The media, left and right, would have you believe that this presidential race is a battle for least-worst between the Democratic and Republican candidates. While, barring a SMOD-like event, it is true that one of those two will be America’s next President, the argument that you, the voter, is stuck having to pick one or the other is not.
There are numerous other candidates on the Presidential ballot. Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party candidate, is the only one apart from Clump on all 50 state ballots plus D.C. The establishmentarians, Dem and Repub alike, would have you believe that Johnson is a buffoon, a stoner, clueless, an idiot, and a leech of votes that their candidate should be getting from any proper-thinking individual. The fact that they have the temerity to say all this while supporting Clinton or Trump for the presidency is nothing short of farcical.
Their efforts to deride Johnson are rooted in fear. Fear that a respectable showing would undermine the duopoly, would tell people that they don’t have to resign themselves to an eternity of the Democratic-Republican political machine, would show those who’ve fallen prey to their harangues that there is a market for small-government ideals and other choices, and that the pesky principles of liberty that neither party cares one whit about might gain further traction in the zeitgeist.
So, they and theirs hold Johnson to a much higher standard than they hold their own. Clinton and Trump apologists and tribalists pick a particular policy position that clashes with their candidate’s or a particular gaffe that shows Johnson’s flaws and bray “AHA! You can’t vote for him because of this!!”
By that measure, both Clinton and Trump would have been disqualified LONG ago. Rather than holding their candidates to the same single-point failure criterion, they instead engage in either less-terrible relativism or tu quoque fallacies. Their candidates are both truly dreadful, but we mustn’t vote for Gary Johnson because he couldn’t spur-of-the-moment name a foreign leader he admired (as a libertarian, I’d have the same problem), or because he didn’t know what Aleppo is (this was disappointing). These are legitimate knocks against Johnson, but we are not comparing candidates to an ideal, we are comparing them to each other. If the choice between Clinton and Trump is a relative one i.e. one is so bad you have to vote for the other, it’s only proper that Johnson be judged by the same relativist methodology. When we do that, I defy anyone who is not permanently attached to the teat of big government worship, warmongering and/or rank nativism to claim that Johnson isn’t head-and-shoulders the better candidate.
Then there’s the media’s coverage. How many of you know that Johnson was a successful ground-up businessman? That he is an ultra-marathoner? That he’s climbed the Seven Summits? That he was a two-term governor of New Mexico, and that he earned the nickname “Governor No” for constantly vetoing spending bills? How many know his platform of policy positions?
Johnson’s policies are neither reliably liberal nor conservative, they’re not reliably Democratic or Republican. So, partisan news sources (show me one that isn’t) select the policies that run counter to their ideologies and hold them up as “reasons not to vote for Johnson.” Meanwhile, Clinton lies to everyone, and people pick the lies they want to believe. Trump changes policies as often as he changes shirts, and people pick the policies-of-the-moment they want to believe.
Ah, but what of the wasted vote thing? What of the reality that Clump’s going to win? Isn’t voting for Johnson pointless?
I addressed that “thing” at length here. Beyond all that, the real waste is voting for Clinton or Trump. Voting for either of them condones what they stand for, all they awful things they’ve said and done along the way, and the perpetuation of the “we can win the White House if our candidate is not as godawful as the other one.”
Want to have your vote actually count for something? Vote for Gary Johnson. At the minimum, a good showing will tell the nation and the world that there’s a home for small-government-minded people and ideas, and put the major parties on notice that your vote can’t be “feared” into their camp. And, if the Libertarian Party manages to get 5% of the popular vote, the party will receive a taste of the money collected when people check off the $1-$3 contribution box on their tax returns. This year, that would have added nearly $10 million to the $12-13M the candidate and party have raised and spent on the election effort. That’s a big difference, and it will help continue the fight against the destruction being wrought upon the nation by the Democrats and Republicans.
Johnson has been given a raw deal by the press and is being held to a much higher standard by the partisans. Look past all that, and you’ll find a candidate that, while flawed and not 100% to your liking, would do the nation FAR more good than either of the abysmal choices the major parties offer. And, even though he’s not going to win, voting for him is far less of a waste than voting for Clinton or Trump.
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