When a Wannabe Dictator Tries to Sway the Wrong Crowd (w/ Update)

I don't know how this happened, but somehow someone got donald trump an invitation to speak before the national Libertarian conference this year. It's about to happen tonight around 8ish, depending on how libertarians keep time. By all accounts, this wasn't a bright idea (via Alex Isenstadt, Peder Schaefer, and Brittany Gibson at Politico): 

As delegates gathered at the Washington Hilton on the eve of his speech, the party’s decision to host the former president, which had split the organization, erupted Friday into open revolt. Fuming delegates at the convention said they plan to protest Trump’s speech, and one group sought unsuccessfully to remove the former president along with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., from the agenda — a move that resulted in thrown punches and obscenities between supporters and opponents of the move.

“I would like to propose that we go tell Donald Trump to go fuck himself!” Kaelan Dreyer, a Libertarian from New Mexico, yelled into a microphone, winning cheers from the crowd. After shouting vulgarities at the convention’s chair and fending off punches, he was led out of the convention hall.

The raucous opening to the convention reflects the pockets of hostility that Trump faces as he appeals to the Libertarians to help him box out a growing, third-party threat from Kennedy’s independent presidential campaign...

Third Party wannabe RFK Jr is running as an anti-Biden candidate but running on a platform of anti-vaccinations that appeal to MAGA... and there's signs he's stealing votes away from trump more than Biden. Hence trump's panicked attempt to appeal to a Libertarian party - that's kinda pro-RFK - that has a couple of reasons to hate him.

Part of it is simple party partisanship. Libertarians keep running into the problem of never winning enough votes, and a lot of it has to do with they and Republicans sharing the same ideology when it comes to deregulation of (federal, in some cases even state) government and lower taxes. Voters tend to go Republican because as one of the two major parties they're more likely to win anyway, and the Libertarians hate that.

It doesn't help that Libertarians are viewed as "Republicans Who Smoke Pot" because the two parties do split over civil liberties such as legalizing things like drugs and prostitution. Libertarians don't like the "Law and Order" stances that Republicans promote, and are ideologically opposed to a number of things that trump himself wants, such as Absolute Immunity and broad presidential powers to abuse anyone and everything.

Libertarians are not about to enjoy getting treated as second-class people within their own convention when trump shows up to speak, as he's bound to bring in his own MAGA audience to stage the event as a pro-trump success.

This is awkward: The Libertarian delegates wrapped up their voting and came in to discover that the priority seating in the room where Trump is speaking has been claimed by Trump fans. Now the Libertarian chair is asking Trump people to move, but most are not moving. pic.twitter.com/GMsTpSGINN

— Meryl Kornfield (@MerylKornfield) May 25, 2024

Yeah, it's gonna be that kind of night.

Bring all the popcorn, will ya?

Update: Apparently trump tried to hold out to force the Libertarians to let "his" audience sit up front. he finally gave his speech during which cries of "hypocrite" and loud booing kept interrupting him. Here's a sample from Acyn on Twitter (never X, Elon!):

Trump: Combine with us in a partnership.

Crowd: booooooo pic.twitter.com/NO46Gsxv5w

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 26, 2024

trump is up there - almost threatening, hiding his need to beg - insisting that the Libertarians side with him against "crooked Joe Biden," but to Libertarians he's just as crooked if not more: They're well aware of his criminal charges and not blinding themselves the way his MAGA base does. 

It's not helping that trump is bashing the Libertarians for their poor electoral performance every Presidential cycle (that's right trump, insult the crowd to their faces).

At some point I worry the Secret Service is gonna toss flashbang grenades to disperse the hecklers.

More popcorn.

Update 5/26: The day after did not go well for trump. Most of the media commentary covered how the attendees booed him off the stage. When the convention held their first round of balloting, trump wasn't officially on the list but got write-in votes... six of them. RFK Jr was on the ballot and received nineteen votes. Both missed the cutoff and the Libertarians are going to be going with one of their own.

This tweet clip pretty much sums up the whole trumpian fail:

Request for information at the Libertarian National Convention: Did this body grab a former president by the p—— last night? pic.twitter.com/qizZehgVYh

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 26, 2024

C'mon, Libertarians, show some decorum... /evil grin