Trump Addresses Libertarian Convention

[Doom]

Kudos to Trump for having the guts to address the Libertarian Convention, brave all the boos, and maintain his composure and not get derailed from his speech. In the speech, he made only one mild jab at the crowd, that they don't want to win elections and prefer to be permanent losers getting no more than 3% of the vote even after being a national party for 50 years they have never elected a single candidate to national office. That was a mild jab, and it wasn't even an insult, it was just a fact.


In contrast to his 2016 and 2020 campaigns where he was often distracted by critics and tended to lash out, the 2024 Trump campaign is focused entirely on issues, gone are the petty feuds with the media or other candidates. This is a mature and focused Trump.

The Biden campaign tried to mock Trump on Twitter/X for getting booed by the Libertarians, but the chairman of the Libertarian party would have none of it, saying in response "At least Trump had the courage to show up, we invited you but you were too scared to attend". Boom!


Here is the problem with the Libertarian Party:

You hear a Libertarian speech and for 80% of it you think "I may not agree with all of this, but it sounds reasonable, or at least rationally defensible" and then he says something like "We need to stop the Jews and their evil conspiracy to mind control us with laser beams" and the response of nearly everyone is "we need to keep these crazies far away from the levers of power", the 20% of the speech that is batcrap crazy negates all the goodwill they built up leading up to it.

Libertarians have a serious "Star Trek Convention Problem" by which I mean, people like Star Trek but the crazies who take it way too seriously tend to alienate mainstream audiences, so while most people have probably seen at least one Star Trek movie or TV episode that they thought was pretty good, they tend to shy away from becoming fans of the franchise because of its image as a hobby of crazy people. Thus Star Trek remains a niche, cult phenomenon even though it has been around for nearly 60 years.

[anawim]

I did not know that about the libertarians. Didn't realize they were a bunch of crazies.

As far as Trump being able to control himself; we'll see. Not easy for a tiger to change his stripes.

[Signum Crucis]

He's got guts, for sure. His speech at the Bronx rally was really good. I loved it when he recited "The Snake".

[Signum Crucis]

As far as Trump being able to control himself; we'll see. Not easy for a tiger to change his stripes.

I'd rather a tiger than a wolf in sheep's clothing.

[anawim]

As far as Trump being able to control himself; we'll see. Not easy for a tiger to change his stripes.

I'd rather a tiger than a wolf in sheep's clothing.

[Doom]

I did not know that about the libertarians. Didn't realize they were a bunch of crazies.

As far as Trump being able to control himself; we'll see. Not easy for a tiger to change his stripes.

It is already happening and the media have started to complain about it, Newsweek wrote a ridiculous article about how Trump's 2024 campaign is "terrifying" because he is so focused and intense, avoiding distractions and focusing entirely on issues, not an incompetent vanity campaign like in 2016, to Newsweek Trump's 2024 campaign is terrifying because it is competent.

Just watch the speech he gave to the Libertarians, as the boos commenced, he remained calm, smiling broadly in response to the hostile response and not engaging the crowd but continuing with his address. He showed remarkable calm and composure, in 2016 he would have gotten into a war of words with the audience and had a total meltdown.

[Kage_ar]

what do you think are the key strategies that the Libertarian Party could adopt to broaden its appeal and overcome the "Star Trek Convention Problem" you mentioned?

Stop mailing out tricorders when someone registers Libertarian for starters...

On a serious note, local contacts. There is a Democratic Party office in my town of 30K, there is a Republican Party office, but, I don't know that there is a Libertarian party office even in my state! Honestly, if one of these party offices would do things like offering rides to the polls (not done by the Dems or Repubs in my town/county either) I think it would show voters that party actually cares.