How did the Liberal Party convention become a campaign venue for candidates with strongly illiberal views? This year’s speakers include Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has called for jailing so-called climate deniers, and former President Donald Trump, a fervent opponent of free trade. The U.S. debt increased by $8 trillion.
It’s part of a strategy to transform the Libertarian Party (LP) into a major force in American politics, largely the brainchild of political strategist Michael Heise, who credits Gary Johnson and Bill Weill Bill Weld’s 2016 presidential campaign was a resounding failure.
“Gary Johnson, 4.3 million votes, the highest vote total ever, no lasting movement, no return on the investment of those votes,” Hayes told reason During the 2022 party congress in Reno. “[Gary Johnson voters] They did not stay because they were not what is called “true believers.” They don’t feel it in their bones. it doesn’t have the same animation [as did] Ron Paul [movement]”.
The main goal of the neo-Liberal Party was not to win national elections (which Hayes considered a delusion) but to use its ability to attract enough votes to sway elections. It is hoped that through its “disruptor status”, LP can obtain concessions and gain influence.
This July’s conference in Washington, D.C., was the first major test of the new strategy.
The change in strategy began when a group called the “Mises Caucus” took over leadership of the LP at the 2022 convention in Reno, Nevada.
As podcast host Dave Smith explains, it follows Ron Paul’s presidential campaign in emphasizing a non-interventionist foreign policy that differentiates it from the two major parties. reason.
“Basically, the priorities of the Mises Caucus have been the priorities of the Ron Paul revolution: anti-war, staunchly pro-Austrian economics.”
The new Labor Party invited social conservatives by removing abortion rights from the party platform and trying to do the same on liberalizing immigration.
“When you open your borders and you add pro-life [the platform]… This creates some degree of cultural hegemony on one side that may not be representative of the broader liberal movement,” Hayes said.
These changes have alienated liberals who see social freedoms as central to their political philosophy, as has Labor’s brazen new approach to social media, such as when the New Hampshire Labor Party challenged Sen. John McCain (R–Arizona) in Crying at her father’s coffin.
Mises’ caucus leadership vowed to clean up its message and expand party membership and fundraising to unprecedented levels. But internal documents show candidate, fundraising and membership numbers have all dropped significantly since taking over. State-affiliated agencies continue to provoke online.
But proponents predict that by 2024 we will see a turnaround.
“I think progress has been made on a lot of fronts,” Smith said. “This convention represents something that would never have happened under conservative rule, where we are trying to engage in a broader political conversation.”
A prime example of this kind of outreach that Smith mentioned was the appearance of former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who made the case for liberals to align with the Republican Party in support of Trump .
Also attending the day-long convention was Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who is beloved by liberals for his opposition to COVID-19 lockdowns, regulations, federal spending by the Federal Reserve and debt financing.
“I think the Liberals are very smart to invite others to their convention. This is probably one of the most watched Liberal conventions in years,” Massie said. “Politics is about messaging, and you have to get your message out. If you don’t have an audience, you can preach to an empty room. But this will be an opportunity for liberals to give something back to President Trump and Robert Jr. Kennedy.
The Mises Caucus’s favorite presidential candidate was Michael Rectenwald, a former self-professed Marxist university professor and co-author of the The Great Reset and the Fight for Global Freedom: Uncovering the Global Agenda.
He views politics through the lens of populism, in which elites seek total control over the population by exploiting or even creating crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic to achieve this goal.
“I’m the only candidate in the race who’s really talking about the new threats to our freedoms,” Rettenwald said. “The 2030 Agenda, the tyranny of climate change, and the so-called ‘Great Reset’, which is really just a project of the World Economic Forum and the United Nations, is about building this new model of stakeholder capitalism and working through climate change. Control and regulate populations.
It’s a similar message to that of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who made a last-minute bid for the Libertarian Party’s nomination but was eliminated in the first of seven rounds of voting for the presidential nomination.
Although Trump is ineligible to seek the party’s nomination due to the Republican Party’s ban on multi-party candidacies, that did not stop him from declaring himself a libertarian in a headline speech and demanding the party’s nomination to boos.
Trump did win some applause late in his speech when he began to address some of Labor’s demands. He promised to commute the life sentence of Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the black market website Silk Road. He has also offered to appoint a libertarian to his cabinet in exchange for the party’s support and to protect Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies from federal regulation.
After the speeches, the three Libertarian presidential candidates responded, but most of the crowd and media had dispersed by then. Rettenwald walked out midway through his post-speech press conference and later admitted he got high after eating the gummies.
The Mises Caucus adopted the strategy of using the Liberal Party’s spoiler status as a bargaining chip. Encouraged by Smith, their Arizona Senate candidate dropped out and endorsed Republican venture capitalist Blake Masters — who once said “liberalism doesn’t work” — in a special election. The reason is that he is the lesser of two evils. Regardless, Masters lost the game.
But on the third day of the Congress, a central pillar of the Mises caucus’s professed strategy would crumble under their feet.
In a surprising move for a party controlled by the Mises caucus, which had elected McArdle as chairman just the day before, Michael Rettenwald was eliminated after six rounds of voting, leaving Chase Oliver as the final candidate people.
Oliver rose to prominence in the party by winning 2% of the vote in 2022 by forcing Georgia’s crucial Senate race into a runoff. Candidates in Seth’s caucus clashed.
In the final round of voting, Mises caucus members attempted to vote for “none of the above” to ensure the party’s victory No candidates this year, but Oliver won with 60% of the vote.
Since then, Smith and several other Mises caucus members have made it clear that they Won’t vote for Oliver, They believe they are not doing enough to resist COVID-19 restrictions. Oliver acknowledged that the pre-Reno Reset Liberals should have been more vocal in their opposition to lockdowns and government vaccine mandates — both of which he publicly opposed.
“I can say that during the COVID-19 pandemic, there were situations like this: [the party] An error may have been made in terms of personal responsibility rather than fighting the enforced lockdown. “We should be more forceful on this,” Oliver said.For those voters who haven’t heard of libertarians, the message is simple: that is, if you do not engage in force, fraud, coercion, theft, or violence, and if you simply live in peace, your life is your life . Your body is your body. Your property is your property and your business is your business.
Oliver’s victory complicated the strategy of Mises’s core group. They control the leadership positions but not the face of the party.
Following his nomination, Oliver was attacked online by members of the Mises caucus and Trump supporters for his weakness on coronavirus policy and his belief that parents, not the state, should decide whether minors can be given views on prescribing puberty blockers, and because Oliver is openly gay, showing up at Pride events holding a rainbow flag.
A week after the convention, McArdle responded, hosting a livestream with rainbow imagery and donning a red clown nose. She offered Oliver the party’s official endorsement and pledged to help him primarily in blue states where he is more likely to win votes from Biden.
The Liberals got attention and Trump’s promises — but will he deliver if elected?
Can the Liberal Party be so divided on strategic issues? and Does ideology matter?
“I think the most important thing we need to do as a party is build our base,” Oliver said. “I hope our party will double its membership and continue to do so over the next four years.”
- camera: Justin Zuckerman
- Audio production: Ian Keizer
- edit: Chris Solwick
