What it Means that Trump Spoke at the Libertarian Party Convention

The same thing it would have meant if Joe Biden spoke at the Green Party convention

Over the weekend, an extraordinary thing happened: a major party presidential candidate spoke at another political party’s national convention.

As any reader surely knows, a convention is where a political party generally chooses their presidential candidate. So why would someone that was already nominated for one of the two major parties’ presidential candidate be interested in speaking at a “lesser” party’s convention?

Hmm, good question. Let’s try to answer that.

Before we do, consider for a moment exactly which candidate this was. Was it Joe Biden speaking at, say, the Green Party’s convention? If it was, don’t you think we would be hearing non-stop about it in the media, both traditional and social? What would we be hearing about it? Would it be good, positive things?

Well, I don’t want to answer those questions quite yet, because it will ruin the suspense that I am hopefully building for this article. But deep down, I think you know the kinds of things that would be said, and the tone they would take.

Underconfidence in election chances

Of course, in actuality, it was Donald Trump that was speaking at the Libertarian Party convention. And we saw what happened, we don’t have to go through any hypothetical thought experiments for that. It wasn’t pretty.

For a major party candidate to actually go into a place like this and ask for support, something that no candidate has ever done or would ever do, suggests they need to for some reason. Why go into a potentially hostile environment that is likely to produce bad publicity unless you felt you needed to?

This suggests that Trump and his campaign are worried, and that they are not very confident of their chances of winning as things currently stand.

The MAGA crowd will say—and have been saying—that Trump is brave, and will go into any forum any time to rally support, because he’s such a god-like creature and will be idolized wherever he goes. But back in the real world, Trump has some major problems. He already is capped in the mid-40’s in national vote potential. His behavior and proclaimed policies for 2025 are not winning people over. If anything, they are turning people away.

And then add in the Haley supporters that have been ridiculed, vilified, and shunned by Trump. These are people that, sure, probably don’t want to vote for Trump if possible, but could be persuaded to hold their nose and vote for him if he treated them with some semblance of respect and acted like a normal person from now to the election. But since he’s gone out of his way to insult them and push them away and tell them they are not welcome in his camp they are unlikely to vote at all. Or if they do hold their nose and vote, it will be for Biden.

Trump and his campaign know they have lost many of these people for good, so now they have to scrounge around to find votes (no election denying pun intended). And they thought they’d find some in the Libertarian Party.

Overconfidence in persuasion abilities

The problem is that Libertarians are not exactly on board with Trump’s style of governance. In his speech to them, which was very scripted and not at all off-the-cuff, he laid out several examples of how he is “libertarian”.

But everyone is a little bit libertarian and can name some examples supporting this. Most people could probably find a few examples of how they are like Mormons if they tried hard enough. That doesn’t automatically make them appealing to Mormons.

True libertarians don’t like Trump’s authoritarian posture and are vehemently opposed to many of his historical and proposed policies. True libertarians are good with loose immigration standards, bodily autonomy, and free trade. Trump wants highly restrictive immigration, control over peoples’ bodies, and global-economy-manipulating tariffs.

Capital “L” Libertarians are essentially ideologues and not exactly persuadable on these issues. If they were, they probably would not be a member of a political party espousing them. Sure, the party has its factions and diversity just like any party (except for today’s Republicans), and one or more of these factions is actually more Trumpy than one would expect. But for the most part, they are not “swing voters” looking for a quick bribe to seal the deal on their vote.

Also, let it sink in for a second that Trump apparently thought that he might get their nomination for presidential candidate.

Trump obviously went into this thinking that all it would take is some palm-greasing and charm, and voila….watch the Art of the Deal in action. The arrogance and overconfidence in his persuasion abilities were astronomical, and it showed. Libertarians would have none of it, as they shouted and booed for the majority of the speech. The idea that promising to pardon a libertarian martyr or putting a libertarian in a cabinet position would sway these people to forgo their principles and vote for Trump, much less actually nominate him was always futile, and anyone competent could have told him that.

A lot has been made on MAGA social media that Trump hit a home run with a snide “joke” about how Libertarians can just be happy about getting 3% every four years if they don’t want to align with him. But his joke misses the mark. Being in the Libertarian Party means you’ve accepted the 3%. Sure, you hope to grow and change hearts and minds, but you are choosing to go with an extreme underdog against the big government Goliath. This is part of the allure of being in such an anti-government party.

Raising awareness, inadvertently

The other thing that Trump did will likely inadvertently hurt him. He created an awareness of the existence of another right-wing option among low-proclivity voters. These are exactly the kinds of voters that Trump relied on previously and needs in 2024. But there are probably a segment of them that are tired of Trump and his antics, or have now seen that he’s part of the swamp that he promised to drain.

These people likely would not have been inclined to vote. But if they follow right-wing accounts on Xitter (pronounced shitter) they probably noticed that Trump spoke at the Libertarian convention. They probably noticed a bunch of unruly people waving signs and yelling at Trump (even the “favorable” clips are filled with jeering). They probably noticed the “Become Ungovernable” slogan on the backdrop of the podium where Trump was speaking. This probably seemed attractive to them.

He could have let the Libertarian Party wallow in obscurity for yet another election cycle. It’s doubtful that their convention would even have been covered by the major news media outlets in a normal year, without a major candidate vying for their votes or nomination. But he cemented the Libertarian Party into the minds of a segment of the voting population, many of whom are otherwise disengaged and disillusioned. They are now a viable option for some people who would never have known they existed otherwise. And most of these types of voters would have leaned towards Trump.

The aftermath

Let’s go back to the Biden hypothetical.

What if Biden went into the Green Party’s convention asking for their votes or even their nomination for president? What if he promised to nationalize industries and put a Green Party member on the Cabinet in exchange for this? What if he was met with 30 straight minutes of boos and jeers? What if the backdrop said in graffiti-like giant font: “Submit to Being Governable”?

Imagine how you would feel. If you’re on the normal range of the spectrum, you’d likely be shocked and appalled at this craven attempt to buy support. You’d be scared and unsettled that it would be that easy to turn portions of our government over to zealots with an extreme agenda. You’d think this was an unmitigated disaster, born of desperation and hubris. You’d think he’s on the road to losing badly in the election.

Yep. Exactly.