The Libertarian Party, the Mises Caucus and Donald Trump

In the last few presidential elections, the Libertarian Party presidential candidates presented policy positions watered down in a way that made them more acceptable to the center and left. Some examples from Gary Johnson, the LP candidate in 2012 and 2016:¹

When Austin Petersen, one of Johnson’s opponents in the forum, asked the former governor if a Jewish baker should be required to bake a Nazi wedding cake, he said: “That would be my contention, yes.” (FBN’s John Stossel Hosts Libertarian Presidential Forum Featuring Johnson, McAfee & Petersen)

“We are not espousing the legalization of any drugs outside of marijuana,” Johnson said when asked about his drug policies by a mother who said her son was a recovering drug addict.

Instead of calling for loosening regulations on gun ownership, Johnson defended current laws barring certain types of weapons.

“I don’t think our position would be to make it easier” to obtain guns, Johnson said. “We’re not looking to roll back anything.”

(5 takeaways from CNN’s Libertarian Party town hall)

Bill Weld, the Vice-Presidential candidate in 2016, was libertarian in the sense of being socially liberal and fiscally conservative but not in any stronger sense.²

The LP had chosen to nominate candidates better qualified by conventional standards than in the past — Johnson and Weld had each served two terms as governor — and with more conventional policy positions than past candidates or most of the party membership. They got a larger vote total than any past Libertarian ticket but, despite the advantage of unusually unpopular major party candidates, did not not reach the 5% requirement for federal funding.

The Mises Caucus was founded in 2017 in response. Their platform supports a much stronger version of libertarian doctrine, including the replacement of government money by competing private issuers; it takes no positions that would clearly define them as right (or left) within the libertarian movement; I would agree with most of it. They were, however, widely perceived as sympathetic to the right, in part due to their connection to the Mises Institute whose chairman, Lew Rockwell, supports the Paleolibertarian movement and whose (then) president Jeff Deist was criticized by, among others, the chairman of the Libertarian National Committee for an article that positively mentioned the term "blood and soil," associated with Nazi rhetoric. That impression was reinforced by some prominent figures associated with the caucus, including Hans Hoppe Dave Smith and Mike, all of whom supported immigration restrictions, currently a right wing position.³

At the 2022 Libertarian National Convention the Mises Caucus succeeded in getting control of the Libertarian Party, electing Angela McArdle, a caucus board member, as party chair and putting caucus supporters in control of the National Committee.

At the recent 2024 convention McArdle was reelected and the caucus retained is control of the party but the presidential nomination went to Chase Oliver, a member of the Classical Liberal caucus, opponents of the Mises Caucus. I was not there but the impression I get from discussion online⁴ by people who were is that Oliver won — on the seventh ballot — because the Mises people did a poor job of selecting and pushing a candidate, their preferred choice, Dave Smith, having decided not to run.

The most interesting thing I have seen on the outcome of the convention and the current position of the party is a lengthy statement by McArdle strikingly favorable to Donald Trump, who spoke at the convention.⁵ Some relevant quotes:

“I haven’t endorsed Donald Trump but he has endorsed us. Donald Trump said he is going to put a Libertarian in a cabinet position. He spoke to us and spoke to us. He said he is a libertarian.” (Starting at 24:07)

“He has basically endorsed us. So in return I endorsed Chase Oliver as the best way to be beat Joe Biden. Get in loser. We are stopping Biden. That’s what I think, that is what I think this campaign is about. (Starting at 24:19)

I think we’ve got to do everything we can to Kick Joe Biden’s ass. And one of the ways to do that is to support Chase Oliver and do get hard in the heard … for him in blue states. 24:44

Not those of you in red states who want to support Chase, and there are some of you, like really want to support Chase … that’s entirely up to you (Starting at 25:08)

Going to work very aggressively specifically in blue states to make sure he has the support he needs from the national party. (Starting at 25:24)

But I encourage people to try to view the Chase Oliver campaign to pull protest votes from the left. (Starting at 25:44)

As those quotes make clear, she argued that Oliver’s nomination will pull votes from Biden not from Trump and should be encouraged to do so, making more likely Biden’s defeat and Trump’s victory.

That appears to settle the question of whether the Mises Caucus is reversing the error of their predecessors, aligning with the right instead of the left and center. My own view is that the Libertarian Party ought to use elections as a way of spreading libertarian views, not as a way of supporting either either major party candidate.

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1. My guess is that Johnson, who served two terms as the Republican governor of New Mexico, was presenting his honest opinions, that although more libertarian than most Republican governors he was substantially less libertarian than most members of the LP.

2. A conclusion based on hearing him speak at a libertarian event and consistent with the most detailed account of his positions I could find, from his 1994 Gubernatorial campaign in Massachusetts. Thus, for example, he was in favor of increased penalties for selling illegal drugs, not in favor of decriminalizing the possession and private use of “certain illegal drugs.”

3. I discussed Hoppe and Smith’s arguments and my response in an earlier post. Mike Rectenwald was supported for the 2024 presidential nomination, unsuccessfully, by the Mises Caucus.

4. Including this piece by the chairman of the Mises Caucus.

5. Her discussion of Trump starts at about 20:50 on her talk and runs until about 25:53.