Michael Heiss’s Endorsement of Donald Trump
In what can only be described as a stunning development in the presidential race, Michael Heiss, who is arguably the most prominent member of the right-wing element that controls and dominates the Libertarian Party, has recently come out with a full-throated, public, and unequivocal endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Why is Heiss’s endorsement of Trump so stunning?
A grave ethical conflict of interest
After all, other Libertarian right-wingers have come out for Trump. What makes Heiss’s open and public endorsement of Trump so stunning is that Heiss is a salaried member of the Libertarian Party staff. With the possible exception of prominent L.P. member Larry Sharpe’s ethical conflict of interest that I detailed in my article “Lyndon LaRouche, Libertarian?,” it would be difficult to find a better example of a grave ethical conflict of interest than Heiss’s.
After all, imagine that a paid staffer in the Democratic Party suddenly announced publicly that he was endorsing and supporting Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and was calling on other Democrats to do the same. How long do you think that staffer would last in his salaried position? Seconds, perhaps minutes? They would fire him so fast his head would swim. They certainly wouldn’t want him in their midst. More important, they wouldn’t want money that donors were sending the Democratic Party to be used to subsidize the salary of a pro-Trump Democratic Party staffer.
Think about the financial support that people have recently given the Libertarian Party. Their contributions are now being used to financially support a salaried pro-Trump member of the party staff. But that’s not why those donors donated to the Libertarian Party. If they wanted to support Donald Trump, they could donate to Trump or the Republican Party.
Why Heiss’s endorsement now?
A question naturally arises: Why now? Why wouldn’t Heiss simply play the indirect, sub silentio game? After all, Heiss was at FreedomFest last July helping to man the L.P. exhibit table, where he was helping hand out a brochure that prominently featured Donald Trump in the center column. But since the brochure also mentioned Chase Oliver, Heiss and other L.P. officials could argue that it wasn’t really a pro-Trump brochure. In other words, the brochure, a copy of which can be seen at the bottom of this article, had the appearance of an indirect, sub silentio support of Donald Trump, one that nonetheless provided some “plausibility deniability” that could enable the party hierarchy to deny that it was supporting Trump.
I think it’s worth mentioning that I am not the only person who has noticed what appears to be a sub silentio support of Donald Trump among the L.P. right-wing hierarchy. Take a look at this recent article entitled “The Libertarian Party Releases a Trump Campaign Ad” by Ron Paul Institute staffer Adam Dick, who essentially makes the same point.
In any event, there is no doubt that Heiss’s full, open, public, and unequivocal endorsement of Trump blows sub silentio right out of the window. Why would Heiss do that in the waning days of the campaign? Why not simply go with a strategy of indirectness and sub silentio, which would enable Heiss to plausibly deny that, as a paid staff member of the Libertarian Party, he is supporting Trump and to instead insist that he is supporting the party’s nominee, Chase Oliver.
I think I may have figured out why Heiss suddenly decided to reject indirectness and sub silentio. It’s just a theory. A hypothesis. An opinion. But I think it’s a well-reasoned and well-founded one. The following is my theory, hypothesis, and opinion:
Pro-Oliver campaign ads
Everyone knows that the race between Trump and Kamala Harris is neck and neck, especially in the battleground states. A thousand votes in each of those states could decide the race.
A friend of mine, whose insights I fully trust, just informed me that, according to FEC reports that he has seen, a pro-Harris PAC (or pro-Harris PACs) has recently purchased at least $3 million in advertising for the Libertarian Party presidential candidate Chase Oliver, the L.P. presidential candidate who defeated Michael Rectenwald, the chosen candidate of the L.P. right-wing. Three million dollars is an enormous infusion of resources into Oliver’s campaign, which, I have been informed, has raised only around $400,000. It essentially amounts to a $3 million campaign contribution to Oliver, one that is being used entirely to advertise and promote Chase’s campaign in the battleground states.
The purpose of the ads is to exhort conservatives, libertarians, and others to vote for Oliver and take away votes that would otherwise go to Trump. In fact, according to my friend, some of the ads point out that Oliver is a better conservative than Trump, a point that, in my opinion, has considerable validity given Oliver’s reform-oriented, Republican-lite overall message.
If those ads succeed in garnering Oliver a large number of votes in the battleground states, obviously that could end up costing Trump the election.
What can Trump do to counteract those ads and make sure Oliver doesn’t take votes away from Trump and possibly cost him the election? He could go on the attack against Oliver but I think he knows that that would likely be counterproductive. After all, how would he attack — by claiming that he’s actually more conservative than Oliver? Moreover, he knows that by attacking Oliver, he would simply be drawing attention to Oliver’s campaign and even possibly alienating some Libertarians.
Did Trump contact McArdle?
My hunch, theory, hypothesis, and opinion is that Trump got on the phone, telephoned L.P. party chairperson Angela McArdle, with whom, as McArdle has emphasized, he has established a personal relationship, and read her the riot act. “No more sub silentio!” one can imagine Trump exclaiming to McArdle in the same manner of urgency that he used to exhort that Georgia election official to “find” him 11,000 more votes in the 2020 election. “Angela, we had a deal that you people would support my candidacy if I promised you a cabinet position and a pardon for your friend. And now your presidential candidate is trying to take votes away from me that could easily cost me the election. I need you to reject indirectness, subtlety, and sub silentio. I need your open and public support. And I need it NOW!”
The “deal”
What I am referring to by “deal” is the possibility that I have posited in my recent series of Substack articles — that as part of the agreement that McArdle negotiated with Trump in which he promised a cabinet position for a Libertarian and a pardon for Ross Ulbricht, McArdle quite possibly agreed, as part of her end of the deal, to throw the L.P.’s support to Trump in the waning days of the campaign in the battleground states, as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has now done — and as some right-wing Libertarians are now doing.
In my opinion, it’s the only thing that makes any sense, even though McArdle now denies that such an agreement was made. Would Donald Trump have agreed to give a cabinet position and a pardon to Ulbricht simply to be given a speaking slot at the L.P. national convention, after which the L.P. and the L.P. presidential candidate would be free to go on the attack against Trump? That would have been a ridiculous agreement from Trump’s standpoint. In my opinion, there just isn’t any reasonable possibility that Trump, whose political acumen is astounding, would have agreed to such a ludicrous proposition from his standpoint. I contend that Trump would necessarily have insisted on the L.P.’s endorsement and support down the stretch in return for those two promises.
Moreover, the fulfillment of Trump’s two promises, which McArdle has made clear are extremely important to her, would necessarily depend on his being elected, which would be an obvious inducement for the L.P. hierarchy to help him get elected. In fact, McArdle herself has used the prospect of a pardon for Ulbricht in what can only be described in a very manipulative way by suggesting that anyone who objects to her agreement with Trump just wants to see Ulbricht “rot” in jail.
Rectenwald and Russell
If I am right that there was such an agreement, Trump would necessarily have insisted not only on McArdle’s commitment to support him but also on the commitment of the likely L.P. presidential candidate to throw his support to Trump in the waning days of the campaign. That would have been Michael Rectenwald, who was the L.P. right-wing candidate, who was expected to win the L.P. presidential nomination.
As I have detailed in my series of articles, in my opinion it would not have been difficult to secure Rectenwald’s agreement to the deal, even if securing it was in the waning days of the campaign. Rectenwald would have ultimately come to the realization that his strange amalgam of right-wing and “pro-anarchist” positions would have left him near 0 percent in the polls as the L.P. presidential candidate. In my opinion, he would have jumped at the chance of being a major factor in helping Trump get elected, especially if it meant that Rectenwald himself would be considered in the running to be The One — the first Libertarian cabinet member to serve the welfare-warfare state, run and directed by Republican Donald Trump.
Moreover, in my opinion, it would have been even easier to enlist the support of Rectenwald’s running mate Clint Russell to the scheme. All that would have been needed would be to have Republican Trumpster Vivek Ramaswamy, who Russell (and other L.P. right-wingers) absolutely idolizes, exhort Russell to join him in support of Trump. In my opinion, Russell would have leaped to the opportunity with tremendous excitement and glee.
I think it’s worth mentioning that Russell, like Heiss, has recently issued a public endorsement of Trump here in the waning days of the campaign. While Rectenwald hasn’t expressly endorsed Trump, he has been writing articles for the Kennedy Beacon, the newsletter of a pro-Kennedy PAC that is now supporting Trump and that has paid Rectenwald at least $6,000 for “campaign organizing.” It’s also worth pointing out that in one of his recent Kennedy Beacon articles, Rectenwald compared Trump, Kennedy, and Tulsi Gabbard to the Justice League of D.C. Comics fame, which featured Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.
The importance of a Heiss endorsement
So, if my theory, hypothesis, and opinion, are correct — if Trump did get on the telephone and read the riot act to McArdle — it stands to reason that she would have immediately contacted Heiss and exclaimed, “I just got a call from Donald. He read me the riot act. The Dems have just purchased at least $3 million in ads exhorting conservatives, libertarians, and others to support Chase. Donald needs us to reject sub silentio and come out in his favor full force.”
Thus, I posit the possibility that McArdle instructed or asked Heiss to issue his public endorsement of Trump, notwithstanding the grave ethical conflict of interest such an endorsement would entail. After all, I don’t think it needs to be pointed out that despite his open and public endorsement of Trump, Heiss remains on the L.P. payroll as a salaried member of the L.P. staff.
Why Heiss? Well, don’t forget: Heiss was the person who orchestrated the entire right-wing takeover of the Libertarian Party, including the installation of McArdle herself as party chair. Even though he is now on the payroll as a L.P. staff member and essentially answers to McArdle, I think everyone would agree that he is a much bigger influencer within the right-wing element of the Libertarian Party than McArdle is.
Thus, while McArdle recently posted photographs of herself and her boyfriend hobnobbing with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort, I think she’s smart enough to know that that is still not as good as a full, public, and open endorsement of Trump by Heiss to mobilize the L.P. right-wing to come to Trump’s support.
We also shouldn’t forget that Heiss was Rectenwald’s campaign manager. As such, if there was a promise to throw the L.P.’s endorsement to Trump down the stretch as part of the agreement that McArdle negotiated with Trump, it is entirely possible that Heiss, as Rectenwald’s campaign manager, might have been aware of it, in which case an instruction or request by McArdle to issue the endorsement of Trump at this point would not have come as a surprise to Heiss.
A disastrous decision for the L.P.
Even though Chase Oliver and Mike ter Maat, who surprisingly defeated Rectenwald and Russell for the L.P. presidential and vice-presidential nominations, have chosen not to join the pro-Trump bandwagon, there is no question but that the right-wing element that controls and dominates the Libertarian Party — through the massive nationwide publicity that Trump’s speech at the L.P. national convention generated (“Publicity, Jacob! Publicity!”) — has succeeded in indelibly printing on the minds of the American people the image that the Libertarian Party is now nothing more than a mini-Republican, right-wing, Republican-lite, pro-Trump political party.
What I find absolutely fascinating about this phenomenon is that the L.P. right-wingers are genuinely and honestly convinced that that is good thing, especially if Trump ends up winning the presidential race. Their excitement and enthusiasm over their success demonstrates the wide gulf that separates some of us Libertarians from them. I myself consider what they have done to the L.P. to be the worst thing that has ever befallen the Libertarian Party.
It remains my conviction that the Libertarian Party would have been better off not embroiling itself with Donald Trump (or Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.) or again going with the reform-oriented, Republican-lite message that has come to define the Libertarian Party and its presidential campaigns. Instead, I continue to hold that the party would have been better off standing fast in favor of genuine libertarianism and simply explaining to the American people why it is only libertarianism that can lead us out of the terrible statist morass into which both Republicans and Democrats have plunged our nation.