Numerous polls show that most American voters don’t like either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump in the upcoming election. Assuming both of them get their party’s nomination (and it seems highly unlikely they won’t), there is a third, less-talked-about option: the Libertarian Party, which has adopted policies from both sides of the political spectrum and repackaged them in its own special way.
The party broadly promotes civil liberties, a non-interventionist foreign policy, laissez-faire economics and the abolition of the welfare state. More specifically, that means lower taxes, legalized drugs, prostitution and same-sex marriage, and looser restrictions around gun ownership. The party also seeks the right to choose abortion and the use of sustainable resources, and is against anything that threatens freedom of speech.
The party was officially formed in 1971, partly in response to concerns about the Vietnam War and the draft. Today, it is the third largest party in the United States by popular vote in elections. The 27 states that report Libertarian registration statistics count its membership at more than 400,000 (In 2012, the Democrats had 43.1 million, while the Republicans had 30.1 million). In the November election it will be listed on ballots in all 50 states.
There were 16 candidates running in the party’s presidential primary in 2016, but only three of them were considered serious prospects: John McAfee, Gary Johnson and Austin Petersen. McAfee is the eccentric man behind the anti-virus software with the same name. Johnson, who served as governor of New Mexico between 1995 and 2003, is the only one of the three who has held political office. Petersen is the owner and founder of The Libertarian Republic, a website aimed at spreading libertarian ideology.
Gary Johnson was elected as the candidate at the Libertarian Party convention on 30 May.
The party has never won a seat in the U.S. Congress, although it has landed candidates at the state level, winning several seats in the state houses of Alaska, New Hampshire, Vermont and Rhode Island. Its best result in a presidential election was in 1980, when the Libertarian party polled 1.06% of the vote, or 921,128 votes.
Unusually, one has to pay to become a member of the American Libertarian Party—$25 for a year, $1,500 for a lifetime membership, or $25,000 for access to the Chairman’s Circle.
