Libertarian Party presidential nominee Jo Jorgensen is fond of posting the phrase “Black Lives Matter” and its hashtag variant “#BlackLivesMatter” at her Twitter page. Check out her tweets here, here, here, here, here, and here for examples from this and last month.
But, if you dare declare “All Lives Matter” at your personal social media account, Jorgensen stands ready to cheer your employer firing you in response. That is a message Jorgensen communicated in a July 11 interview at C-SPAN.
Have you heard about these prominent American libertarians? A former United States Marine Corps general who was a secretary of defense in the Donald Trump administration while taking a break from serving on the Board of Directors of General Dynamics, one of the largest military contractors in the world. A Democratic member of the US House of Representatives from Massachusetts. A Republican member of the US Senate from Alaska.
Of course, you have not heard of these libertarians. That makes sense. No such people are libertarians.
Last week, United States Libertarian Party Chairman Nicholas Sarwark suggested to these nonlibertarians that they join the Libertarian Party. For the House and Senate members, his suggestion went so far as that they change their party affiliations in Congress to Libertarian.
Future of Freedom Foundation President Jacob Hornberger failed to win the Libertarian Party presidential nomination in Saturday evening online voting by party delegates. Hornberger, who has spoken at Ron Paul Institute (RPI) events and whose articles have been regularly posted at the RPI website, came in second place in the fourth and final ballot cast by delegates.
On Thursday, I wrote about Rep. Justin Amash (L-MI), in a ten-minute interview at MSNBC focused on why he is interested in seeking the Libertarian Party presidential nomination, saying nothing libertarian. Further, I noted that, when Amash was asked about what a libertarian would do concerning coronavirus (a policy area where government is heavily restricting people’s exercise of liberty, intentionally shutting down much of the economy, and spending with abandon), Amash chose to promote adding a new government program to hand out money to people — something the host noted does not sound like a limited government proposal.
On Friday, Amash was back in another national media interview focused on why he would want to run for president as the Libertarian Party nominee. This time Amash was interviewed for five minutes by Rachel Martin at National Public Radio (NPR).
Second act, same as the first.
After Rep. Justin Amash (I-MI) established a committee this week to enable him to run for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination, he was interviewed for ten minutes at MSNBC regarding his candidacy. Did Amash use this time to advocate for accomplishing libertarian goals — terminating the drug war, ceasing foreign intervention, and ending the Federal Reserve, for example? No. Instead, Amash repeatedly avoided talking about any particular policy issues. Then, when asked by host Ayman Mohyeldin to weigh in on government actions taken purportedly in response to coronavirus, Amash even managed to address this matter that involves incredible rights violations and vast spending in such a nonlibertarian manner that Mohyeldin soundly challenged Amash for supporting big government — the opposite of advocating a libertarian position.
Even most libertarians would probably agree that it is just about a sure bet that none of the current candidates or commonly discussed potential candidates for the Libertarian Party’s 2020 presidential nomination would, if he becomes the party’s nominee, defeat the Republican and Democratic nominees in the upcoming November general election and win the presidency.
Given the presidential nominee chosen at the Libertarian Party’s national convention in May is “sure to lose” come the general election, how can he make the best of his run? With winning taken off the table, an avenue for maximizing the campaign’s benefit would be for the candidate to take advantage of opportunities presented to express clearly a comprehensive libertarian approach to government. In this manner, the nominee would use the campaign to communicate a clear and strong libertarian message, thereby helping increase the number of committed supporters of the libertarian philosophy.
United States Libertarian Party Chairman Nicholas Sarwark announced at Facebook last night that he will not seek reelection as party chairman at the Libertarian Party national convention in late May.
Matt Welch concluded his Wednesday Reason article regarding Super Tuesday results for the Libertarian Party presidential race with this statement: “Much can and will change between now and late May but, for the moment, Jacob Hornberger is your Libertarian front-runner.” Welch’s granting the “frontrunner” label to Hornberger seems to be based on Hornberger, in Super Tuesday state-level contests, continuing his streak of victories over other candidates for the Libertarian presidential nomination.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has been racking up wins in state-level contests of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Much less mentioned in the media is that Libertarian presidential candidate Jacob Hornberger won the February 8 Iowa Libertarian caucus with 47 percent of the vote. This put Hornberger far ahead of other candidates for the nomination, including Lincoln Chafee — a former governor and United States senator — who came in second with 13 percent.
In 2016, former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld received the Libertarian Party’s vice-presidential nomination. This year, having returned to the Republican Party, Weld is challenging President Donald Trump for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.
Many people would assume that Weld would be criticizing Trump for ordering this week’s killing in Iraq of Iranian General Qassim Suleimani. This assumption would make sense given the libertarian position favoring nonintervention overseas.