Libertarian leaders are siding with Trump over their own candidate

The brashness and discrediting reflect a power struggle between old-school libertarians and the party’s burgeoning far right, both in New Hampshire and nationally, as factions clash over what libertarianism should mean. On an unprecedented scale, prominent leaders of the Libertarian Party are aligning themselves with the MAGA movement this election season and actively supporting former President Donald J. Trump.

Although the presidential race in New Hampshire, where independent candidates make up the state’s largest electoral 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. free or die.” of voices

In 2016, when Trump lost New Hampshire by 0.4 percentage points, the libertarian ticket received 4.1 percent of the state’s presidential vote. But in 2020, when Trump lost New Hampshire by 7.3 points, the libertarian ticket had just 1.6 percent. this year most polls show Harris ahead of Trump in the state by 4 points or more.

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

Oliver said the state’s online activities tarnish the public image of an organization whose core principles are peace-loving.

“It’s a real shame that the New Hampshire Libertarian Party is allowing her to be their spokesperson on social media, where so many people may be seeing libertarianism for the first time,” Oliver said. “It certainly turns people away.”

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

Oliver will be on the ballot Tuesday in all seven battleground states, where polls show Harris and Trump in a tight race.

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

Oliver told Monds how he was an anti-war Democrat frustrated by President Barack Obama’s failure to follow through on his promises to end wars and close Guantanamo Bay, and he said Monds replied, “Welcome home.”

But today, the message from some libertarians seems more exclusionary than inclusive.

While horror over the party of New Hampshire activity in social networks has been going on for three years, real chaos is broader than the leaders of the Libertarian National Committee fight openly on the eve of the elections.

Angela E. McArdle, Chair-Elect of the Committee, welcome Trump will address the group’s convention in May. She later supported Oliver’s candidacy by dressing up red clown nose and urged libertarians to support Oliver in blue states to “get votes out of the left” and help Trump implement libertarian priorities.

In June, the New Hampshire party rejected Oliver’s candidacy and said it would not offer him any official support.

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

Nicholas J. Sarwark, 45, attorney, who presided The Libertarian National Committeeman from 2014 to 2020, now based in Manchester, New Hampshire, called Trump a “unique and somewhat malign force” and said he was “cautiously optimistic” that Harris would defeat Trump at the ballot box. Sarwark said he plans to vote for Oliver over Harris.

“I’m still a libertarian,” he said. “Just because a bunch of people who aren’t libertarians took over the party and called themselves libertarians doesn’t mean I’m changing myself.”

Sarwark said the roots of the split in the Libertarian Party can be traced back to at least 2017, when white supremacists who marched on Unite the Right rally in CharlottesvilleVirginia, chanted “blood and soil” and other neo-Nazi slogans.

Sarwark and other leaders answered at that time condemning racism and bigotry as contrary to the principles of the Libertarian Party. They pushed back directly against the performance in which Jeff Deist — then president of the Mises Institute, an Alabama think tank that advocates “a radical shift in an intellectual climate, away from statism and towards the order of private property” – claimed that “blood and soilThe concept is compatible with libertarianism.

Against the backdrop of further conflict, Michael Heise Pennsylvania formed Libertarian Party Mises Caucuswhich prefers a more radical approach than the party 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 nominees.

Mises Caucus Chairman Aaron Harris credited McArdle with leading the 2024 convention in which libertarians won several victories, including Trump’s promises to appoint at least one libertarian to his cabinet and to fire Ross W. Ulbricht, the creator of the dark web site Silk Road network prison.

– wrote Aaron Harris to caucus members in June that the Libertarian Party has become “a real force in national politics for the first time in its history — despite having an unknown candidate who will likely do a lot of damage to our brand.”

One of the loudest voices associated with the Mises Caucus in New Hampshire is Jeremy Kaufman, 40, whose social media activity has sparked outrage with a scathing comment race, sexand more.

Kaufman recently defended In 2017, in Deist’s “blood and soil” speech, he said he would vote for Trump and called Oliver “gay communist.”

Kaufman argues that winning elections is not the goal of the Libertarian Party. Rather, the party exists to control meaning “libertarian”.he explained on X, urging right-libertarians not to let left-libertarians control public perception.

Kaufman openly called “less democracy” and encouraged those who share his views to accept public policies and interpersonal behavior that make New Hampshire inhospitable to democrats, the leftfamilies of transgender childrenand others. He urged libertarians to become “ruling class» in New Hampshire.

“It is we, and we alone, who can have any political or cultural power in New Hampshire,” he wrote. “We are moral and those who disagree must either change, comply or leave.”

Oliver said Kaufman’s advocacy of inhospitality is “absolute nonsense.”

Sarwark, a former head of the LNC, called Kaufman’s ideas “quite fascist.”

Kaufman did not respond to requests for comment.

Ryan Bloodworth, interim chairman of the LPNH executive committee, did not respond to questions about the party’s messages.

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

O’Donnell said he talked to regular people while collecting signatures this summer to put Libertarian candidates on the ballot and realized how much anger there is with the New Hampshire Libertarian Party over its messaging.

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

“We need to be good neighbors who show that our policies work and can improve people’s lives, not make it so inconvenient that people run away,” he said.

Amanda Hawkey of the Globe staff contributed to this report.

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