Where is the Libertarian-Trump Party Now?
I can’t help but wonder whether Libertarian Party right-wingers are now hanging their heads in shame for converting the Libertarian Party into the Libertarian-Trump Party. My hunch is no. My hunch is that they are prouder than ever in indelibly imprinting on the minds of American voters that the Libertarian Party is now the Libertarian-Trump Party.
Inviting Donald Trump, a presidential candidate of the Republican Party, to address and seek the support of L.P. members at their national convention has got to be one of the most bizarre acts in the history of American politics. The fact that L.P. right-wingers did this at a national L.P. convention at which their own party was nominating its own presidential candidate makes it even more bizarre. The fact that L.P. right-wingers, including some within the party hierarchy, actually ended up endorsing, supporting, and voting for Trump for president only added to the weirdness of it all.
Many L.P. members still can’t figure out why the L.P. presidential candidate, Chase Oliver, only garnered .4% of the national vote. They say that it had to be because the L.P. just didn’t get the needed attention of the mainstream press.
Are they kidding? With the Trump L.P. convention fiasco, including the massive boo-fest given to Trump, the Libertarian Party garnered the most amount of national media attention in L.P. history. (“Publicity, Jacob! Publicity!”) Add all that Trump-L.P. publicity to the massive nationwide publicity that Oliver received in his U.S. Senate race in Georgia just two years before. A lack of publicity was most definitely not the reason for Oliver’s dismal vote return.
Oliver’s .4 percent
There is a better two-fold reason for Oliver’s low vote return:
First, as I steadfastly maintained throughout the race for the 2024 L.P. presidential nomination, there is no constituency for the reform-oriented, pragmatic, Republican-lite message that has become the central message of L.P. presidential candidates, including Oliver. (See my Substack series of articles in this regard: The Republican-Lite Positions of the Libertarian Party: Social Security, Medicare, Vouchers and Public Schooling, and Immigration.)
Second, why in the world would pro-Trump Trumpsters ever vote for a Libertarian Party presidential candidate rather than for Trump himself? That was never going to happen. That’s why I continue to maintain that if the Libertarian Party right-wing element that controls and dominates the party had succeeded in getting its presidential and vice-presidential candidates, Michael Rectenwald and Clint Russell, nominated, there is a distinct possibility that the L.P. hierarchy, Rectenwald, and Russell would have decided to drop out of the race and endorse Trump, especially given Trump’s now-forgotten promise to appoint a Libertarian to his Cabinet.
It was a promise that had every single L.P. right-winger, especially former L.P. chairperson Angela McArdle, giddy with excitement over the prospect of being named “the one” — the first Libertarian ever appointed to serve in a presidential Cabinet. Alas, it was not to be. After making his promise to the L.P. right-wingers to appoint one of them to his Cabinet, Trump ended up dissing them all, including McArdle herself as well as Michael Heiss, who had orchestrated the right-wing takeover of the party and who, as a salaried member of the L.P. staff, and presumably with McArdle’s approval, had issued a full-throated endorsement of Trump prior to the election.
L.P. positions
The worst part of the Trump fiasco, however, is that it severely damaged, perhaps permanently, the Libertarian Party brand of principled libertarianism. By conflating Trump and the Libertarian Party in the minds of the American people, American voters now almost certainly believe that the Libertarian Party and its national candidates stand in favor of:
Massive tariffs and trade wars that destroy economic liberty and devastate the economic and financial well-being of people all over the world, including here at home.
A massive nationwide immigration-control system enforced by a brutal immigration police state that has expanded nationwide, one that is being used to destroy economic freedom, civil liberties, privacy, freedom of association, liberty of contract, due process of law, and freedom of speech.
A bombing campaign against Yemen as well as the explicit or implicit use of military force against Greenland, Iran, and Panama.
Brutal sanctions and embargoes against foreign citizens as a way to force their regimes to change their policies.
A fierce drug war that has now been conflated with the “war on terrorism.”
The continued commitment to Social Security, Medicare, and the welfare state.
The continued commitment to the national-security state — i.e., the Pentagon, CIA, and NSA, along with its empire of foreign military bases.
Add to all this the fact that the L.P. right-wing hierarchy entered into one of the weirdest fundraising agreements ever with a Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., PAC, by which the L.P. was relying on donations being made by Kennedy supporters, to support the L.P.’s operations, not to mention the fact that some major figures in the Libertarian Party (e.g., Larry Sharpe) actually became either well-paid or unpaid supporters of Kennedy or a Kennedy PAC. Keep in mind that former Democrat Kennedy is one of the fiercest advocates of welfare-state socialism you could ever find, even to the point of having praised communist Cuba’s socialist healthcare system and communist China’s socialist public-works projects, not to mention his advocacy of gun control.
The L.P. today
Where does all this L.P.-Trump-Kennedy political mayhem leave the Libertarian Party?
It leaves the party with nothing more than a massive and confused conglomeration of Libertarian Party statist policies and positions within the minds of American voters.
It also leaves the Libertarian Party with a major question hanging over its head: What is the point of having a Libertarian Party if it isn’t going to stand squarely in favor of libertarianism?
Many years ago, I wondered what would happen if disgruntled Republicans flooded into the Libertarian Party. I now have my answer. The Libertarian Party is now controlled and dominated by LINOs — Libertarians in Name Only — who remain deeply committed to Republican-Lite, welfare-warfare state reform, and pragmatism. The party’s founder, David Nolan, who founded the party on the concept of principled libertarianism, is undoubtedly turning over in his grave.