At the recent Libertarian Party national convention, principled libertarians like Michael Rectenwald and Jacob Hornberger were rejected as the Libertarian Party's presidential nominee in favor of a homosexual, CDC libertarian who defends drag queen story hours, opposes legislation "to limit therapies and care specifically for young people who may be trans or nonbinary," and thinks that "Lew Rockwell and his work is bigoted tripe."

It took seven rounds of ballots before cultural leftist Chase Oliver received the nomination with 60.6 percent of the vote. "I will continue to bring a hopeful and positive message of liberty to both those who consider themselves libertarian and those who don't know they are libertarian yet," said Oliver in his victory speech.

But as Tom Woods has well said, Oliver "will attract zero disaffected right-wingers (and since no disaffected left-wingers are considering the LP, it's a gratuitous minus with no upside), who will now simply hold their noses and vote for Trump."

And not only will Oliver attract even fewer Christians who can't stomach Trump, he will further drive away from libertarianism conservative Christians, most of whom are registered Republicans. (Progressive Christians are a lost cause, and would no more identify as a libertarian than they would a conservative.) The appeal of Oliver outside of the Libertarian Party is important, for if the Libertarian Party wants votes, it must get them from not only libertarians, but disgruntled Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.

The Libertarian Party and libertarianism are not the same thing. The Libertarian Party is a political party; libertarianism is a political philosophy.