Clint Russell, who sought the Libertarian Party’s vice presidential nomination this year and was eliminated in the second round of voting, announced Thursday that he is supporting Republican nominee Donald Trump for the presidency.
Russell was one of five candidates competing for the Libertarian Party’s vice presidential slot at the Libertarian National Convention in May. He was also ultimately chosen by members to debate Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy as part of the convention. He was eliminated in the second round of voting, securing 340 delegate votes compared to the 371 earned by Mike ter Maat, who became the party’s vice presidential nominee.
In an X post, Russell stated that he had weighed the endorsement for at least six months, describing the decision as “brutally hard.” He explained that his initial criticisms of Trump stemmed from the former president’s pandemic response, particularly Trump’s failure to “see Anthony Fauci for the monstrous and criminal fraud that he is,” his support for lockdowns and mandates, and the decision to issue stimulus checks, which Russell described as “financial malpractice” that he links to current inflation rates.
However, Russell stated that his perspective on Trump shifted over time due to growing concerns about what he perceives as the political weaponization of the justice system, media bias, and a lack of accountability regarding U.S.-Russia tensions—an issue he further describes as the most pressing crisis facing the world.
“To me, nothing else matters if we don’t find a pathway towards peace,” Russell wrote.
Russell also expressed optimism over Trump’s openness to “dissidents, former democrats, independents and his promise to put a libertarian in his cabinet.” He suggested that a potential second Trump administration inclusive of figures such as Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now-Republican Tulsi Gabbard, and a libertarian in a Department of Education role could avoid what he sees as mistakes made in Trump’s first term.
Additionally, Russell contrasted Trump with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, specifically highlighting her opposition to fracking, support for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives, previous statements in favor of mandatory gun buybacks, and her position on continuing U.S. involvement in Ukraine. He further described Harris as “the least impressive person I’ve ever seen in American politics.”
Despite his endorsement, Russell stated that he would remain critical of Trump, if elected, saying, “I will never ignore his mistakes. I will applaud him when he does right and call him out when he does wrong.”
Meanwhile, I’ve found how to access the newer articles in brave, by clicking on the more posts by Jordan Willow Evans link.
It’s ok. I long since stopped caring whether I am or not. I’m for much less government than we currently have. Call that whatever you want to.
Neither libertarians nor nonlibertarians agree in real world examples who or what is or isn’t one or does or does not approach being one, given the messy world we actually live in.
As for Wallace, most people down around my parts who were old enough to vote, voted for him. Few of the ones still living bother to claim otherwise now. Lots of people here also know he was actually a lifelong liberal , and didn’t bother to hide it before 1962 or after he was shot in 1972. I didn’t know it in 1968 or 1972, or I would not have supported him. I was still a bit too young to actually vote.
Lester Maddox was my first actual vote for President, in 1976. Some folks down here actually voted for Jimmy Carter thinking he was our kind of Democrat, but our family never voted for him for Governor and we sure didn’t vote for him for President either. Everyone I knew who voted for him in 1976 joined me in voting for Reagan in 1980, though. Not a one person I knew made the mistake of voting for Carter the second time he ran for President. My close family were all for Maddox for Governor and President each time, never Carter.
The way my father in law explained it, Governor Maddox, his friend and political mentor, was actually the man that live action role player George Corley Wallace pretended to be on the political stage, but only for that one decade.
I don’t think there are many people left who will admit that they voted for George Wallace.
If it makes you feel any better, I would never tell you that you are a libertarian.
We disagree.
On peace, I think Harris is clearly more bellicose , and I disagree strongly about your views about motivation or likely outcomes regarding Russia and surrounding countries.
I’m pro-life and pro-national sovereignty, so we disagree on those as well. I disagree about Oliver being better on those issues, too.
I think Harris poses a significant acceleration of destruction of peace, freedom, and prosperity, even compared with Biden or any past Democrat president.
Which taxes are likely to be implemented has a lot to do with control of congress and maybe to some extent with the court’s but I can smell big tax hikes with Harris one way or another, which may not even matter in the highly likely event she gets us into WWIII.
I’m not sure she’s actually for lower tariffs. Biden didn’t get rid of Trump’s first term tariffs and added some of his own.
I don’t think we’re going to agree here.
The two LP presidential nominees I supported were Ron Paul and Bob Barr. The two Republicans were Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump (you can add Goldwater , long before I was old enough to vote). In between, I supported the nominees of the American / American Independent parties in 1968-76, Reform Party in 1992-2000, and Constitution Party in 2012. One thing all minor party nominees I supported had in common was that if and when they ran with major parties I supported them then too.
I’ve only supported a Democrat for President once in the primary and never in a general election. That Democrat was George Wallace in 1972.
There are different kinds of people who claim to be libertarians and or support the LP. Some of them closer in views to me, some to you. I’ve claimed to be big and or small l at times, but currently don’t claim to be either one . In my experience libertarians are eager to tell me I am until I agree and eager to tell me I’m not as soon as I do. Having been through that ringer twice, I’m not interested in a third time.
Unimportant: “On all of the peace, freedom and prosperity axes …Trump is better than all three of his general election opponents…”
That isn’t at all clear. Leaving the minor party candidates aside, as Oliver is clearly better on all counts, it isn’t even clear that Trump is better than Harris.
Peace? If Russia takes Ukraine, other countries will follow. Putin wants to reconstitute the borders of the old USSR or Russian Empire. Stopping Russia in Ukraine is preventing a wider war. Trump would cut off aid to Ukraine and force it to cede land to Russia, allowing Russia both a victory and time to rebuild its forces for a few years before its third attempt.
Freedom? Not for Ukrainians, certainly. Not for women who want to have an abortion. Not for immigrants.
Prosperity? Tariff wars are idiotic, but I will grant that escalating his tariff war would be less idiotic than Harris’ proposal to tax unrealized capital gains. However, Harris’ unrealized capital gains tax is significantly less likely to actually be implemented. Trump gets a half point for that one.
Andy: I didn’t get the impression that anyone here was under the misconception of a formal caucus endorsement.
Evan Mazur: Trump and Jorgensen have/had different responsibilities. Trump, as a candidate who can actually win the presidency, has a responsibility to say and do (two very different things) what he can in those directions and still win or preserve future viability to win again or preserve it for his/our sides successor if and when he’s termed out or too old to be viable again.
Jorgensen and other l.p. nominees have a different responsibility: to push the envelope of what is acceptable mainstream discourse. To do that, they have to be close enough to it to not be immediately excluded by all but a vanishingly tiny fraction of the public, yet far enough outside to actually stretch those limits a bit each time they run and every time they get an opportunity to be heard by the general public.
All of those things are difficult balancing acts.
On all of the peace, freedom and prosperity axes (I’m having a senior moment on plural of axis) Trump is better than all three of his general election opponents, and either better or more general election viable than his nomination viable primary opponents.
He is far short of ideal, if we could even accurately guess what ideal is – I can only theoretically deduce a general direction – and so is anyone else. So is everyone else.
But l.p. and other minor party nominees should in principle be responsible to be more radical than candidates who carry the additional burden of winning.
For the latter, there is a composite responsibility of balancing: pushing the window a bit with their rhetoric when they run, governing in a way that doesn’t alienate their supporters too much if elected without simultaneously destroying future viability for themselves or chosen/directionally closest successor, and not triggering other pushback methods such as assassination, removal from office, being neutralized by courts, being neutralized by staff and bureaucracy, being neutralized by nonstop vetoes, etc.
It’s perfectly logical to criticize libertarian or other nonviable nominees for not pushing an envelope far enough while at the same time finding a viable nominee to be most preferable while weighing the myriad of different scales on which nominees should be balanced/weighed against each other who doesn’t push it even that far.
As for whether Trump will free Ubricht or anyone else you might want to see freed: I’m only hoping we get to find out. With Harris the chance is zero. With Trump, it may or may not be.
The Mises Caucus has not endorsed Donald Trump. Clint Russell does not speak for the Mises Caucus board or membership. Neither the Mises Caucus board or membership have voted to endorse Donald Trump.
“To me, nothing else matters if we don’t find a pathway towards peace”
The Mises Caucus is either stupid (genuinely believing Trump is pro-peace) or fraudulent (they don’t believe it but use pro-peace rhetoric as bait to sucker libertarians into voting Trump). Angela McArdle, Dave Smith, and Clint Russell have all stated they’re supporting Trump in 2024.
Trump (who pleaded *specifically* to libertarians in the 2020 election to vote for him b/c he was going to withdraw from Afghanistan) stated in June 2024:
“we were gonna keep Baghram… it’ll leave 4,000 people and keep it strong. And they [Biden administration] gave it up”
https://x.com/mtracey/status/1798391726274671057
and in that same June 2024 interview Trump was cheering on Israel’s war in Gaza and his only issue was that Israel hasn’t finished it fast enough:
“Trump says that Israel needs to “finish the job” in Gaza and expresses concern that people have forgotten about October 7th, equating them to Holocaust deniers. Trump then complains that Israel has lost its influence in Congress, and pledges to restore it if elected.”
https://x.com/AFpost/status/1798577063819129303
Don’t forget that while in office Trump assassinated Soleimani which the Iranian’s called an “act of war”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/1/3/us-killing-of-irans-qassem-soleimani-an-act-of-war
Trump’s actions and words aren’t exactly in sync with Ron Paul’s message on non-intervention, are they?
Back in 2020 the Mises Caucus spewed vitriol at Jo Jorgensen for not sufficiently focusing her message about being anti-lockdown and now they’re endorsing the man who actually locked them down and who said in the 2020 Biden / Trump debated moderated by Chris Wallace that “we did a great thing by shutting it [the country] down”. So lockdowns were great and we should make America great again? And sorry, Trump won’t free Ross Ulbricht https://imgur.com/a/aYHiJXt
Wackadoodle. That was my impression when I watched him in that debate. A bad choice to represent anyone, let alone libertarians.
Another plant by the American Fascist Party (formerly the GOP).
Mr. Russell was never a serious Libertarian candidate, and never planned on running a serious campaign. He noted during at least one podcast appearance that if obtained the nomination he would not be actively campaigning across the country, in stark contrast to eventual nominee Mr. Ter Maat who did precisely that. Russell was one-trick pony, with nothing to offer. And the delegates took note.
“I was still watching carefully as the Russian collusion hoax took form. They proceeded to spy on his campaign (thanks Hillary), frame him for treason, impeach him on nonsense (twice), frame his supporters (Whitmer hoax), then brutalize his supporters with trumped up charges and a thousand+ years of jail despite the vast majority being peaceful (J6). Biden even bragged about the obscene sentencing during the DNC speech.
[…]
The contrast between the years long J6 coverage and prosecutions and the tepid response and largely media endorsed riots for many months during the summer of 2020 made the political prosecution blatantly obvious.
Then they weaponized the justice system and had Trump facing 700+ years in prison on garbage.
In the past 100 days there has been two attempts made on his life and the circumstances of both events left me convinced that the federal government is either involved or they are, at minimum, allowing it to happen.”
Very true. But just because Trump is a victim of the bad guys, doesn’t make him a good guy.
Not only did Trump “screw the pooch” on covid. He blamed anarchists (i.e. libertarians) for that 2020 rioting by socialists (i.e. statists). He turned his back on the J6ers and on everyone seeking election integrity. He attacked governor DeSantis, who had a much less bad covid response, and defamed him by claiming he was on the Chinese Communist Party’s payroll. He has dove deeper and deeper in bed with the Log Cabin Republicans. He prefers returning the question of abortion to the states rather than stopping the genocide of unborn children.
How can someone who wasn’t convinced to vote for Trump in 2016 nor in 2020 despite all the harassment he was facing back then, look at his failures, his betrayal and his refusal to take accountability since then, and suddenly support him in 2024?!
—————-
“To phrase this differently: he was considering endorsing Trump before the LP even nominated a candidate!”
Based on Russell’s tweets from back then and on which candidates were running for LP nomination, that doesn’t surprise me in the least.
“weighed the endorsement for at least six months”
Simple math shows that 6 months ago was April 25, which is a full month before the LP National convention. To phrase this differently: he was considering endorsing Trump before the LP even nominated a candidate!
Well, well, well… how special!