Trump’s tariff fiasco is an opportunity to reboot the Libertarian Party

Prepare to be disappointed.

We were given a golden opportunity in 2016, which was a very divisive election with an unpopular establishment candidate and a relatively unknown and untrusted non-establishment candidate.

So who did the LP nominate? Gary Johnson, who was a relatively bland Republican governor and selected Bill Weld, another Republican. Sure, he ran on a fairly LP platform, but he wasn't very fired up and squandered pretty much every media appearance he had (What's an Aleppo?). The only thing he really seemed passionate about was a national sales tax, which was pretty unpopular. We needed someone fiery to steal mainstream votes and establish a presence, but we got "weed and sales tax" as the message. I would've preferred a better GOP "libertarian" (Ron Paul, Thomas Massie, etc) to draw the establishment right, but pushing some left-friendly policies to draw the anti-establishment left.

Likewise in 2024, we had a golden opportunity again. Harris wasn't putting up much of a fight, and Trump seemed to be doubling down on tariffs. Who did we nominate? Chase Oliver. Now, I like Oliver, but he's inexperienced and didn't have a a very focused campaign IMO, and he also didn't get the backing of the LP (that's on the LP, not him).

The LP will disappoint again, because they can't help it.

I hope they do it though. I like a lot about the LP and have been throwing my vote away with them for years (my local elections are incredibly uncompetitive). I hope they can rebrand a bit to gain some more media time. This whole "Republicans who like weed" label needs to die.