The question is: What did McCardle and the L.P. hierarchy agree to in exchange for those two promises by Trump?
One possibility is that they simply agreed to let Trump talk at the L.P. national presidential nominating convention and seek the support of L.P. members. But my hunch is that Trump, who is author of the book Trump: The Art of the Deal, would not have settled for that simple commitment in exchange for those two major promises. After all, that would have meant that as soon as the convention was over, the Libertarian Party and its presidential candidate could have gone on the attack against Trump, even as he was still committed to fulfilling his two promises to appoint a libertarian to his Cabinet and to pardon Ulbricht. It’s hard to believe that Trump would have entered into that type of an agreement. It would seem logical that if Trump were to make those two promises, he would have expected the L.P. to help him get elected.
Thus, questions naturally arise: As part of that negotiated agreement, did McCardle and the Libertarian Party hierarchy agree to use the Libertarian Party to help Trump win the general election in November? Given the importance that McCardle places on having secured a promise from Trump to appoint a libertarian to a Cabinet position, what are the chances that she would want to jeopardize the fulfillment of that promise by opposing Trump’s bid to be elected president after the L.P. national convention? Indeed, given her conviction that getting a libertarian appointed to Trump’s Cabinet is “advancing liberty at the federal level,” one has to wonder whether McCardle sees herself in the running for that Cabinet position and, if so, wouldn’t she realize that she would have a better chance at securing that position by supporting, rather than opposing, Trump’s candidacy?
How it would have worked
How might such support have manifested itself? In the same way that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has now thrown his support to Trump, especially in the states where Trump and Harris are running neck and neck. Come September, the L.P. hierarchy and the LP presidential and vice-presidential candidates, who would be garnering the standard 0-1 percent in the polls, would exhort their supporters to vote for Trump in the battleground states, just like Kennedy has now done (no doubt in the hope of himself securing a Cabinet position or other high position in a Trump administration). In return for the L.P. helping him to win the presidency, Trump would win the election and appoint a libertarian to his Cabinet and pardon Ulbricht.
The right-wing element that controls and dominates the Libertarian Party would be ecstatic and would be celebrating this “ingenious” political strategy and “our victory” at the polls. The new libertarian Cabinet member would be traveling to state L.P. conventions, where he or she would be feted with praise and standing ovations. The new Cabinet member would be said to have “influence” and be moving the welfare-warfare state in a “libertarian” direction, much like the “Chicago Boys” who loyally served in the brutal right-wing military regime in Chile of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, whose goons were kidnapping, raping, torturing, disappearing, or murdering tens of thousands of innocent people.
Precedent
Actually, such a strategy would not be as shocking as it sounds. After all, Libertarians have been known to endorse Republicans. For example, popular libertarian podcaster Dave Smith and other right-wingers within the L.P. endorsed the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Arizona, Blake Masters, over his Libertarian Party opponent Marc Victor. In fact, Victor himself ended up dropping out of the race and also endorsing Masters, acknowledging that there really wasn’t any substantive difference between his positions and those of Masters. Just recently, an L.P. candidate in Colorado dropped out of a race and endorsed his Republican opponent. There were also right-wing Libertarians who supported Florida Governor Ron de Santis, who is widely known for his harsh right-wing immigration policy, including his scheme to use taxpayer money to transport and dump immigrants into other states.
A revolving door
Moreover, long ago the Libertarian Party and the Republican Party established a revolving door between the two parties, which enables “liberty-leaning” right-wing candidates and welfare-warfare-state-reform-oriented candidates to go back and forth between the two parties. Justin Amash, who previously abandoned the Republican Party and joined the Libertarian Party and then recently returned to the Republican Party to run for U.S. Senate, is a good example of this phenomenon. So are noted Republican/Libertarians like Wayne Allan Root and Bill Weld.
Rectenwald and Russell
Of course, such a pro-Trump strategy would necessarily have required the cooperation of the L.P. presidential and vice-presidential candidates. That brings up Michael Rectenwald and Clint Russell, who the right-wing element that controls and dominates the Libertarian Party were certain were going to win the presidential and vice-presidential nominations. That mindset of certainty was certainly logical given that the right-wing element ended up once again winning control over the Libertarian National Committee. If they could do that, it stands to reason that they had the votes to win the presidential and vice-presidential races as well.
Thus, if the negotiated agreement with Trump actually did entail a commitment to support Trump down the stretch, the question naturally arises: Were Rectenwald and Russell made aware of this agreement and, if so, what was their reaction to it?
It would be interesting to get Rectenwald’s perspective on this issue. On his Substack page, he started writing his memoir of the presidential race. However, after I posted my article “Wrecking the Libertarian Party,” where I posited the possibility of an L.P. pro-Trump campaign strategy, Rectenwald ceased writing his memoir with Chapter 5 and has not returned to it. I hope he continues writing it because he will almost certainly have to address this obviously important issue of what his reaction would have been to throwing his support to Trump down the stretch, as Kennedy has now done.
Thus another question naturally arises: If McCardle did agree with Trump that the L.P. would throw its support to him down the stretch, would she have done that without securing Rectenwald’s and Russell’s support for the strategy in advance of making the commitment to Trump?
I think there is a possibility that she would, believing that she could easily induce Rectenwald and Russell to come on board as September arrived. Once the national press began publicizing the highly unusual amalgam of positions of Rectenwald and Russell — i.e. favoring “anarchy,” a militarized police-state border, border controls between the states, Social Security and the welfare state, a healthcare reign of terror, leaving government in charge of healthcare, condemning people who wore anti-Covid masks, and calling the 170 million Americans who took the Covid vaccine dumb dolts of the state — there is little doubt that Rectenwald would have been at less than half a percent in the polls come September. In my opinion, he would have jumped at the chance of becoming a Trump Cabinet member or at least a top member of his administration.
It would have been even easier to get Russell on board by simply having Republican MAGA-Trumpster Vivek Ramaswamy, who Russell idolizes, invite him to join him and McCardle to dinner, where Ramaswamy would have made his pitch to come over to Team Trump. In this regard, it’s worth mentioning that Russell recently praised Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., for endorsing Trump, calling his decision “heroic” for putting “his country first.”
The defeat of Rectenwald and Russell
Alas, however, much to the surprise and extreme rage of the Libertarian right-wing, Rectenwald and Russell didn’t make it. At the L.P. national convention where Trump was subjected to a massive boo-fest at the hands of the L.P. delegates, Rectenwald and Russell were defeated by Oliver and ter Maat, both of whom made it very clear that they were not about to support Donald Trump any more than they would support Joe Biden and, later, Kamala Harris. (See my article “Wrecking the Libertarian Party,” where I discuss how Rectenwald, in my opinion, ended up wrecking his candidacy for the L.P. presidential nomination by ingesting a mind-altering substance on the biggest night of his political career.)
Advising Trump
In a Substack column a few days ago, Rectenwald wrote an article in which he offered political advice to Trump to help him defeat Kamala Harris. The article brings to mind Rectenwald’s article in the right-wing Chronicles magazine “When Next for the Right?” that he wrote prior to joining the L.P. and seeking the L.P. presidential nomination. In that article, Rectenwald advised a Republican president what needed to done to put the nation on a better track, including finishing Trump’s Wall and “expelling” illegal immigrants, both of which Trump has vowed to do.
Thus, the question naturally arises: Is Rectenwald now offering advice to Trump in the hope that Trump will forgive him for making critical remarks about Trump at the L.P. national convention and will hopefully put him in the running (against McCardle and other L.P. right-wingers) for that promised Cabinet position or some other high post in a Trump administration (e.g., director of ICE or advisor to the president on immigration)?
Why it matters
Why is the issue of possible sub silentio Libertarian Party support of Republican Party presidential candidate Donald Trump so important? There are three reasons:
One big reason is that if people are donating to the Libertarian Party, it only seems right that they be informed that at least some of their money is being used to support a presidential candidate for another political party.
Another big reason is that such a strategy inevitably leads people to falsely believe that being pro-Trump, pro-Republican, pro-border control, pro-welfare-warfare-state reform, or pro-right-wing is equivalent to being pro-libertarian.
The third reason comes in the form of questions: Given the pro-Trump, pro-Republican Party, pro-border control, and pro-welfare-warfare-state-reform positions of the Libertarian Party right-wing, which controls and dominates the Libertarian Party, why not simply merge the Libertarian Party into the Republican Party? Wouldn’t that be a better way to achieve Cabinet positions and other positions within a Republican-managed welfare-warfare state? Wouldn’t that be a more efficient way to “advance liberty at the federal level” and to achieve “political influence”? Wouldn’t that be a better way to secure pardons for libertarians and others? Of course, that would leave us Libertarian Party members who are still seeking liberty out in the cold, but, what the heck, aren’t we out in the cold anyway?
