The Libertarian Party held its national convention last week, rejecting appeals from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and convicted felon Donald Johnny Rocco Trump, instead nominating Chase Oliver as its presidential candidate. It took the party seven ballots to select Oliver, who received 60.6% of the votes over 36.6% for “none of the above.”
Oliver, a pot-smoking, gun-toting, anti-war, out gay 39-year-old from Georgia, was his party's nominee in 2022 for the Senate seat held by Democrat Rev. Rafael Warnock. He pulled in a little over 2% of the vote that year — just enough to send the election to a run-off.
He represents his party's "classical libertarian" wing, the wing whose beliefs are just a hop, skip, and a jump from anarchism: government shouldn't do anything for you, or get in the way of the big and powerful. If you want to have an abortion, do drugs, dump motor oil in the lake, or burn tires in your back yard, a libertarian government won't stop you. Neither will it deliver your mail, plow your streets, educate your children, put out your house fire, or step in when a pandemic sweeps the country. You want to defund the police? They're your guys.
Libertarian Party leadership is currently dominated by its "Mises" wing, founded by the likes of Ron Paul and which has come to embrace Trumpism. It's named for the Mises Foundation, which is named in turn for Austrian-American economist Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises (1881-1973). Les Mises Rabble oppose abortion rights, immigration, transgender rights, and "wokism," for starters. They are accused of supporting racists, bigots, white nationalists, and Putin apologists.
The Libertarians' convention was more interesting than I expect the major parties' conventions will be. Trump and Kennedy were booed on stage; some delegate cast a vote for Stormy Daniels in the first round; and then there was this:
Michael Rectenwald, the favored presidential candidate of the Mises Caucus faction currently running the party, failed to secure the nomination after making a bumbling, post-Trump speech on stage while stoned, having made a spur-of-the-moment decision beforehand to pop an edible.
Could his speech have been any more ridiculous than rambling on about electric-battery-powered boats, sharks, low-flow dishwashers, and how nobody is allowed to watch "Gone with the Wind" any more?
Back to the Libertarians: the Misesthropes are refusing to accept Oliver as their party's standard bearer. The Libertarian Parties in Montana and Colorado quickly voted not to put him on their states' ballots, calling Oliver and running mate Mike ter Maat "culturally woke" "useful idiots for the regime" who are "unfit to represent our values." Its parties in Idaho and New Hampshire may follow suit.
Oliver being openly gay is only part of what makes him woke and unfit in the Mises-to-pieces' eyes. Apparently, he was seen wearing a protective mask during the COVID-19 pandemic. Not advocating a governmental mask mandate, mind you. Just choosing to wear one himself. But that's enough to tar him as a stooge of the feds.
Psst: I'll bet that he stores his guns in a locked cabinet with the safety on, too!
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