The Libertarian Party held its national convention over the Memorial Day Weekend, nominating its presidential ticket and hosting high profile guest speakers including Vivek Ramaswamy, RFK, Jr., and former President Donald Trump. While controversial within the party, inviting these non-libertarians to speak to the party’s delegates garnered massive national attention for the party which is traditionally only lightly covered by the media outside C-Span.

Thanks to the Herculean efforts of party Chair Angela McCardle and the support of one of the highest profile libertarians in the country, Dave Smith, the net result of the convention was to once again signal to all paying attention for the first time that the party poses no threat to the establishment.

It was supposed to be different this time. After uninspiring presidential campaigns for four straight presidential election cycles, the party was taken over in 2022 by the Mises Caucus, which promised to bring a more “hardcore,” Ron Paul-style brand of libertarianism to the party. While Jo Jorgensen was certainly a marked improvement over Johnson/Weld and (ugh) Bob Barr – she’s actually a libertarian – her campaign’s decisions to support Black Lives Matter and offer no resistance to the Covid Regime disappointed those who would eventually take over the party.

Yet, despite winning supermajorities in 2022 and re-electing their preferred chair, McCardle, the party’s convention ended up, intentionally or not, broadcasting the same signal to America as had Johnson/Weld: we won’t rock the boat.

It began with the reception the delegates gave Donald Trump. Now, make no mistake, Donald Trump is no libertarian and there is no good case for party members even voting for him, much less nominating him as their candidate. But he was invited by the party to speak and then indiscriminately booed no matter what he said, even while he was speaking. This smacked of left-wing college students shouting down conservative speakers on campus, although no Libertarians attempted to physically prevent him speaking as college students have Charles Murray and others.

Hopefully, this was due to more than the presence of Secret Service.

Regardless, the message sent to millions of first-time viewers was that the Libertarian Party is a left-wing party which behaves towards conservatives like Trump in much the way other left-wing activists behave towards them.

It should be noted that Trump didn’t make it easy for Libertarians to applaud his good positions and boo the bad ones. He left his worst positions out of the speech, which was obviously written specifically for his audience. Still, polite applause mixed with boos could have sent the message that delegates weren’t necessarily buying his newfound libertarianism without appearing to be just another bunch of left wingers suffering from TDS.

The party’s choice for presidential nominee only cemented that impression. In a close contest that required seven rounds of voting, Chase Oliver edged out Michael Rectenwald and “NOTA” to win the nomination. Like Jorgensen, Oliver is a solid libertarian on most issues. Also like Jorgensen, Oliver’s positions scream “please like me!” to the left-wing establishment.

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Tom Mullen is the author of It’s the Fed, Stupid and Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness? 

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Tom