Anatomy of a faceplant: Inside the Libertarian Party's abysmal 2016 campaign

How Gary Johnson shattered the libertarian movement

A missed opportunity.
(Image credit: AP Photo/Scott Morgan)

I should have known the Libertarian Party would be a disaster in 2016 from the moment stories of its national convention began to break.

With headlines like "Man drops bid to be Libertarian Party chair by strip dancing live on C-SPAN" and debate topics like World War I (yes, that's a one) and selling heroin to children, it should have been obvious from the get-go that the LP was not ready for prime time.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.