Gov. Kelly Ayotte called for the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire’s suspension from the social media platform X after repeated posts encouraging political violence and violent rhetoric against Democrats.
Its most recent post, which has since been deleted, advocated for the death of House Minority Leader Alexis Simpson, a Democrat from Exeter.
For years, the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire and its chair, Jeremy Kauffman, have made online posts encouraging the killing of other Democratic members of the Legislature as well as Andru Volinsky, a former executive councilor.
Ayotte wrote to X’s head of safety, Michael O’Herlihy, calling for removal of those posts and suspension of the party’s X account. She argued it had violated the platform’s violent content policy.
“This account has openly called for the assassination of elected officials from the New Hampshire Democratic Party, has said it condones murdering elected officials for their policy positions, and most recently threatened a member of House leadership,” Ayotte wrote in a letter released Thursday. “Violent rhetoric is completely unacceptable and has no place in our civil discourse. These posts plainly violate X’s own rules on violent content, and I’m calling on X to remove them and suspend the account immediately.”
Her office did not answer a question from the Monitor to discuss other specific steps New Hampshire can take to address political violence and related rhetoric. Instead, Ayotte said in a statement to the Monitor that “New Hampshire must continue to show the nation that we can disagree respectfully and have open dialogue without violence.”
The state Libertarian Party was disaffiliated by the Libertarian National Committee earlier this year following a long history of racist, threatening and controversial online commentary.
Kauffman did not respond to the Monitor’s request for comment.
An Oct. 1 post on the party’s account argues that Libertarians have two options to affect political change — voting and violence — but that not enough people will do those things to actually have an impact. In that post, the party instructed Libertarians to pursue marginal change by voting and moving somewhere they can have more of an impact.
The party equated its rhetoric to a “get-out-the-vote campaign.”
“We do this in New Hampshire and it works,” the post continued. “And it turns out if you do this consistently, not just politically but culturally and spiritually, you get something much bigger. You get a place where when the media misrepresents your get-out-the-vote campaign as a call to ‘assassinate Democrats’ it’s not a big deal and some elected anarcho-capitalists call you and laugh about it.”
Simpson had recently condemned a post from the state Libertarian Party that called for the deaths of Democrats.
“Enough is enough. Week after week, the LPNH account posts rhetoric on X intended to encourage violence against Democrats,” Simpson said in a statement on Wednesday. “X needs to enforce its rules and permanently ban the LPNH account. I am calling on House Majority Leader Jason Osborne to publicly condemn these posts and make clear that threats of political violence are unacceptable.”
On the since-deleted post that advocated for Simpson’s death, Osborne commented: “WTF is wrong with you people?”
Chris Vetter, director of safety services at the State House, said Thursday he was aware of the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire’s statements.
“We’re aware of what the posts say and who they were directed at, so we’ve had contact with those people who are specifically named in those posts and we have opened conversations with those folks,” Vetter said.
Any investigation to determine whether the posts are criminal in nature would fall to the attorney general’s office, within the New Hampshire Department of Justice.
Spokesperson Mike Garrity said the department is taking a close look at the posts to determine what, if any, action may be legally appropriate.
“The New Hampshire Department of Justice is aware of these and previous posts, and we understand the concerns that have been expressed,” Garrity said. “While we cannot comment on what specific action we may or may not take, we will, as always, work to take whatever steps are legally appropriate to enforce the law and to protect the safety of public officials and members of the public.”
