Libertarian Party

To all that were attracted to the Libertarian Party by my 2020 candidacy: I am sorry. It has become a terrible dumpsterfire of a shitshow. I regret my involvement in such a non functional embarrassment full of paleo dipshits, pedo apologists, and culture war fuckwads.

The US Libertarian Party was founded in 1971 on the principles of libertarianism.

The Libertarian Party is the third-largest political party in America. They’re active in all 50 states and have more than 280,000 registered voters, or... 0.1% of the United States eligible voting population. (In fairness, it's just a mathematical fact that under First-Past-the-Post all systems will trend towards two-party.)

Some people who misunderstand libertarianism see them as Republicans with training wheels, which is Sorta true. Libertarians want less government, because they believe that the free market can enforce social conservatism better than the government.

As of 2019, no party spokesman has addressed the irony of a group of individualists pooling their efforts to join an entity they despise.

Libertarians believe that the one-dimensional scale of the political "left-right" is insufficient to describe the general public's many philosophies. They introduced the Nolan Chart, which measures two dimensions of political opinion instead, conveniently placing themselves at the top, opposite Hitler, which is literally the truth. Of course, that wasn't enough; they had to add a big arrow toward their position, mangling evolution to encourage people to join them.

As with many parties, the party has much-untapped potential locked in the two main parties by first past the post. A pretty decent portion of Republicans opposes the party's conservative views while supporting its neoliberal economics. A pretty decent portion of Democrats opposes the party's moderately left-leaning economics while supporting its progressive views. These people would line up with the Libertarian Party's social liberal, neoliberal platform. Still, they can't out of fear of splitting the vote, which is why so many Democrats and Republicans oppose MMPV, IRV, and TRV, knowing they would lose much influence. To that end, it can probably be argued that most people are closet Libertarians.

2007 elections
In the 2007 Elections, Libertarian Party candidates won 14 elective offices, including an election for mayor of Avis, Pennsylvania (population 1,492).

2008 presidential nominating process
Several candidates sought to become the party's 2008 presidential nominee. Mike Gravel changed from the Democratic Party to the Libertarian Party. Bob Barr, a former Republican U.S. Congressman, announced on May 12, 2008, that he would seek the nomination. The final choice of Bob Barr (and his running mate, Wayne Allyn Root) was made at the 2008 national convention in Denver, Colorado in late May.

Ron Paul, who was the party's 1988 candidate, had been mentioned as a possible nominee as well, but has officially denied any intent to run under any third-party banner. On December 12, 2007, the Party adopted a resolution requesting Paul to run on the Libertarian ticket if he does not win the Republican Party nomination.

2012 elections
Gary Johnson, former governor of New Mexico, ran with running mate Jim Gray on the top of the Libertarian ticket. Johnson received slightly over 1 million votes, or about one percent.

2016 election

 * John McAfee, a filthy-rich burn out psycho with an endearing amount of honesty but little understanding of the government's complexity. (Trump on steroids.) He'd be the best for getting name recognition up, if only because he could generate the most bizarre headlines. On the other hand, he'd be the worst for winning over anti-Trump Republicans for the same reason.
 * Gary Johnson would be the best for actually winning over Independents...but he's basically a Republican. He's what white bread conservatives become when they go to college. Still, he could do worse. Update: But remember, cakes were the most important issue of the 2016 campaign. It is better to vote for someone who isn't libertarian at all than someone who deviates from libertarianism on one issue.
 * Austin Peterson is pretty much any rando you've met on Reddit. His argument style is literally repeating libertarian memes. "Muh roads! Where we're going, we don't need roads! Because we will have jetpacks!" If Libertarians want to be a party of internet trolls, vote Petersen.

Johnson has stated that he will run again in 2016, "as long as he's relevant," whatever that may mean. Some reports had him running for the GOP nomination and, if unsuccessful, seeking the Libertarian Party nomination in a replay of 2012. Considering Johnson's relative level-headedness compared to the mainstream GOP, his support of gay and immigration rights, and love for pot, this is likely to happen. If he can gain one percentage point, he is on track to win the general election by 2412 with a literal Ron Paulbot as his running mate.

2020 election
As for the up-coming 2020 US presidential election several people have thrown their lot in for the Libertarians, the most notable among them being former Republican and anti-war activist Adam Kokesh and the nutty, tax-evading inventor of antivirus software John McAfee. Jo Jorgensen was the 2020 Libertarian Party Presidential nominee.

Mises Caucus takeover
In the wake of the Unite the Right riot in 2017, then-Chair Nicholas Sarwark wrote an open letter denouncing fascism and racism, and asking racists to stay away from the Libertarian Party. This enraged a group of Libertarians affiliated with the Mises Institute, who denounced Sarwark's statement as "woke" and went on to found the Mises "Caucus" (which is actually a PAC). The PAC made many allies with the alt-right over the next few years, including Nick Fuentes, League of the South co-founder Tom Woods, and Hotep Jesus, and gradually took control of several state affiliates as well as winning a handful of seats on the National Committee. They also drew headlines for extremist posts on social media, including advocating for child labor, celebrating the anniversary of the death of John McCain by tweeting "Happy holidays" accompanied by a picture of his daughter crying over his coffin, and one by the Delaware affiliate which appeared to advocate throwing transgender people into woodchippers. In the leadup to the party's National Convention on Memorial Day weekend 2022, observers both within the party and out expressed concern that the Mises Caucus would take control of the entire Party, including an expose from the Southern Poverty Law Center. Those concerns proved founded as Mises-endorsed candidates won every seat on the National Committee and succeeded in repealing a platform plank condemning bigotry as "irrational and repugnant", on the grounds that such a statement was "divisive" and would discourage people from joining. This led to the departure of numerous long-time members who were relatively sane, or at least not raging bigots, and the attempted disaffiliation by state affiliates in New Mexico and Virginia, to which the Mises-backed National Committee responded "Actually, we're disaffiliating you" to the former and "You're affiliated with us whether you like it or not" to the latter. The Libertarian Party has skidded off the rails since then, even compared to its previous standards, openly embracing the alt-right, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and anti-Semitism, and driving off any previous members who did not stand for those things. And did we mention the new Chair is a sovereign citizen?

Polls
The Libertarian Party website also has some polls for its members, with results that can turn out only slightly saner than WND polls.


 * "The White House is starting a media war against Rush Limbaugh. What does Obama hope to distract attention from?" Highest result (48%; 1491 votes): "Economic research showing Obama’s spending plan prolongs the recession and eliminates jobs"
 * "What is the cause of "global warming"?" Highest result: (47%; 249 votes): "Cycles of nature"
 * "How should we deal with the financial problems of the Social Security system?" Highest result: (53%; 2392 votes): "We should completely get rid of Social Security."
 * "Is human-generated global warming a myth?" Highest result: (56%; 220 votes): "Yes"
 * "Should we go back to the gold standard?" Highest Result: "No"... Just pulling your leg, it was actually "Yes" with 64% of the vote (194 votes).
 * "Do you believe people have a "right" to healthcare?" Highest result: "No" with 59% of the vote (547 votes)
 * "Do you consider Obama to be a "socialist?" Highest Result: Take a wild guess.