Inside a right-wing party’s push to purge itself of MAGA

When Donald Trump spoke at the 2024 Libertarian Party National Convention during his fourth presidential campaign, it was clear that LP members had a variety of views on the MAGA movement. The Libertarians who booed Trump loudly were obviously anti-MAGA, rejecting the MAGA-friendly views of a faction within their party that were being dubbed the "blood-and-soil Libertarians."

As MAGA opponents in the Libertarian Party see it, Trumpism is diametrically opposed to many of the things the party has been preaching since its formation back in 1971.

Political science professor/author Bernard Tamas, writing for the conservative website The Bulwark, details efforts to purge the Libertarian Party of MAGA influence and the far-right Mises Caucus.

In May, Tamas notes, the Libertarian Party's New Hampshire chapter was expelled from the national Libertarian Party — which, in 2024, created a "public relations nightmare for the wider libertarian movement" when New Hampshire Chairman Jeremy Kauffman posted, "Anyone who murders Kamala Harris would be an American hero" and describing Black colleges as "chimp factories." While the national Libertarian Party gave Chase Oliver its presidential nomination, the New Hampshire chapter endorsed Trump.

But Tamas emphasizes that "the story here is bigger than a racist, right-wing group being removed from a party apparatus" and underscores the Libertarian Party's wider debate over MAGA.

In 2017, the political scientist points outs, a MAGA-friendly faction known as the Mises Caucus emerged within the LP. Mises, sometimes described as the "blood-and-soil Libertarians," promoted hyper-nationalist, MAGA-influenced, and anti-gay views that Tamas describes as "anathema" to traditional libertarianism.

"Once empowered, the Mises Caucus flexed its culture-war muscles, removing parts of the party platform it considered 'woke,' including an explicit condemnation of bigotry that had stood for fifty years," Tamas explains in his Bulwark piece. "The Mises gang also jettisoned the party's neutrality on the question of abortion, asserting instead that a fetus is a person with property rights. But the Caucus' most controversial move was inviting Trump to speak at the Libertarian Party National Convention in 2024, even though Trump was the nominee of another party and a rival of the Libertarian Party…. But, as with cranks everywhere, the Mises Caucus overplayed its hand.…. The Mises Caucus crisis should have been a lesson."

Tamas adds, "After the disaster Pat Buchanan inflicted on the Reform Party a quarter of a century ago, the Libertarian Party could have shored up its membership requirements and voting procedures to defend against similar potential threats — and they still can. If they're capable of making those changes now that their party has survived a near implosion, they might just be the party we need — even if a majority of Americans will not vote for them."