Trump makes offer only big-L Libertarians could refuse

OPINION:

In the end, all Americans are Libertarians.

We want our guns. They want the right to smell bad in public.

We don’t want the government interfering with our churches. They want their sacred right to print lies in the newspaper.

But in the end, we are all Libertarians.

The problem with big-L Libertarians as a disorganized political party is that, practically speaking, they are always associated with the other big-L word: Loser.

They never win. They always lose. They are the party of losers. They are even bigger losers than the Republican Party, which is really saying something. And their people are even crazier than Democrats, which is also really saying something.

Nobody minds much that they lose all the time, because Libertarians are always nominating loony crackpots who just want to smoke weed, play with their Ouija boards and attend grunge rock concerts.

Democrats promise free welfare. Republicans promise more police. And Libertarians promise — well, nothing. 

Which brings us back to what is really great about the Libertarians. They promise you nothing. Which means not only do you get nothing from government, but you also don’t get high on a bunch of the political lies that are constantly peddled by both Democrats and Republicans and never actually materialize.

But you still have to pay taxes and taxes and taxes. Until you die. Then you pay more taxes.

Still, in the game of fantasy politics at least, we are all Libertarians.

Unfortunately, the Libertarian Party is like the most magnificent bridge ever built — but it crosses only half the river. Looks great on the approach. Brilliant in theory. But in practice, you always wind up drowning with all your children strapped in their car seats in the back.

Libertarians’ only success in American politics today is to be just appealing enough that both parties steal some of their more popular ideas.

Thanks to Libertarians, for example, anybody anywhere in the country can get high on drugs. Thanks to Democrats, however, we innocent taxpayers get to pay all their health care bills.

Thanks to Libertarians, big businesses operate remarkably unfettered in America. But thanks to Republicans, those big businesses have written all sorts of laws to regulate small businesses out of competition.

Thanks to Libertarians, we have open borders. Thanks to Democrats, we innocent taxpayers foot the bill for the welfare that brings in illegals from Third World countries by the trainload. And thanks to Republicans, those illegals are greedily welcomed into the country to take away the jobs of innocent American taxpayers.

So it was bound to be interesting when former President Donald Trump strode into the Libertarian Party’s nominating convention to make a strategic, practical, commonsense and even hopeful appeal to the voters we all want to be, deep down in our hearts.

“We stand here opposed to government tyranny in all of its many forms. Above all else, we live by the words of the great American patriot Patrick Henry: ‘Give me liberty or give me death,’” Mr. Trump said to a fairly constant drone of applause and hisses.

“We want government out of our business, out of our wallets and out of our lives — that’s what we want. We believe Marxism is an evil doctrine straight from the ashes of hell. Having Marxism in our government is intolerable and teaching it to our children is considered to us child abuse.”

He called President Biden the real threat to democracy. And he described the Democratic Party and its protectors in Washington as a “toxic fusion of the Marxist left, the deep state, the military-industrial complex, the government security and surveillance services and their partners all merged together into a hideous perversion of the American system.”

Oh, my land.

When was the last time you heard a guy running for president quote Patrick Henry? Or even a serious candidate for president who actually made an appeal to the Libertarian Party?

Mr. Trump even went so far as to promise to appoint a Libertarian to his Cabinet and free one of their political prisoners.

There was great applause. But there were also the constant hisses and heckling, which Mr. Trump handled with generous understatement.

“Or you can keep going the way you have for the last long decades and get your 3% and meet again and get another 3%,” he said. “Maybe you don’t want to win.”

The author of “The Art of the Deal” had a proposal for the boisterous crowd.

“What is the purpose of the Libertarian Party getting 3%?” he asked. “Nominate me — or at least vote for me. We can win together!”

It was a deal so good that only a Libertarian could refuse.

• Charles Hurt is the opinion editor at the Washington Times.