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When the Libertarian Party recently invited Donald Trump to speak at its annual convention later this month, the move sparked plenty of outrage inside the partyand a lot of intrigue outside it.

The idea that I completely wrote the GOP off only to have Trump follow me into the Libertarian Party really upsets me and upsets a lot of people, Jonathan Casey, whose involvement in Libertarian Party politics dates back to 2016, told The Dispatch.

Until the Trump invitation, the Libertarian Party had mostly been an afterthought for outside observers in the 2024 presidential campaign, but it shouldnt have been. Whoever wins the partys nomination for president later this month at the Libertarian National Convention will be on the ballot in at least 37 states, including the battlegrounds of Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Nevada. The last two presidential election were decided by a few states where the victor prevailed by less than 1 percentage point, so its plausible the Libertarian candidate could sway the outcomeeven if he falls short of winning the 3.3 percent of the national popular vote won by 2016 Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson or the 1.2 percent of the popular vote garnered by 2020 nominee Jo Jorgenson.

So why, exactly, did a minor party whose raison dtre is to reject the two major parties invite the presumptive GOP nominee to potentially overshadow the convention where Libertarian Party delegates will pick their own presidential nominee? That is a hotly contested question within a Libertarian Party that is deeply divided between two factionsthe Mises Caucus and the Classical Liberal Caucus.

The Mises Caucus is the Libertarian Partys largest faction whose members swept to power at the partys 2022 convention in a backlash against what they saw as an increasingly politically correct party that didnt do enough to stand up to COVID lockdowns and was happy to run Republican Party retreads for president. The Classical Liberal Caucus is filled with, well, self-styled classical liberals who see Mises Caucus types as Trump-adjacent bigots and kooksor at least way too tolerant of bigots and kooks.

Heading into the 2024 convention, the Mises Caucus has endorsed presidential candidate Michael Rectenwald, a former New York University professor who says he converted from Marxism to anarcho-capitalism after he was the victim of a woke mob at NYU. On Friday, the Classical Liberals endorsed Chase Oliver, a former Democrat who was the Libertarian Partys 2022 Senate candidate in Georgia.

The Classical Liberals contend that by turning the convention into a Trump rally, the Mises Caucus leaders of the Libertarian Party are not only trying to help Trump win the general election, theyre also trying to depress turnout of delegates who might oppose the Mises Caucus candidates running for party leadership and the presidential nomination.

The Trump invitation is absolutely designed to discourage anybody who would challenge [the Mises Caucus] from showing up, said Casey, who serves as chair of the Classical Liberal Caucus. Moreover, Joshua Eakle, a classical liberal who served as Tennessee state party chairman until 2021, worries that if Rectenwald wins the Libertarian Party nomination, he could theoretically suspend his campaign, either immediately after being endorsed or, say, before the election and endorse Trump.

Members of the Mises Caucus strongly deny those accusations. Im not going to drop out to support any other candidate. Im gonna run as hard as I can, Rectenwald told The Dispatch. Mises Caucus Chair Aaron Harris said the decision to invite Trump, as well as President Joe Biden and independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was meant to increase interest in the Libertarian Party: The long and short of it is the media wont really cover usthe mainstream media wont cover usthey wont let us in the debate. So lets see what buzz we can create on our own. While Biden declined the invitation, RFK Jr. accepted and challenged Trump to a debate at the convention (something Trump has not agreed to do).

The difference between Trump and Biden is like the difference between stomach cancer and pancreatic cancer. You definitely dont want either one, but one might kill you a little slower, Harris said, before identifying Trump as maybe the less-bad cancer. Were not trying to game this to support Trump. If anything, I think us helping elevate interest in alternative candidates is going to hurt both of them and be a wild card in this election.

How Trump could hurt Trump.

Its not clear what Trumps objective is by showing up at the Libertarian convention, but theres actually a decent chance it could backfire on him. If Trumps presence at the convention does help Rectenwald win the nomination, that would likely hurt Trump in the general election because Rectenwalds anti-woke and anti-abortion stances would almost certainly draw more votes away from Trump than Biden.

On the other hand, Oliver, the candidate backed by the Classical Liberal Caucus, would likely draw more votes from Biden than Trump because Oliver is a former Democratic antiwar activist who favors enacting a federal statutory right to abortion.

So what does Trump have to gain from showing up at the Libertarian Convention? I dont think he cares one way or the other who our presidential nominee is, Casey of the Classical Liberal Caucus told The Dispatch. I think his motivation for coming to speak to the Libertarian Party is that he looks at this as a campaign rally where he can go up on a stage that has Libertarian Party branding, Libertarian Party crowd, and he can create an ad for himself, essentially. That message? I spoke to the Libertarians, and they loved me, as Casey put it.

Indeed, Trump could be competing for the much larger faction of self-identified libertarians who never vote for the Libertarian Party candidate. A recent poll, which has not been publicly released, conducted by YouGov for the libertarian Cato Institute found that 15 percent of Americans self-identified as libertarian, according to Catos director of polling, Emily Ekins. The respondents were evenly split between Trump and Biden at 41 percent apiece. Trump, of course, also needs to be concerned about Kennedy, who is courting libertarians with his record of opposing COVID vaccines.

Michael Rectenwalds play for the populist faction.

While RFK Jr. may win far more votes than the Libertarian Party nominee, Rectenwald seems like exactly the kind of candidate who could shave half a point off of Trumps margin if he is the nominee.

I was a Marxist and a full professor at NYU when the woke mob came for me, when I voiced criticisms of social justice and university policies that had become official dogma of the university, Rectenwald told The Dispatch. When I saw what totalitarians leftists are, I immediately became a civil libertarian. A conversion to full-scale economic and political libertarianism followed shortly thereafter.

Rectenwald characterized the last two Libertarian Party nominees, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson and Clemson University professor Jo Jorgenson as milquetoast candidates who did not excite anybody. Rectenwald likened himself to Argentinian President Javier Millei and said his own political philosophy begins with the premise that government is an evil, that it is a thief, and that its a parasiteand it sucks the blood out of the body politic. And so what we need to do is get it out of our lives as much as humanly possible with the ultimate goal of a stateless societyanarcho-capitalist order.

Its Rectenwalds anti-woke record and association with alt-right figures that could hurt Trump come November. Rectenwald says he was pushed toward taking a leave of absence after he revealed that he had been tweeting under the screen name Deplorable NYU Prof in 2016 (though NYU administrators dispute Rectenwalds version of events). In 2016, New York University canceled a scheduled appearance from alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, and Rectenwald invited Yiannopoulos to speak to one of his classes in 2018. The event was again canceled due to threats of violence. Asked what was the academic value of inviting Yiannopoulos to speak in a college classroom, Rectenwald replied: Milo, for whatever his faults, is a very brilliant guy. Asked about Yiannopoulos record of antisemitic rhetoric, Rectenwald said: At the time that I had invited him, there wasnt any indication of that at all. But whatever hes done since is on himlike palling around with Ye, or, you know, Nick Fuentes and all that, I think thats pretty abominable. But Im not here to check him. There was in fact plenty of evidence of Yiannopouloss racist and anti-semitic rhetoric prior to 2018.

Asked to name the worst aspects of the Trump presidency, Recetnwald replied: Operation Warp Speed, the lockdowns, eight-plus trillion dollars in inflationary spending as well as Trumps buffoonish and antagonistic rhetoric. What was wrong with Operation Warp Speed? The vaccine was not properly vetted, Rectenwald said.

On fiscal issues, Rectenwald said that there should be an off ramp for completely winding down entitlements like Social Security and Medicare of at least for four to five years, so it is somewhat precipitous, but not too much so that you end up with a social catastrophe.

While, like Trump, Rectenwald says the federal government shouldnt have a role in setting abortion policy, he draws a contrast by voicing support for state-level laws that ban almost all abortions, except in cases of rape or when the life or physical health of the mother is threatened. Philosophically, I think abortion is an egregious violation of the non-aggression principle, Rectenwald said, referring to one of the basic tenets of libertarianism. It is aggression against a person. I believe that it is a person regardless of the size or stage of development.

Rectenwald also thinks states should ban transgender surgeries and puberty-blockers or hormone treatments for minors because people under 18 do not have the ability to consent, but once youre of age, if you want to change your body in whatever way you think you can, you have a perfect right to do so.

Chase Olivers antiwar roots.

As the candidate endorsed by the Classical Liberal Caucus, Oliver cuts a much different profile. While Rectenwalds interaction with a woke mob brought him to Libertarian politics, Oliver came into the party as a Democratic antiwar activist who thought Barack Obamas first term was too militaristic because he failed to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and end drone warfare. I became politically homeless until I found the Libertarian Party, campaigning at the Atlanta Pride festival in 2010, Oliver told The Dispatch.

While both Rectenwald and Oliver favor cutting off U.S. military aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, Oliver was particularly passionate in condemning Israels war against Hamas. October 7 was a horrible day for the people of Israel, like theres no questioning that what Hamas did was horrible. But the response back has been equally terrible, Oliver told The Dispatch. It has killed so many more innocent peoplelike tens of thousands of innocent people. When pressed on using the phrase equally terrible to describe Hamass attack deliberately targeting civilians and Israels military response targeting Hamas, Oliver apologized and said the actions were not equal but both were morally indefensible.

What I mean to say is that the [Israeli] response is not morally defensible, just as obviously what Hamas did is not morally defensible, he said.

Oliver and Rectenwald more notably differ on domestic issues. On abortion, for example, Oliver supports enacting a federal statute creating a national right to abortion until an unborn child can survive outside the womb and prohibiting abortion after that point except to protect the life of the mother. Thats the standard that I would like to see federally because I think its a matter of bodily autonomy and medical privacy which fit into our constitutional rights, Oliver said, pointing to the Fifth and 14th amendments. Hed like to phase out Social Security and Medicare over a matter of decades, not four or five years. Hes OK with state bans on transgender surgeries for minors, but not restricting puberty blockers.

Asked if Trump or Biden presents a greater danger to the country, Oliver replied: Theyre both turds, right, and they both stink. Im not going to sit here and try to determine which one is better than the other. He added that Biden and Trump are both representative of authoritarian policies to which the Libertarians seek to be wholly distinct from.

A missed opportunity for libertarians?

Its far from clear that either Rectenwald or Oliver will win the nomination at the convention later this month. Roughly 1,000 national delegates will continue voting until one candidate emerges with a majority of the vote, and Joshua Eakle suggested the most viable strategy to secure the nomination is to basically just be everyones second choice.

During a time of deep dissatisfaction with the Republican and Democrat at the top of the ticket, why hasnt the Libertarian Party taken off as a vehicle for a more mainstream center-right presidential candidate who has held elective office before? In 2020, candidate recruitment efforts faltered amid concerns nominating a libertarian Republican like Michigan Rep. Justin Amash would help reelect Trump, resulting in a lackluster candidate like Jorgensen. Infighting since 2022 has certainly dimmed the partys prospects as well.

But Emily Ekins of the Cato Institute pointed to something more fundamentalwhat political scientists call Duvergers lawthats holding back the Libertarian Party. When you have an electoral system like ours, which is single-member districts, first past the postso whoever wins the most votes wins the whole thing, winner-take-allthat tends to create a system with two parties, said Ekins. No third party will take off unless the electoral system is different.

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Will the Trumpification of the Libertarian Party Actually Hurt Donald Trump? - The Dispatch

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The Libertarian Party of Michigan on Wednesday posted an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as puppet masters who control both the Democratic and Republican parties in the US.

The graphic was posted on multiple social media platforms, but gained particular traction on X/Twitter, where it received widespread blowback but also a chuck of support garnering over 1,000 likes before it was ultimately deleted.

The Libertarian Party of Michigan did not respond to The Algemeiners request for comment for this story.

I know some people think of me as libertarian. I have used that word to describe myself at times, journalist Brad Polumbo wrote in response to the graphic. But please understand that I have no affiliation whatsoever with whatever the fk this is.

Max Abrahms, a professor of political science at Northeastern University, wrote, Ive found that foreign policy libertarians are more likely to (1) view themselves as smart, (2) view themselves as smarter than they are, (3) condescend when theyre dilettantes on national security issues, (4) and yes have issues with Jews.

This is not the first time the Libertarian Party has been accused of promoting antisemitism. In August 2022, the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire posted a now-deleted tweet reading, Six million dollar minimum wage or youre antisemitic, in a reference to the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

Then, a few months later, the national party tweeted out a depiction of Sam Bankman-Fried the fraudster who ran FTX that many argued was antisemitic.

Additionally, the Mises Caucus wing of the Libertarian Party invited an activist named Bryan Sharpe (or Hotep Jesus), who many consider antisemitic, to speak at its convention back in 2021. A Mises Caucus leading member said, regarding the invitation: I dont actually think that someone who is trying to be a truth-seeker and understand whats going on and asked the question about whether or not Jews run Hollywood is an antisemite.

Many observers have pointed out that it is important to make a distinction between the Libertarian Party and people who generally think of themselves as libertarian, arguing the latter merely describes a worldview that prioritizes liberty in economic and social affairs. Meanwhile, the party is seen by many to have been taken over by extremists.

Liz Wolfe, a journalist at Reason, noted she believes the better question is Whats going on with the Libertarian Party? Certainly not the same as libertarianism.

I mean, I dont feel like their antisemitic posting represents what I value, she continued. Far from it.

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'The Zionists Always Get Their Way': Libertarian Party of Michigan Posts Antisemitic Cartoon Depicting Jews as Puppet ... - Algemeiner

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In the 2010 midterm elections, FreedomWorks packed Utahs state Republican Party convention with Tea Party activists, who came to bounce incumbent U.S. Senator Bob Bennett from his seat in favor of the right-wing neo-libertarian Mike Lee. The trick worked; Bennett came in third in the convention vote, leaving Lee to duke it out with businessman Tim Bridgewater in the caucuses, where he won.

FreedomWorkss ultimate aim appeared to be to destabilize Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. In McConnells home state of Kentucky, FreedomWorks, working with Jim DeMint, then the junior senator from South Carolina and leader of the Senate Conservatives Fund, launched the insurgent candidacy of Rand Paul for the nomination, in opposition to the more establishment candidate Trey Grayson, who was anointed by McConnell. Rand Paul prevailed. McConnell got the message, and began his bend further to the right.

In 2010, I interviewed Adam Brandon, then FreedomWorkss communications director before his ascendance to the organizations presidency, about FWs aim with its backing of insurgent Senate candidates. America needed more senators like DeMint, who opposed health care, energy reform, and labor unions, he said, in order to create something of a caucusa new power center, Brandon called it.

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How FreedomWorks Paved the Way for Trumpismand for Its Own Demise - The New Republic

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Dear Reader (including Aruban baseball players for whom ignorance was bliss),

With the news that libertarian advocacy group FreedomWorks is going the way of Blockbuster, the Tea Party era is officially over. Of course, its been functionally deador mostly deadfor a while. Its been a while since anyone in national Republican politics of any note talked like a Tea Partier, never mind associated themselves with the cause. Im sure there are some whove gone to ground, like old-style Communists keeping their heads down in various backwaters, hoping no one recognizes them.

For a sense of how the Tea Parties were like St. Elmos Firesuddenly lighting up the firmament and burning out just as quicklyconsider that in 2010 The New York Times Magazine introduced Marco Rubio to the country with a cover story titled, The First Senator from the Tea Party?

The question mark referred to whether or not Rubio would successfully defeat Charlie Crist in the primary to become a senatornot whether he was a Tea Party guy. Funnily enough, that deserved a question mark, too. Or at least an expiration date. Today, Rubio is a devout industrial plannerbut only when done right.

Indeed, the Times profile, written by Mark Leibovich, is a fascinating historical snapshot. If there is a face for the future of the Republican Party, it is Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee told Leibovich. He is our Barack Obama but with substance.Today Huckabee talks about anything that smacks of the Tea Party-style libertarian principles like theyre nothing a course of penicillin cant clear-up.

There were other Tea Party-fueled victories that year. Rand Paul, Ron Johnson, and Mike Lee, rode that wave, as did many of the GOP candidates who gave Barack Obama a shellacking in the midterms and helped Republicans pick up 63 seats in the House. For the next couple of election cycles, aligning oneself with the Tea Parties was a surefire path to Republican success.

I think Dan McLaughlin gets it basically right in his modest obituary for the Tea Party movement, though I think you could just as easily argue that the movement died when the Tea Party Caucus in the House effectively dissolved in 2016 and more or less absorbed by the House Freedom Caucus. With the rise of Donald Trump, the House Freedom Caucus basically became the House Trump Caucus. Leaders of the initial Tea Party Caucusthe brainchild of Rand Paulincluded Michele Bachmann, Allen West, Louie Gohmert, Steve King, as well as a few normal people.

Now I should say (again) that the Tea Parties were the one exception to my longstanding opposition to populism. I spoke at Tea Party rallies, and for the most part, I liked what I saw; even most of the cranks and oddballs were charming. (I remember at one Tea-Partyish event, an Eastern European fellow pulled me aside, with a stack of books under his arm, to make the case for the restoration of the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania.) As I used to joke at the time, I thought that the Tea Parties might actually constitute the fulfillment of the ancient prophecy that the libertarians would rise up, seize power, and leave everybody alone.

Its difficult to exaggerate how excited some folks were back then. Glenn Reynoldsof Instapundit famesaw it as the fulfillment of his own prophecy: that an Army of Davids would rise up and restore common sense, good government, fiscal rectitude, and all good things. The new libertarian populism was hotly debated, celebrated, and denounced.

Jonathan Rauch wrote a great piece for National Journal in 2010 marveling at how the Tea Parties were perhaps the first modern networked, crowd-sourced, or open-sourced movement. Hierarchies are at a loss to defeat networks, Rauch wrote. Open systems have no leader or headquarters; their units are self-funding, and their members often work for free (thinkWikipedia). Even in principle, you cant count or compartmentalize the participants, because they come and go as they pleasebut counting them is unnecessary, because they can communicate directly with each other. Knowledge and power are distributed throughout the system.

As a result, Rauch continued, the network is impervious to decapitation. If you thump it on the head, it survives. No foolish or self-serving boss can wreck it, because it has no boss. Fragmentation, the bane of traditional organizations, actually makes the network stronger. It is like a starfish: Cut off an arm, and it grows (in some species) into a new starfish. Result: two starfish, where before there was just one.

Alas, Jonathan was wrong. So was Glenn. And so was I.

The media and Democrats figured out how to convince people that the Tea Parties were actually racist and fascist and all that. I think that helped radicalize a lot of Tea Partiers, causing them to embrace things like nationalism and statist power politics. Im here to write about a different cautionary tale, but I should at least acknowledge another. The elite medias moral panic over the Tea Parties succeeded in helping to destroy the movement, but what replaced it was far worse. Ive lost count of the progressives who simultaneously tell me theyre nostalgic for the libertarianism of the pre-Trump right and rejoice in calling conservatives hypocrites for abandoning it. Maybe if they responded in good faith at the time, it would have endured.

Then again, maybe not. Back to my point.

First of all, as Tim Carney gently intimates, the key to libertarian populism wasnt actually the libertarianism, but the populism. And populism is a bit like rushing water: It looks libertarian when it goes in a libertarian direction, but when it hits an obstacle, it will veer in the direction of least resistance. Or it will just pool up and eventually evaporate, dissipate, or get sucked up by creatures looking to wet their beaks.

Speaking of such creatures, Dick Morris saw the payday early. But many others followed him.

One of the problems with political passionparticularly novel passion detached from institutions with the knowledge and experience to channel it constructivelyis that it attracts opportunists and grifters. Its always easier to separate people from their money when they are very excited and not thinking clearly.

As Jim Geraghty chronicled in 2019, the Tea Party quickly became a textbook illustration of Eric Hoffers observation that, Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.

Back in 2014, Geraghty wrote, Politico researched 33 political action committees that claimed to be affiliated with the Tea Party and courted small donors with email and direct-mail appeals and found that they raised $43 million74 percent of which came from small donors. The PACs spent only $3 million on ads and contributions to boost the long-shot candidates often touted in the appeals, compared to $39.5 million on operating expenses, including $6 million to firms owned or managed by the operatives who run the PACs. The kind of self-dealing cronyism the Tea Parties were inspired to fight became the defining feature of the Tea Parties.

A bit further on, Jim added:

Back in 2016, campaign finance lawyer Paul H. Jossey detailed how some of the PACs operated andlamented, The Tea Party movement is pretty much dead now, but it didnt die a natural death. It was murderedand it was an inside job. In a half decade, the spontaneous uprising that shook official Washington degenerated into a form ofpyramid schemethat transferred tens of millions of dollars from rural, poorer Southerners and Midwesterners to bicoastal political operatives.

One of the amazing things about the MAGA movement is it kind of got Hoffers sequence backward. It more or less started as a racket, but that hasnt stopped various people from trying to turn it into a movementlike pimps and madams swirling around an old prostitute with make-up, nice clothes, and flattering lighting to fool the johns. Thats why FreedomWorks closed shop: MAGA is better at monetizing the johns because it bypasses the formalities and etiquette of the better brothels.

I want to be clear: Although I didnt always agree with FreedomWorks, Im not accusing the group of corruption or likening it to a brothel. It actually tried to stick to a coherent principled agenda, and thats what killed it. Or rather, thats what drove FreedomWorks to suicide. Because thats not what the customers wanted. Now I think donors are saying, What are you doing for Trump today? Paul Beckner, a member of FreedomWorks board, told Politico. And were not for or against Trump. Were for Trump if hes doing what we agree with, and were against him if hes not. And so I think weve seen an erosion of conservative donors.FreedomWorks didnt die from a lack of supply of coherent principles but from a lack of demand for them.

Of Courage and Cowardice

Okay, now that Ive played this fairly straight, let me put on my G-File hat and put this in some broader context.

I recently had the (great) historian Robert Kagan on The Remnant to discuss his new book, Rebellion: How Anti-Liberalism is Tearing America ApartAgain. I wont reprise my areas of substantial disagreement (or agreement) in full here, but he makes one claim that seems relevant. He thinks wokeness is the natural unfolding of the liberalism inherent in our founding ideals. Heres how he puts it in the book:

Today, the main target of antiliberal conservatism is wokeness. But what is wokeness? To some extent, it is the inevitable by-product of the liberal system the founders created. When groups that have been struggling for recognition of their fundamental natural rights finally succeed, they invariably seek more than just acknowledgment of those rights. They seek the respect and dignity that come with being fully equal members of society, no more or less privileged than those who used to oppress and look down on them and diminish them with disparaging language and stereotypes.

I think he has a point about some things that get called wokeness or political correctness. Some changes in language and customs are simply an advancement in good manners and liberal principles of equality. Using new terms that show respect and acceptance is consistent with the desirable expansion of what you might call the liberal spirit. In the 1960s, for instance, black people decided that they didnt want to be called Negroesand decent white people came to accept that, regardless of their ideological orientation. I have no objection to that, and I dont knowand have never knownany normal people who would call Clarence Thomas or Tom Sowell a Negro.

Where Kagan goes wrong is in thinking that wokeness is only an extension of that kind of thing. Wokeness-in-power is fundamentally anti-liberal, seeking to use not just language, but institutional power and resources, to enforce groupthink. Heck, groupthink is the idealthe Mandarins of Wokeness will settle for compliance. Requiring mandatory DEI statements for job applicants is not liberal in any way, as schools are finally starting to realize. Ibram Kendis anti-racism is a bullying tactic to force acquiescence to illiberal policy preferences. Selectively enforcing free speech rules to privilege antisemites while silencing other groups is not liberal.

In fact, the intellectuals behind wokeness, critical theory, and intersectionality are open and honest about their opposition to liberalism. They write books and papers attacking liberalism as a system of white privilege or supremacy. Colorblindnessa key concept for liberal equalityis deemed a tool of oppression. And of course, liberalor neoliberaleconomics is rejected as systematized greed and tyranny.

The government using its power to impose woke policiesparticularly through executive orders, bureaucratic mandates, or even judicial diktatsis also not liberal, or its certainly not libertarian, if that makes it easier to grasp the point. (To take one example from the headlines, New York just announced $2.3 billion in contracts to improve JFK airport. The hitch: white-owned businesses are barred from bidding on any of the projects).

So what does this have to do with the end of FreedomWorks? The libertarian populism of the Tea Party era died because the animating passion wasnt really libertarianism in the first place. Tim Carney beat me to the punch by quoting Rep. Thomas Massies Tea Party replacement theory: All this time, Massieexplained in 2017, I thought they were voting for libertarian Republicans. But after some soul searching, I realized when they voted for Rand and Ron [Paul] and me in these primaries, they werent voting for libertarian ideasthey were voting for the craziest son of a bh in the race. And Donald Trump won best in class.

If all those supposedly principled libertarians were actually principled libertarians, they would not have surrendered to Trumpism, in the same way that all those supposed classical liberals committed to the liberal arts, of all things, would not have handed the keys to their temples to the forces of illiberalism.

Indeed, to take Kagans claim seriously, the lefts long march through institutions was a fulfillment of liberal principles and the democratic process. It wasnt. It was, on campus after campus, newsroom after newsroom, foundation after foundation, a systemic rout of the forces of liberalism by an illiberal insurgency. As a reader recently said to me, I think that the illiberal rights fallacy is their claim that liberalism failed to defend itself, as if ideas were sentient beings capable of action. I think this is exactly right. Liberal idealsfree speech, free exchange, freedom of conscience, freedom of assembly, limited government, etc.cannot defend themselves. Peopleparticularly people in powerwho believe in them can. When those people refuse to fight for those ideals, they are left defenseless.

Once abandoned, these ideas arent really defeateddefeat suggests resistance, after allthey are discarded like idols to some forgotten or defunct deity. As I put it in the last lines of Suicide of the West, Decline is a choice. Principles, like gods, die when no one believes in them anymore.

Ive long quoted T.S. Eliots famous line about there being no such thing as a Lost Cause because there is no such thing as a Gained Cause. What I always took from this is that causes endure so long as people continue to believe in the cause and are willing to fight for it. This is why C.S. Lewis (echoing Cicero) was right when he said, Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality. Its easy to be for libertarianism or liberalismor any other ismwhen it makes you popular or rich or gets you elected. The test is when it makes you none of those things.

What weve learned in recent years is that that is a lot to ask of a lot of people. And to borrow another line from Eliot, that is why the Tea Parties died not with a bang, but a whimper.

Canine Update: After enduring the outrage of interminable abandonment with multiple caretakers for about 48 hours while the Fair Jessica and I went off to NYC to celebrate her birthday, the girls are now fine. I came home a day earlier than the missus, and I tried to atone by taking them on a series of adventures. Bunnies were chased, balls fetched, Very Important Things sniffed and duly marked. When TFJ returned, they were happy. But several people asked why she was not chastised with an aroo. I have no answer to that; Ive learned not to question the deeper mysteries of dingo-ness. Others asked whether Zo heard TFJ arrive or whether a mere whisper from me set her off. The answer is the latter. If either of us whispers Who is it? Zo and (often) Pippa will race to the door either to greet a missing human or to ward off crows, dogs, bears, gnus, ninjas, whatever. Theres really not much more to report. Yes, I appeased Chester in my wifes absence. Yes, Zo is a good girl who, despite not liking company in the front seat, is no longer the sort of beast that punishes other dogs for it (at least not ones in her extended pack). So theres no need for Kristi Noem to shoot her. And Gracie remains the Queen.

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The Tea Party Movement Died With a Whimper - The Dispatch

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The independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. challenged former President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday to debate him this month during the Libertarian Partys national convention in Washington, where both men are set to deliver remarks.

With Mr. Trump escalating his attacks on him on social media, Mr. Kennedy, who is seeking ballot access and voter support in all 50 states, issued his challenge in an open letter on X. Mr. Kennedy cited his performance in two national polls, saying he was drawing a lot of voters from your former supporters.

They are upset that you blew up the deficit, shut down their businesses during Covid, and filled your administration with swamp creatures, he said. So Id like to make you an offer, he said, adding that their campaign schedules made for a logical showdown. Its perfect neutral territory for you and me to have a debate where you can defend your record for your wavering supporters.

A spokesman for the Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for the Libertarian Party did not immediately provide a comment.

The partys convention is set for Memorial Day weekend in Washington. Mr. Kennedy is set to speak on May 24, his campaign said on Tuesday; Mr. Trump is scheduled for May 25. Both candidates are trying to appeal to a broader base of support in the election, but neither is expected to be on the partys ballot line in November.

Mr. Kennedy previously ruled out running as a Libertarian, though he has courted party members since he became an independent last fall. The party is among the more established third parties, and as of last week was on the ballot in 37 states; Mr. Kennedy is mounting a state-by-state effort to get on the November election ballot.

As for Mr. Trump, Angela McArdle, the chairwoman of the Libertarian party, said last week that it was not possible under the partys bylaws to nominate him.

Several candidates seeking the Libertarian Partys presidential nomination have condemned the groups decision to invite Mr. Trump to speak at the gathering. One of them, Jacob Hornberger, called it an abomination.

The gamesmanship by Mr. Kennedy, a liberal scion and environmental lawyer who has recently become better known for his anti-vaccine activism and promotion of conspiracy theories, appears to have added to growing hostilities between him and Mr. Trump.

The former president has sharpened his attacks on Mr. Kennedy as more polls show signs that his candidacy could take votes away from Mr. Trump. For many months, Democrats had argued the opposite: that Mr. Kennedy could wind up playing the role of spoiler for Mr. Biden.

Last week, Mr. Kennedy proposed that his campaign and Mr. Bidens jointly conduct a poll in October to see who would do better against Mr. Trump in a hypothetical two-way race; he suggested that the underperformer should drop out.

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R.F.K. Jr., Invited to Libertarian Convention, Seeks Trump Debate - The New York Times

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