by Jo Freeman

 

Both applause and boos greeted U.S. Presidential candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Donald J. Trump on separate days at the Libertarian National Convention, held in Washington D.C. over Memorial Day weekend.

 

Kennedy, a former Democrat, is running as an Independent.  Trump, also a former Democrat, is running as a Republican.  Over half a dozen men wanted to run for President as the candidate of the Libertarian Party.  Chase Oliver of Georgia, another former Democrat, was chosen near the end of the convention. 

 

Since many members of the LNC had objected to non-Libertarians addressing their convention, the speeches were held in a different ballroom to a somewhat different crowd.  In effect, these men were speaking at the LNC but not to the LNC.

 

Despite an unappealing raspy voice, Kennedy made an appealing speech to libertarians.  He had clearly identified those issues on which he and libertarians agreed, without saying that he was a libertarian.  He also said he would go after both Trump and Biden, but spent 90 percent of his time going after Trump. He worked his way through the Constitution, starting with the first ten amendments, aka the Bill of Rights, interpreting each in libertarian language, while identifying Trump actions to the contrary.

 

For this, Kennedy mostly got applause. There was one “Free Palestine” shout from the audience, but that was pretty much it.

 

Trump was supposed to speak the following afternoon but the time was changed to 8:00 and he didn’t begin until 8:45 p.m.  The Secret Service opened the doors at 4:00 to search everyone who entered.  A lot of people sat in auditorium chairs for more than three hours. The time switches and delays were typical of his presidency.

 

One had to register to sit in the audience, but didn’t have to be a convention attendee (or press). Consequently, there was a significant pro-Trump crowd spread among the anti-Trumpsters. The yells and the boos were so intermixed that it was hard to tell which was which; sometimes there was just noise.  There was a lot of noise.

 

Trump made his usual rant against “crooked Joe Biden” who was “the worst president in American history.”  He began by saying that after all his criminal indictments “If I wasn’t a Libertarian before, I sure as hell am a Libertarian now.”  He pointedly said the libertarians should nominate him as their candidate, or at least vote for him. That got him one of his bigger boos.