The Libertarian Party Should Rename Itself The Authoritarian Party

I came across this article by Andy Craig in The UnPopulist titled "How the Libertarian Party Became The Reactionary Arm of Trump and Trumpism" via Jonathan V. Last of The Bulwark. Craig, a former Libertarian Party member who had run for office under his party's banner, writes:

Aside from (Gary) Johnson’s candidacy, the party had mostly drawn attention for antics ranging from the mildly amusing to utterly cringe-inducing, such as running an Elvis Presley impersonator as a perennial candidate, nominating someone who accidentally turned his skin blue by drinking colloidal silver, entertaining the presidential aspirations of the mentally unstable alleged murderer John McAfee, and treating C-SPAN viewers to a man stripping nearly naked on the national convention stage. But now, as Ken White, a criminal defense lawyer and respected commentator known by his online moniker Popehat, aptly observed on Twitter, “bigoted shitposters” have now wrested control from these “mostly harmless cranks.”

Under the direction of the so-called Mises Caucus, the LP has become home to those who don’t have qualms about declaring Holocaust-denying racists “fellow travelers” and who don’t think that bigots are necessarily disqualified from the party. They even went out of their way to delete from the party’s platform its nearly 50-year-old language stating: “We condemn bigotry as irrational and repugnant.” The caucus is also reversing the party’s longstanding commitment to open immigration policies in favor of border enforcement. The new chair, Angela McArdle, proclaims that the party will now be dedicated to fighting “wokeism.” People with pronouns in their Twitter bios aren’t welcome anymore, but, evidently, white nationalists and Holocaust deniers are.

But that’s not all. Various members of the new leadership have averred that: Black folks owe America for affirmative action; Pride Month is a plot by degenerates and child molesters aiming for socialism; and a country with zero taxes but more trans murders would be more morally acceptable than the reverse. Though some Mises Caucus figures insist they want to offer solutions to the culture wars, in practice, that means obsessively weighing in on the side of the far right.

After the Mises Caucus took over the New Hampshire state party, it endorsed the Big Lie, Jan. 6 rioters and Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the election. But in an in-depth report, the Southern Poverty Law Center traced the links between the various LP officeholders and Trump’s aiders and abettors. For example, it reported that Michael Heise, the Mises Caucus chairman who is the leading strategist behind the group's takeover of the national Libertarian Party, has actively courted Patrick Byrne, former Overstock.com CEO, receiving advice and donations from Byrne. Byrne spoke at Trump’s Jan. 6 rally and financed Arizona Maricopa County’s audit. Byrne also wrote a book claiming that election fraud cost Trump the election.

I remember watching part of the 2000 Libertarian Party Convention on C-SPAN. I remember delegates dressed up in bee costume, a speech by the late American Indian activist Russell Means and a performance by Melanie (yes, the same Melanie who wrote "Brand New Key" and "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain" and had performed at Woodstock). A case can now be made that there's nothing libertarian about the Libertarian Party and that it ought to rename itself the Authoritarian Party.

Indeed, they are a far cry from the party which nominated the ticket of Gary Johnson and Bill Weld in 2016. I gave some thought to voting for the ticket but came away less than impressed after they spoke in the Boston Common on a late Saturday afternoon in August. I had some similar thoughts in 2019 when it appeared onetime Republican Congressman Justin Amash would a make a White House bid under the Libertarian banner in 2020. 

But I knew Amash's bid was doomed from the start. After all, Amash became the first Republican Congressman to call for President Trump's impeachment. But when I attended a watch party of one of the first Democratic presidential debates sponsored by New York City Libertarians I was astonished by the degree by which Trump had captured them:

What truly surprised me was the level of support there was for President Trump among the Libertarians. Now this could be because it's New York City although there were several Libertarians in attendance from outside the city. But what is so libertarian about Donald Trump? After he is a man obsessed with tariffs and wanting to regulate social media critical of him. Given the possibility that Justin Amash will run for President as a Libertarian one would think they would hold Trump in contempt. Yet all the Libertarians I heard from thought Trump got a raw deal on the Mueller Report. This is most curious given how Amash's departure from the Republican Party was triggered by his call for impeachment of Trump in the first place. If this is representative of Libertarian thinking then that tells me that Trump has captured Libertarians every bit as much as he has captured Republicans and conservatives at large. All of which made for a very long night.

Given that experience almost three years ago, I am far from surprised the Libertarians have only gone further down the road of Trump and Trumpism like virtually every other right-wing organization in this country. Under the circumstances, I am glad I did not see fit to join their ranks much less make common cause with them as their cause has now changed.