Are Libertarians MAGA-Adjacent Now?

The most unlikely libertarian hero ever. Photo: Daniel Steinle/Bloomberg via Getty Images

From one angle, the announcement that Donald Trump will address the national convention of the Libertarian Party later this month was unsurprising. He’s in a close race for president where he needs every right-leaning voter he can get. And the Libertarian Party, whose share of the presidential vote dropped from 3 percent in 2016 to one percent in 2020, could use the attention.

But still, how much common ground can there exist between libertarian opponents of government power at home and abroad and a former president who oozes authoritarianism from his pores? We’re talking about a man who once famously said that Article II of the U.S. Constitution gave him as president the right “to do whatever I want,” and who is openly and regularly threatening to use every agency of federal power to smite his many enemies if he’s returned to the White House. After observing his initial performance in office, the Libertarian Party put out a statement in 2018 that said, “Whatever libertarian impulses Trump the candidate seemed to have, his actual performance as president stands in stark contrast. Donald Trump is the opposite of a Libertarian.” That sounds about right.

Yet there has always been a strain of American libertarianism that is so anti-liberal that it evinces sympathy for right-wing authoritarianism as a sort of enemy-of-our-enemy maneuver. Consider Senator Rand Paul, often regarded as the leader of libertarian-leaning Republicans, who has become a Trump toady of the highest order. Even within the supposedly purist Libertarian Party, however, there has recently arisen a dominant MAGA-adjacent faction that doesn’t find the 45th president so offensive after all. Fed by anti-vaxx and anti-lockdown passions during the COVID-19 pandemic, the so-called Mises Caucus (named after Austrian free-market economist Ludwig von Mises) has taken over the Libertarian Party nationally and in many states, as Reason reported in 2022:

A four-year battle for control of the Libertarian Party (L.P.) ended Saturday in Reno with a victory for the Mises Caucus at the party’s national convention …

The caucus’s official platform is plumb-line libertarian, but its foes say that too many Mises Caucus members and fans downplay libertarian positions that might offend the right, are intentionally obnoxious and bullying, and are often racist …

The caucus, whose whipping of its team proved very effective at the convention … wants to eliminate from the L.P.’s platform a statement that “we condemn bigotry as irrational and repugnant.” (This first entered the platform in 1974, though it has not remained there consistently.) The caucus also wants to completely eliminate any mention of abortion, replacing a current plank that is effectively pro-choice, though it says in essence that Libertarians can differ in opinion based on when they think a protectable life begins.

As a matter of heritage, the Mises Caucus venerates Ron Paul’s brand of unapologetic and often provocative libertarian insurgency, and deplores the pragmatism that led the Libertarian Party to nominate a ticket of former Republicans Gary Johnson and William Weld (its most electorally successful presidential effort, as it happens) in 2016. Culturally speaking, the Mises Caucus seems to be trying to align the venerable and often stodgy Libertarian Party with a younger crowd of unruly rebels against respectability, including Joe Rogan fans and very online “edgelording” bully-boys. Whether this posture will enable libertarians to compete with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the “I hate everybody” vote is debatable. But it definitely means a greater openness to Trump-style transgressions generally. The current Libertarian Party chairman, Angela McArdle, has harshly attacked the Justice Department’s pursuit of criminal charges against Trump as “depraved and unscrupulous.” The Libertarian Party is also inclined to embrace his opposition to multilateral defense agreements and his hostility to Ukraine. Indeed, one of the signatures of Mises Caucus leaders is apparent sympathy for Vladimir Putin reminiscent of his buddy the former president.

All these unsettling developments in libertarian-land are likely to get fresh attention when Trump addresses the party convention in Washington. Maybe his speechwriters will even encourage him to give a shout-out to Ludwig von Mises.