June 2024

Donald Trump walked into a room full of Libertarians--you won't believe what happened next!

Jun 06, 2024

white concrete building during daytime — And in Washington, D.C., no less! (Photo by Ian Hutchinson on Unsplash)

If you would like an essay featured in the Liberty Letter, or if you read or watched something awesome that you think should be in the Suggested Reading of one of these newsletters, reach out to us at admin@rclp.us and let’s chat!

This email may be too long for some email inboxes. If so, scroll to the bottom to find a link to read it in your browser. All the contact information you need is also at the bottom.

From the Chair

If you were to say “So Donald Trump walks into a room full of Libertarians,” most people might think you were starting some sort of joke. But in what might be the strangest twist in election 2024 so far, this actually happened over Memorial Day weekend. I was there, in the fifth row (it was the first row, but they crammed more chairs in to accommodate the standing-room-only crowd, so there you go).

The speech and aftermath have generated plenty of headlines, so I can only really add two things here. First, whoever wrote that speech is getting fired. That speech set Trump up to get booed, and should probably occupy a “don’t let this happen to you” section of some sort of future communications course.

Second, the most hoped-for outcome of the speech on the part of most of the Libertarians in the room was that the small hard corps of MAGA folks in their own section would start looking some stuff up. Anecdotal evidence seemed to validate those hopes. Even my younger brother, a deep-lefty who picked me up from the airport when I got home, told me he had seen the headlines, and looked up Ross Ulbricht, and decided that a lot of things regarding his imprisonment were “pretty sus.” Indeed.

And this is the main thrust of Libertarian activism all the way around: find out what’s really going on, and deal with it specifically. The worst impulses of those within the LP (and I’ve spoken with many) regarding the Trump appearance at the convention were voiced like this: “But what are ‘they’ going to think about ‘us’ because of this?”

That kind of collectivizing is inherently self-defeating, and it’s something each of us needs to watch out for as we go about our individual lives. In almost no instances are you dealing with a “them” in your normal life, nor do you belong to an “us.” Everything you do involves you, an individual, dealing with other individuals. If you are concerned that someone may have the wrong idea about something you believe, have a conversation. If you think someone is doing something you disagree with, have a conversation. Little by little, that’s how civilization advances, and how peace is realized.

Collectivizing “them” is a trap that will keep you passively hating a boogeyman instead of actively operating in your community. Don’t fall into it.

–Loren Dean

In the News: They Got Him!

As this newsletter was being drafted, Donald Trump was convicted of … something. Objectively speaking, political prosecution is a terrible road to walk down, and there’s a feeling beneath the partisan gloating that something is dying. What that something is may be different depending on your perspective (constitutional order, the rule of law, the federal government itself, it’s hard to say), but none of it is good. It is worth considering at least two things here going forward.

First, half the country voted for Donald Trump in 2020. Demonizing them all (MAGAt is an especially vicious new slur) seems unwise from a civilizational perspective.

Second, America has a longstanding fascination with outlaws and underdogs. Sit with that a moment.

2024 is already a wild ride. It’s only going to get wilder from here. Go meet your neighbors. You may need each other sooner than you think.

Election 2024 Updates

RivCo LP Chair Loren Dean, Vice Chair Jeff Hewitt, and Secretary Marcus Shuff were all delegates at the national convention, and each had an opportunity to write a brief report on their experiences there. This section will therefore be much longer than usual, so it may be helpful to click the links at the bottom of this email and read it in your browser.

Marcus Schuff: I saw how the sausage was made, and now I’m hungry for more

It was a long and boisterous weekend of punch and counter punch between the factions of the Libertarian Party. As a newer member of the party, and this being my first year attending the California and national conventions, I didn’t realize how entrenched the multiple factions of the Libertarian Party were, but despite our difference of opinion regarding the direction of the party, and the broader liberty movement, the thing we all have in common is the knowledge that you know how to run your own life better than the government.

To be clear, it is never comfortable when there is animosity between groups of people, especially within a single organization. The distinctions between the factions of the Libertarian Party were both diminished and exacerbated by the presence of former President Donald Trump at the convention. The former president’s visit was the first time a former president and presumed Republican Party nominee has spoken at the Libertarian Party National Convention. It was a controversial decision made by the Libertarian National Committee (LNC), who also invited Joe Biden, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Vivek Ramaswamy. Only Joe Biden declined to attend.

Donald Trump’s attendance highlighted the difference between the MAGA Trump supporters in attendance for his speech and the boisterous libertarians, many of whom feel that Donald Trump’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic was a heavy handed government overreach that violated the inalienable individual rights of Americans, while expanding the power of the federal government, that resulted in a massive transfer of wealth from the poor and working class to the politically well connected.

During Trump’s speech, an observer could clearly tell where the libertarians and MAGA crowds agreed and disagreed based on the ever-louder competing chants of “We want Trump” and “End the Fed.” The latter refers to the elimination of the Federal Reserve Banking system, a longstanding desire of the Libertarian Party. An observer could also clearly tell on which issues the Libertarians in attendance were united by listening to the mix of cheers or boos, depending on what Trump was saying.

When the former president announced that if elected he would commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht on day one of his new term, the entire contingent of libertarians erupted in applause, while the MAGA supporters got out their smartphones and Googled, “Who is Ross Ulbricht?” Trump’s supporters would soon learn that Ross Ulbricht is a web developer serving two life sentences because people bought and sold illicit drugs and hired assassins on his website, The Silk Road. The people that actually committed the crimes on his website are free to walk the streets, but Ross will die in jail without presidential intervention. The same weaponization of the Department of Justice being used against former President Trump was developed and perfected using Ross Ulbricht and Julian Assange as guinea pigs. At the moment of Donald Trump’s pledge, the Libertarian Party was united in their hope that an innocent man would be freed from his wrongful imprisonment, although the amount of faith each libertarian has in former President Trump to keep his word varies widely.

Trump’s promises may not sway too many Libertarians away from voting for the party’s nominee, political activist Chase Oliver, who won after seven rounds of elimination voting, as he too would pardon or commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht on day one. Mr. Oliver was a US Senate candidate in 2022 in Georgia where he forced a run-off by denying the Republican and Democrat Parties’ ability to reach the 50% threshold required in Georgia. Mr. Oliver is joined on the Libertarian Party ticket by Mike ter Maat, a former White House economist, and police officer.

The main factions of the Libertarian Party include the Mises Caucus and their rivals, sometimes referred to as the Liberal Caucus, or the old guard. After all was said and done, the Mises Caucus walked away from the convention with a super majority of over 2/3rds of the LNC including the chairmanship, while the Liberal Caucus walked away with the presidential and vice presidential nominees, and a small minority position on the LNC. There was some horsetrading to determine the presidential and vice presidential nominees, which is how the Liberal Caucus was able to pull off their victory in the presidential and vice presidential races.

Despite the disagreement between the factions of the party, I was motivated to continue the fight for liberty by the sheer number of liberty-loving Americans that I met at the convention that I now consider to be my friends. The liberty movement is alive and well, and the friction that we’re experiencing now is simply the growing pains we must go through as we become a major political player that the duopoly of the Republicans and Democrats must contend with. While the Democrats and Republicans like to pretend that the 3+% of voters who are libertarians don’t matter, the truth is that the libertarian 3% can make or break the Republicans and Democrats in swing states. If it were true that libertarians don’t matter, then Donald Trump, RFK, jr., Vivek Ramaswamy, and more wouldn’t have attended the 2024 Libertarian National Convention. The Libertarian Party is more relevant and powerful than ever before, and it’s time to get to work.

Jeff Hewitt: There’s Something About the Capitol

On my recent adventure into the “swamp” that some know as our nation’s capitol, I noticed many similar perils comparable to those found in the Louisiana swamp. My wife and I took an extra day to stay there and see some of the sights on Memorial Day. Walking from the Washington Hilton we passed several federal buildings on our way to the white house and the Capitol. The Department of Justice and the Hoover FBI building were just two of them. Many more federal department headquarters, too many to name, stood as humongous monoliths, silently sucking money out of my pocket.

The convention was fun and full of surprises but a bad day with Libertarians is better than a good day with … well, pretty much any other group. Our chair trumped Trump and the nation saw that our principles are not for sale. Friday night I met my friend Lily Tang Williams at the hotel restaurant for dinner. She had just been on the Tim Poole podcast because her question for David Hogg at a Spike Cohen debate had gone viral and made her even more of a celebrity than she already was. She basically put the Second Amendment argument to rest! After dinner I told her RFK, jr., was speaking downstairs and we should check it out. I saw my friend, Maj Toure, standing ahead of us watching Kennedy speak and asked Lily if she had ever met him. She knew of Black Guns Matter and Maj but never met him. Getting a picture of two of our nation’s best 2A advocates who finally met was one of my highlights of the weekend.

After RFK, jr., spoke, then Vivek Ramaswamy came in the room to debate one of our vice presidential candidates, Clint Russell. In passing, he yelled hello to Lily. I asked her if she knew him. She told me he came and had dinner at her home in New Hampshire during the primaries because he wanted her endorsement. Lily is running as a Republican for congress in New Hampshire but is as libertarian as Thomas Massie. Oh, by the way, he was there to watch Kennedy and was overwhelmed by Libertarian delegates.

The moral of this story (yes, libertarians have morals) is that even in a swamp you can have a good time. All those snakes, alligators and leeches live in a primordial soup which has the potential of fostering new species to fill the voids left by prior species that have outlived their usefulness. Adding some freedom-loving spice to the soup gives us hope for this town to return as a citadel of individual liberty! (see Argentina).

Loren Dean: You Never Know

I have a longer-form piece on fun stuff I saw at the convention here, but for this newsletter I wanted to share a more personal story.

I became a libertarian in about 2014 in central Oklahoma. I happened across Reason online on a work break, and it became a regular lunchtime read. I wondered how to get involved, but nothing really materialized. I did register as a Libertarian voter, one of the nine (count ‘em!) Libertarians in Noble County, Oklahoma, but I never physically met another libertarian in the state. I lived in a small town called Perry (pop. 5,000), an hour by road from an urban center; while I entertained the fantasy of trying to find one of the other nine libertarians “near” me and getting a burger, that plan never materialized. So I watched the conversation on Facebook, became a regular reader of libertarian commentary websites, and wondered what to do next.

2016 was the year of Gary Johnson nationally, but closer to home it was the year that a guy named Chris Powell ran for governor of Oklahoma as a Libertarian (along with Joe Exotic, which is a whole other story). I decided it was time to plant a flag, so I wrote to the Powell campaign and requested a yard sign. Powell responded personally to my request, and I proudly fronted his sign in my yard.

Ten years later, I was waiting on lunch in McClellan’s restaurant in the Washington Hilton during the 2024 Libertarian National Convention. I looked to my left, and there was Chris Powell. I had never met him, so I introduced myself. He actually remembered sending that yard sign to Perry back in 2016 (mine was the only one), and we chatted for about half an hour. He seemed pleasantly surprised to hear my story, and flattered that it was his example that ultimately pushed me into real-life activism. I am now a California county affiliate chair and member of the state executive committee. I’m active in several civic groups in my city, sitting on the boards of an education foundation and a neighborhood alliance. I have my eyes open for an elected office to run for.

And I’m here now, doing all this, in part because a guy named Chris Powell ran for governor. All the websites and podcasts and tweeting and whatnot were fine, but seeing actual effort and involvement, seeing someone take the plunge and put himself out there, was the real X-factor. Activism matters. Who will I inspire and meet in ten years? Who will you inspire and meet in ten years? You never know. Thanks, Chris.

Calendar Notes

As always, bookmark and regularly check our website for the most up-to-date event details: https://rclp.us

15 June-7 July 1846: The Bear Flag Republic. We would be remiss if we did not acknowledge the Bear Flag Revolt: the 25 days during which California was theoretically a sovereign state, declaring independence from Mexico before being annexed by the United States (at gunpoint). Raise a glass to the memory of Los Osos!

26 June 2024: Make California Great Again rally. Speaking of California independence, a coalition of groups and parties are being brought together by congressional candidate David Serpa, and will be rallying to start the process of deepening understanding and ties. RivCo party Chairman Loren Dean is part of the speaking roster. The rally will be at the Derby Room in Perris, which is a business that fought tooth and nail to stay open through the COVID lockdowns. Coalitions are the future, so this is not only an opportunity to support a business that deserves it, it’s a chance to cheer for the Libertarian Party as a vehicle to help build a greater, freer California. Come join the fun!

10-13 July 2024: Freedomfest. One of the premier gatherings of the liberty movement, held in Las Vegas. Check out registration and hotel details here:

https://www.freedomfest.com/

Voter Registration and Party Membership

If you vote, be sure your registration is Libertarian. Whether you vote or not, stay abreast of your registration details on the California Secretary of State page at this link: https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/cavoter

Being a registered Libertarian voter certainly allows you to call yourself a real libertarian. However, there is more you can do. You can join the national Libertarian Party as a “sustaining member" by signing the membership application statement and paying dues (currently a minimum of $25 per year) to the national organization. Note that while paying dues at the state level (California) makes you a local "central committee member," national membership is separate.

If you aren't a dues-paying member at all, you can join as a national member AND as a state/county member using a single online form:

Combined National/State/County Membership Form

Join us in taking a stand for a world set free!

Find us on the web at https://rclp.us

Email us at admin@rclp.us

LPCA Discord server: https://discord.gg/wfXzapGsTd

LNC Discord server: https://discord.gg/fxdH2bre

Thank you for reading Riverside County Liberty Letter. This post is public so feel free to share it.