The Libertarian Party's Bold New Approach Shakes Up 2024
Libertarians are positioned to have a potentially greater influence on the 2024 Presidential election than ever before.
The 2024 Libertarian National Convention was unlike any in the party’s history, and it was a significant moment in the history of America’s minor parties.
Libertarians welcomed former President Donald Trump and Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to deliver keynote speeches, extending an olive branch for both to appeal to Libertarian voters.
Kennedy’s vice presidential nominee Nicole Shanahan was also scheduled to speak on Sunday, but her address was cancelled amid a long and chaotic voting process for party officials.
Trump’s attendance marked the first time that a former President has attended a minor party’s convention in modern history. Libertarian Party Chair Angela McArdle extended an invitation to President Joe Biden, as well, but received no response.
The event signaled a move within the Libertarian Party towards constructing coalitions with non-Libertarian groups and candidates to advance their values, including the two legacy parties.
Libertarian leaders and influencers sold the idea of inviting Trump and Kennedy, two non-Libertarian candidates, to address the LNC as a unique opportunity to claim some political ground for libertarian values in an unprecedented political environment.
Critics within the party, however, saw the invitations of Trump and Kennedy to speak as a betrayal of the party’s commitment to elevate and elect Libertarian candidates, including Chase Oliver, the Libertarian presidential nominee.
The Libertarian Party is attempting to adapt to a unique political environment amid an identity crisis for the party itself.
In this unique and fiercely contested election, deal-making that leads to significant Libertarian influence in a Trump or Kennedy administration in 2025 is a real possibility.
The 2024 election often seems unprecedented in more ways than not.
Most obviously, President Biden and President Trump are the two most unpopular Democratic and Republican nominees in decades. The vast majority of Americans have fiercely opposed the very idea of a rematch between the two for several years.
Second, a record high number of Americans (around 43 percent) now identify as Independent, not Democrat or Republican. Americans have broadly lost faith in the two-party system and are actively seeking alternatives.
Third, a robust independent media landscape now rivals the influence of legacy and cable news. Trust in traditional news outlets is at record lows, and a constellation of independent voices in the podcast world and social media world are replacing these traditional outlets.
The Libertarian Party boasts a relatively small but lively network of activists, influencers, and podcasters who are sympathetic to its mission and devoted to spreading the ideas of liberty.
Fourth, the Libertarian Party faces an uphill battle to match the share of the presidential vote they usually receive since Kennedy is likely to win many of the protest votes that the Libertarian candidate usually enjoys as the most prominent alternative to the Democratic and Republican nominees.
On top of these factors unique to this election year is the reality that the Libertarian Party has largely failed to gain a foothold in American politics in its 52-year history.
A dramatic shift in strategy, while it carries its own risks for the party’s future, is not unwarranted, and may be its best move in 2024.
To their credit, Libertarians received pledges from Trump to appoint a Libertarian to his cabinet, to eliminate the Department of Education, and to commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht. Kennedy reiterated his pledges to pardon Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, whose half-brother Gabriel Shipton attended the LNC himself.
Critics within the party, on the other hand, thought the invitation of non-Libertarian candidates and competitors to Chase Oliver to be a betrayal of what they considered to be the party’s core function: serving as a vehicle to promote and elect Libertarians.
Trump, in the view of these critics, is a creature of the corrupt political machine that Libertarians exist to oppose, and inviting him to share their stage betrayed the very purpose of the party.
Trump was cheered for his promises to pardon Ross Ulbricht and to appoint a Libertarian to his cabinet, but was heckled and booed by the audience mostly for his explicit calls for the party to nominate him or for Libertarians to at least vote for him in November.
Some Libertarians in the audience also shouted their anger with various parts of Trump’s record, including his unilateral drone strikes in Syria and the charges his administration brought against Julian Assange under the Espionage Act.
In contrast with Trump, Kennedy received several standing ovations in a speech focused squarely on the Bill of Rights and the long list of ways in which the Trump and Biden administrations trampled upon it during the pandemic years.
The most significant protest came when some Libertarians interrupted his speech with cheers in support of Palestinian resistance against Israel, an issue that Kennedy debated fiercely with Libertarian comedian Dave Smith on his Part of the Problem podcast.
Kennedy did not ask for the Libertarian nomination during his speech, but he delivered a short video to the LNC thanking the group of Libertarian delegates who nominated him in which he expressed his admiration for the party and emphasized his alignment on bolstering Constitutional rights.
Critics of the decision to invite Trump were no happier with Kennedy’s invitation, however, given that he is an Independent—not Libertarian—candidate whom they view as a competitor to libertarianism.
Libertarian Party delegates did not ultimately decide to nominate Trump or Kennedy in a coalition ticket. Support for such an alliance ticket proved to be small among delegates once they had cast their votes.
A handful of delegates pushed for an alliance with Kennedy to boost his Independent campaign and to expand the party’s ballot access and unlock federal funding, but he was eliminated in the first round of voting.
The party instead nominated Chase Oliver on the seventh ballot in a contentious vote that almost resulted in delegates choosing “none of the above.”
Oliver secured the nomination with the help of Mike ter Maat, a retired police officer and fellow presidential candidate who agreed to endorse him and accept the party’s vice presidential nomination.
Oliver built a platform in the party during his 2022 campaign for U.S. Senate in Georgia. He appeared on a debate stage in October 2022 with his Democratic opponent, Senator Raphael Warnock, which his Republican opponent, Herschel Walker, declined to attend.
In November 2022, Oliver won 2 percent of the vote, forcing Warnock and Walker into a runoff election and using his platform to advocate for ranked-choice voting as a way to eliminate the need for an expensive runoff.
Oliver was backed by the party’s Classical Liberal Caucus, which was founded in response to the insurgent Mises Caucus winning control of the Libertarian Party during the 2022 LNC. His nomination appears to have intensified these splits within the party that were already hardened by the 2022 Mises Caucus takeover.
Libertarian Party Chair Angela McArdle said during a livestream that while she would not endorse Trump, she endorses Oliver “in blue states” as a spoiler to Biden in the hopes of securing greater Libertarian influence over the Trump campaign:
“We’re going to work very aggressively, specifically in blue states, to make sure he has the support that he needs from the national party.
There are some red states who are very pissed off about [Oliver’s nomination], and they think that the branding of this campaign is really going to hurt them.
I’m going to leave that up to them to decide how they deal with it.”
At least three Libertarian state parties have officially rejected nominating Oliver in their states: Montana, Colorado, and New Hampshire.
New Hampshire state law does not allow the party to stop Oliver from appearing on the ballot, but the state Libertarian Party vows to provide “no formal support” for him during the campaign.
The Colorado state party called on the LNC to decertify the nomination of Oliver and ter Maat or at least “allow states to pursue their own electoral strategies to maximize Libertarian outcomes.”
Several prominent influencers within the party have declined to endorse or vote for Oliver, including Dave Smith. Smith adamantly voiced his support for what he views as a strong anti-war platform from Oliver, but he admitted that it is not enough to earn his vote.
The principal issues Libertarians have named as deal-breakers include his support for leaving “gender-affirming care” to parents and children rather than focusing on unraveling the “network of public school officials, public health bureaucrats, and billion-dollar pharmaceutical companies creating a web of perverse incentives to pressure parents and children into irreversible decisions,” as the Colorado state party described it, and his vocal support for a number of pandemic restrictions.
Many Libertarians view the party’s failure to fiercely oppose lockdowns and mandates of all forms in 2020 and 2021 as a stain on the party, and its weak response to pandemic restrictions was a driving factor behind the Mises Caucus takeover of the LNC in 2022.
The Colorado state party applauded Oliver for what they consider to be strong anti-war positions, but ultimately rejected his nomination.
Libertarians for Kennedy, the group that has pushed for a Libertarian-Kennedy alliance for months, meanwhile, is encouraging state parties that “need stronger presidential votes to retain ballot access” to nominate Kennedy.
Prominent Libertarians now find themselves in a position that the party has struggled to reach for decades.
The party has the attention of a former President running for a second term and the most successful Independent candidate in a generation. Their influence could lead to a Trump or Kennedy administration in 2025 that leans more libertarian than any administration has in decades.
At the same time, the party suffers from a high level of factionalism that could ultimately cripple it if members become disillusioned or alienated. The polarized reaction to Oliver’s nomination heightens the stakes of this election cycle for the party’s future.
As 2024 shapes up to be a turning point for the country, so too is it shaping up to be a turning point for the country’s longtime third-largest party.
The Union Forward newsletter is published under The Daily Independent: An Independent Report for Independent Thinkers.
Sources
President Trump Addresses Libertarian National Convention in D.C. — Right Side Broadcasting Network
RFK Jr. addresses Libertarian National Convention — The Hill
Ron Paul Full Speech at Libertarian National Convention — Craig R. Brittain
Statement Regarding the Libertarian Nomination of Chase Oliver and Mike ter Maat — Libertarians for Kennedy
The Much Anticipated Endorsement Announcement — Angela McArdle on 𝕏
Incredible & very informative, thank you brother! Keep up the amazing work that you’re always doing. 👏🏼