Don't blame me I voted for Ben Dover https://t.co/VgKPT11dgO
— Roy Edroso (@edroso) May 26, 2024
He's the one scrambling for that 3% because he knows he's at his ceiling and Biden isn't. https://t.co/pFtpOESliv
— Alito Vexillological Apologetics Society (@agraybee) May 26, 2024
I guarantee the only thing the Mises Caucus learns from this is they need stricter security at the next convention https://t.co/0c6xT6BDMn
— Environmental Services Weedle (@PartyWurmple) May 26, 2024
Even the Terminally Savvy John Heilemann, now at Puck, feels free to dump on TFG — “Donald Trump and R.F.K. Jr.’s cringe-inducing, partly hilarious, and ultimately failed forays into Libertarian Land”:
… Taking place at the Washington Hilton—best known as the site of another legit shitshow, the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner—and bearing “Become Ungovernable” as its official theme, the Libertarian convention unfolded over four days, the last of which, Sunday, revolved around the selection of the party’s presidential nominee and was televised live by C-SPAN. On the (I hope and trust entirely safe) assumption that no one reading Impolitic was batty enough to watch much, if any, of the proceedings live, I offer this account…
The truth is, both Trump and Kennedy had thoroughly beclowned themselves with their forays into Libertarian Land long before Oliver finally, blessedly, brought the convention to a close. The Trump incursion was billed by his people as another in a series of high-profile attempts—the meeting with the Teamsters in January, the visit to SneakerCon in February, the rally in the South Bronx last week—to court voters beyond the confines of the MAGA base.
Instead, the appearance turned into a uniquely Trumpian spectacle, in which the former president was roundly booed, heckled, and mocked by the delegates (some in t-shirts reading TRUMP/FAUCI 2024: GIVE US ANOTHER SHOT), prompting him to march through a series of increasingly desperate moves to try to quell the hostility he encountered: first, gratuitous pandering (“I’ve been indicted by the government on 91 different things, so if I wasn’t a libertarian before, I sure as hell am a libertarian now”); then, attempted favor-trading (vows to appoint a Libertarian to his cabinet and to commute the life sentence of Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the infamous dark web drug clearinghouse Silk Road); and, finally, frustrated mockery of the very people he was there to court: “I’m asking for the Libertarian Party’s endorsement, … [but] only do that if you want to win. If you want to lose, don’t do that. Keep getting your three percent every four years.”
The pièce de résistance, however, didn’t come until the next day, when the party chair ruled Trump ineligible even to compete for the party’s nomination because his campaign had failed to file the necessary paperwork. (In an impressive showing of grassroots strength, he still received six write-in votes in the first round, five more than Stormy Daniels, Denali—the cat mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska—and both Sean Ono Lennon and Afroman.) Undeterred as usual by either reality or the words that had issued forth from his own pie-hole the night before, Trump attempted to explain the pratfall with a post on Truth Social: “The reason I didn’t file paperwork for the Libertarian Nomination, which I would have absolutely gotten if I wanted it (as everyone could tell by the enthusiasm of the Crowd last night!), was the fact that, as the Republican Nominee, I am not allowed to have the Nomination of another Party.”…
Late Night Open Thread: Down, Amongst the LibertariansPost + Comments (33)
