Libertarian leaders side with Trump over their own candidate

The bombast and smears reflect a power struggle between old-school libertarians and the party’s rising far-right wing, both within New Hampshire and nationally, as factions clash over what libertarianism should mean. On a scale never seen before, prominent Libertarian Party leaders are joining the MAGA movement this election season and actively supporting former President Donald J. Trump.

Although the presidential race in New Hampshire, where independents make up the state’s largest voting bloc, is tighter than in any other New England state, political observers generally do not expect libertarians to determine who wins the state’s four electoral colleges. ‘Live Free Or Die’ wins. to vote.

In 2016, when Trump lost New Hampshire by 0.4 percentage points, the Libertarian ticket delivered 4.1 percent of the state’s presidential votes. But in 2020, when Trump lost New Hampshire by 7.3 points, the Libertarian ticket yielded just 1.6 percent. This year, most polls shows Harris leading Trump in the state by 4 points or more.

Still, the libertarian row illustrates how political dynamics continued to evolve amid Trump’s third bid for the White House.

Oliver said the state party’s online activities are tarnishing the public image of an organization whose core principles are peaceful.

“It’s a damn shame that the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire allows her to be their representative on social media, where so many people might get their first glimpse of libertarianism,” Oliver said. “It definitely puts people off.”

Oliver has already made a political name for himself in his home state of Georgia, a presidential battleground, where he secured enough votes for the U.S. Senate in the 2022 race to trigger a runoff between the Democratic and Republican candidates.

Oliver will appear on the ballot Tuesday in all seven battleground states, where polls show Harris and Trump locked in tight battles.

Oliver, 39, who came out fully as gay at about age 16, said he was first introduced to the Libertarian Party in 2010 at an LGBTQ Pride event in Atlanta, where John Monds, the gubernatorial candidate Georgia Party, asked him what was most important. important to him as a voter.

Oliver told Monds he was an anti-war Democrat who was disappointed by President Barack Obama’s failure to deliver on his promises to end wars and close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp — and he said Monds responded, “Welcome home.”

But today, the message from some libertarians seems to be one of exclusion rather than inclusion.

While consternation about the party of New Hampshire social media activity has been going on for three years, the current chaos is broader, as leaders of the Libertarian National Committee argue openly prior to the elections.

Angela E. McArdle, the committee’s chair-elect, Welcome Trump will speak at the group’s convention in May. She then supported Oliver’s candidacy during the campaign a red clown nose and called on libertarians to support Oliver in blue states to “attract votes from the left” and help Trump deliver on libertarian priorities.

In June, the New Hampshire Party rejected Oliver’s candidacy and said it would not run for him some formal support.

That is not to say that libertarian support for Trump in New Hampshire is universal.

Nicholas J. Sarwark, 45, an attorney who chaired the The Libertarian National Committee from 2014 to 2020 and now living in Manchester, NH, called Trump “a unique and somewhat malign force” and said he is “cautiously optimistic” that Harris will defeat Trump at the ballot box. Sarwark said he plans to vote for Oliver, not Harris.

“I’m still a libertarian,” he said. “The fact that a group of people who are not libertarians have taken over the party and called themselves libertarians does not mean I change who I am.”

Sarwark said the roots of the Libertarian Party’s schism can be traced back at least to 2017, when white supremacists marched on the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in CharlottesvilleVa., sang “blood and earth‘ and other neo-Nazi slogans.

Sarwark and fellow leaders responded at the time condemn racism and bigotry are contrary to the principles of the Libertarian Party. She pushed back directly against a speech in which Jeff Deist – then-president of the Mises Institute, an Alabama-based think tank that advocates “a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and towards an order of private property’ – argued that ‘theblood and earthThe concept is compatible with libertarianism.

Amid the ensuing conflict, Michael Heise of Pennsylvania formed the Libertarian Party Mises Caucuswho prefers a more radical approach than the party took in 2016, when former GOP governors Gary E. Johnson of New Mexico and William F. Weld of Massachusetts were the Libertarian presidential and vice presidential candidates.

Mises Caucus Chairman Aaron Harris has credited McArdle with leading a 2024 convention in which libertarians scored several victories, including promises from Trump to appoint at least one libertarian to his Cabinet and defeat Silk Road creator Ross W. Ulbricht site on the dark web, to free from prison.

Aaron Harris wrote to caucus members in June that for the first time in its history, the Libertarian Party was “a real force in national politics — despite having a no-name candidate who will likely do major damage to our brand.”

One of the loudest Mises Caucus-affiliated voices in New Hampshire is that of Jeremy Kauffman, 40, whose social media activities have drawn ire with biting commentary race, genderAnd more.

Kauffman recently defended Deist’s 2017 “blood and soil” speech said he would vote for Trump, and called Oliver “a communist of a homosexual race.”

Kauffman claims that winning elections is not the goal of the Libertarian Party. Instead, the party exists to control which means ‘libertarian’he explained on X, calling on right-wing libertarians to prevent left-wing libertarians from controlling public perception.

Kauffman has openly called for “less democracyand encouraged those who share his views to adopt public policies and interpersonal practices that make New Hampshire inhospitable Democrats, leftistsfamilies with transgender childrenand others. He has called for libertarians to “the ruling class” in New Hampshire.

“It is we, and we alone, who are qualified to have any political or cultural authority in New Hampshire,” he wrote. “We are the moral ones, and those who disagree must change, conform or leave.”

Oliver said Kauffman’s promotion of inhospitability is “completely stupid.”

Sarwark, the former chairman of the LNC, called Kauffman’s ideas “quite fascist.”

Kauffman did not respond to requests for comment.

Ryan Bloodworth, interim chairman of the LPNH executive committee, did not answer questions about the party’s communications.

Justin F. O’Donnell, 35, who served as Kauffman’s 2022 campaign manager, said the Libertarian Party is in the midst of an “identity crisis.”

O’Donnell said he spoke to everyday people this summer while collecting signatures to put Libertarian candidates on the ballot and realized how much resentment there is toward the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire over its reporting.

O’Donnell, who plans to vote for Oliver, said libertarians should persuade people to join them, not drive away groups they don’t like.

“We are the ones who are supposed to be the good neighbors who show that our policies work and can improve people’s lives, rather than making it so uncomfortable that people flee,” he said.

Amanda Gokee of the Globe staff contributed to this report.

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Steven Porter can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @reporterporter.