The Libertarian Party nominated Chase Oliver for president last weekend. The good news is that for the first time, the 2024 presidential election will have a major candidate who is not eligible for Social Security benefits. President Biden will turn 82 shortly after the election, and Donald Trump will turn 78 next month. Jill Stein just turned 74, Cornel West turned 71 this week, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. turned 70 in January. In the unlikely event that all of those candidates qualify for the debate, Oliver, 38, will stand out among his “Cocoon” co-stars, much like actor Steve Guttenberg.
And there's even more good news: the Libertarian Party did not nominate Jacob Hornberger, who promised to “abolish the Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and all restrictions on the free movement of people across the border.” I think we technically solved the problem of illegal immigration by declaring it legal for anyone to cross the border. Yes, that's how we would deal with the roughly 2 million illegal border crossings each year for the past three years.
The bad news is that Oliver wants to give 8 million people who entered the country illegally a path to citizenship, which is just another way to reward people for breaking the law.
Libertarianism is a beautiful philosophy cursed by its adherents. This is the third consecutive presidential election in which Democrats and Republicans have nominated unpopular figures. In theory, a good, everyday human being who talks about reducing the size and size of government and maximizing freedom should be incredibly popular. But somehow, 2016 Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson thought it was cute to stick his tongue out during an interview with MSNBC's Casey Hunt, and Jo Jorgensen never made it onto the side of a milk carton in the 2020 news cycle. (The tongue-sticking guy got 3.3% of the vote nationally in 2016, the best showing in the party's history.)
Follow this author Jim Geraghty's opinion
At last weekend's raucous Libertarian Party convention, Republican front-runner Donald Trump sneered at a booing crowd: “Maybe you don't want to win. … You can keep getting 3 percent every four years.”
Of course, the Libertarian Party is happy with 1-3 percent of the vote every four years. No one joins the Libertarian Party because they love winning elections. Libertarianism as an abstract philosophy of limited government and maximum freedom is widely accepted. Unfortunately, Libertarianism as an actual political party is best represented by the fat man who stripped onstage at the 2016 nominating convention.
Oliver is likely to be the more approachable candidate; he's unlikely to stick his tongue out even once during the campaign. But he still advocates policies that are hard to sell. Many libertarians are functional isolationists, and Oliver wants to “close all overseas bases and immediately return active duty military personnel to their domestic bases.” Go NATO! Oliver also wants to “end all aid directed to nation-states currently at war,” which would include Israel and Ukraine. Vladimir Putin and Hamas would no doubt be high-fiving over this proposal.
Oliver also wants to “decriminalize the possession and use of all drugs.” If I believed that legalization would reduce the number of people suffering the tragic and sometimes deadly consequences of addiction, I would be all for it. Unfortunately, the widespread availability of hard drugs like heroin and fentanyl has made people's lives worse, not better. Even progressives in Portland, Oregon, seeing record overdoses and despairing, mentally ill addicts lying on the sidewalks, are reversing decriminalization efforts from years ago.
Americans continue to ask for a normal presidential candidate, but libertarians continue to mishear that as a “normal presidential candidate.”
The Libertarian Party attracts the type of people who prioritize doing the right thing over making small compromises to gain popularity and get more votes. Surprisingly, a party made up of people who abhor any change in favor of working together in large groups to achieve their goals is not very good at building broad coalitions or avoiding infighting.
Sometimes your willingness to defy orthodoxy makes you a bold, visionary iconoclast. Sometimes it makes you just plain crazy.
Oliver will probably get the traditional 1-3% support, which the Libertarian Party would consider a win, but it certainly wouldn't be enough of a disappointment to cause the party to change or compromise its positions on any issue.
