CANTON, OH — After months of heated debate, subcommittee reports, and late-night Google Docs warfare, the officers of the Stark County Libertarian Party are proud to announce they have finally achieved what they describe as the “perfect county platform” — one that balances radical principle with pragmatic appeal and contains not a single offensive tweet or controversial semicolon.
Unfortunately, everyone still finds them to be deeply unlikable, and no one outside their core Slack channel cares.
“This is a landmark achievement in our affiliate’s history,” said chairperson Greg Talbott, 44, who referred to the final document as “bold yet sensible” and “exactly what David Nolan would’ve wanted if he were alive and micromanaging a spreadsheet.”
The 17-page platform, which includes provisions for school choice, voluntary trash collection, and “a soft sunset on regulatory capture,” was passed unanimously at the county convention, attended by 7 members and one guy who thought it was a Bitcoin meetup.
“We thought once we got the tone right — firm but inclusive, liberty-forward but not too spicy — people would start respecting us,” said platform committee chair Sheela Keel, still wearing her “Taxed Enough Already” enamel pin. “But our Facebook engagement is down, the local news ignored our press release, and the one city council member who responded just replied ‘lol no.’”
Despite the platform’s careful wording and triple-proofed neutrality on internal drama, affiliate members remain universally described by outsiders as “exhausting,” “weirdly self-important,” and in one case, simply “bitch.”
“We thought the issue was messaging. So we fixed it,” Talbott said, staring blankly at the unclicked link to their platform summitted to r/Libertarian.
When asked if their unpopularity might prompt any self-reflection, Keel said no — the next step is a bylaws revision, followed by a motion to censure the state party for not sharing their platform on Instagram.
At press time, the affiliate had scheduled an emergency meeting to form an investigation committee to discover who in the group failed to clap after the motion to abolish county zoning passed unanimously.
