By Joshua D. Glawson | United States

When looking at libertarians, it is first important to distinguish between the two key types. As a point of clarification, there is a difference between ‘libertarian’ and ‘Libertarian’. Much like ‘catholic’ and ‘Catholic,’ the two have some philosophical differences. ‘Libertarian’ with a capital ‘L’ is of the philosophy of Liberty and the official Libertarian party; ‘libertarian’ with a lowercase ‘l’ is a malleable philosophical adherence to Liberty.

Many of the organizations such as Cato, FEE, Mises Institute, Independent Institute, Young Americans for Liberty, Students for Liberty, etc. put ‘libertarian’ with a lowercase ‘l’ on their paperwork due to government restrictions for 401c3 nonprofit organization holders to not be affiliated with a political party, even though they are each advocating Liberty and mostly adhere to Libertarian ideology.

Libertarians (capital L) DO NOT SUPPORT TRUMP.

Any that claim the name ‘Libertarian’ and do support Trump, are completely LINOs (Libertarian In Name Only). Sure, there are things he has done that Libertarians will be happy about. But, that also goes for Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc. The fact is, he is not consistently a friend of liberty at all. As the old saying goes, “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”

When I met Ron Paul almost a few years ago (2016), one of the questions a few of us asked was, “If Libertarians want to vote for one of the main 2 candidates, Clinton or Trump, which is better?” His response, that applause nearly drowned out, was this: “If they vote for Clinton or Trump, you know they are not actually Libertarian!” I couldn’t agree more.

On the other hand, ‘libertarians’ with a lowercase ‘l’ may be in the Liberty Caucus of the GOP. Or, they may be a part of the new growth called ‘libertarian socialists’. This, though is such a contradiction of everything each stands for and is philosophically at complete odds with liberty. So, ‘libertarians’ may support Trump, Clinton, Bush, Sanders, etc. but they have no philosophical consistency.

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