>For many libertarian leaders, both within the Libertarian Party and among the ranks of the literati at the Cato Institute who serve as the movement’s intellectual base, Trump’s autocratic tendencies overshadow his preferences for deregulation and lower taxes. Yet Trump and RFK Jr. succeeded in driving a wedge in the party and culling votes from its nominee, Chase Oliver, who, despite campaigning in all 50 states, failed to get half of 1 percent of the vote in 2024.
>“There’s a division here,” Oliver acknowledged to me recently. “Some people in our party leadership think it’s better to kind of be the J.V. league for the Republican Party and be a feeder league for them and try to play in concert with the two-party system.” Yet he notes that the Libertarian Party was founded for a reason; it represents an ideology that does not fit tidily with either the Republicans or Democrats but has agreements and disagreements with both.
1 Comment
>For many libertarian leaders, both within the Libertarian Party and among the ranks of the literati at the Cato Institute who serve as the movement’s intellectual base, Trump’s autocratic tendencies overshadow his preferences for deregulation and lower taxes. Yet Trump and RFK Jr. succeeded in driving a wedge in the party and culling votes from its nominee, Chase Oliver, who, despite campaigning in all 50 states, failed to get half of 1 percent of the vote in 2024.
>“There’s a division here,” Oliver acknowledged to me recently. “Some people in our party leadership think it’s better to kind of be the J.V. league for the Republican Party and be a feeder league for them and try to play in concert with the two-party system.” Yet he notes that the Libertarian Party was founded for a reason; it represents an ideology that does not fit tidily with either the Republicans or Democrats but has agreements and disagreements with both.