To be a libertarian voter — let alone a Libertarian voter — these days is to read endless editorials by Clinton supporters explaining that we shouldn’t vote for Gary Johnson because that could tip the election to Donald Trump. It gets old fast.
Today’s example come from the anonymous cowards at the Washington Post editorial board in a piece entitled “Do Gary Johnson supporters really want to help Trump win?” (I suppose there’s someplace on the WaPo site that lists board members, so they aren’t completely anonymous, but this is the same editorial board that called for Edward Snowden to be prosecuted even after he gave them a story that lead to a Pulitzer prize so fuck ’em.)
After rehashing Johnson’s recent interview flubs, the board asks,
Do ideological libertarians really want this man to represent their movement?
Well you bastards in the media don’t pay attention to any of the other libertarians, or to libertarian ideas and values in general, so I guess he’ll have to do.
Does his loopy campaign bring credibility to their political philosophy?
Yes, if you actually listen to what the man says about libertarian ideas, rather than just gaffes seized on by the media. He brings a lot more credibility to libertarian political philosophy than Clinton’s political philosophy brings to Clinton’s political philosophy.
I could continue picking over the details of some of their criticisms of Johnson, but let’s skip to the main conclusion:
Does Mr. Johnson’s running mate, former Massachusetts governor William Weld…really want to help Donald Trump win…?…
How could Mr. Weld, who acknowledged the danger Mr. Trump poses in an interview with us in July, live with his complicity in electing the Republican nominee?
How, indeed, could anyone?
Here’s a quick piece of advice to Democrats trying to convince libertarian voters not to vote for Johnson because that could throw the election to Trump:
Start your argument with a fucking apology.
Our candidate is getting significant national attention for the first time in years, and you’re asking us to walk away from him. You are asking us for a favor. The least you could do is apologize for all the shit you’ve done that got us here in the first place.
In case you haven’t noticed, the Libertarian party isn’t exactly a major national political force. You pretend to care about Johnson’s representation of libertarian ideals, but Democrats have combined forces with the Republicans to keep from having those ideals in the debates by setting ridiculously high polling standards, even though our candidate will be on the ballot in every state. If you now want our help, you need to apologize for that.
Speaking of ballots, every single election — every time — the Libertarian party struggles to get our candidate on the ballot. That’s because you Democrats have conspired with Republicans to set high ballot access barriers against third party candidates. You owe us an apology for that too.
Your candidate gets transition briefings from the government and flies around the country in a chartered jet with her entourage while ours gets no briefings and takes commercial flights, and you have the gall to criticize our candidate for not finding the time to prepare for every question. You probably owe us an apology for that as well.
Election after election, and in between elections, both major parties ignore our issues. You both support the war on drugs, you both support harsh immigration restrictions, you both involve us in wars all over the world, you both support using taxpayer money to reward favored constituencies, and you both undermine our free markets with protectionism, over-regulation, and crony capitalism. Apologize for that. Not just to us, but to every single person in the United States.
Maybe that’s asking too much, so let me tell you the least you could apologize for: If you’re a Democrat who wants Johnson supporters to switch to Clinton to avoid a Trump victory, you need to apologize for your own abject, craven stupidity. Libertarians, both “big-L” and small, are a tiny portion of the population. We didn’t cause this. Republicans let a narcissistic psychopath take over their party, and you Democrats responded by nominating one of the least popular candidates in living memory.
That’s not our fault. We didn’t make you do that. You did that to yourselves. This shit show of an election is a problem of your own making. And now you’re trying to tell us it’s our fault?
Fuck you.
If you want us to abandon our ideals and goals and our candidate to help you fix this problem that you created, you should start your request with a sincere apology. Or shut the fuck up.
PERFECT!!!
<3
Nice!
They also have to convince me there is really going to be a real difference between how she going to govern over him. Hell, who am I kidding no way in hell I’m going to vote for that bitch. #letgarydebate #teangov
Personally, I do think Trump would be worse than her. Possibly a lot worse. I just don’t appreciate being blamed for it.
“He brings a lot more credibility to libertarian political philosophy than Clinton’s political philosophy brings to Clinton’s political philosophy,” should read “He brings a lot more credibility to libertarian political philosophy than Clinton brings to Clinton’s political philosophy.” Otherwise great stuff.
That’s not one of my best written sentences, but actually I do mean it exactly as written. I believe that the important reason for preferring a libertarian candidate is because libertarianism, broadly construed, is a better philosophy than what the Democrats are offering. Regardless of Clinton’s personal faults and blunders, her warmongering technocratic vision discredits itself.
Fucking brilliant! HUZZAH!
Politics like those of the Clinton dynasty are why I was a Republican in the first place, and having Trump win the nomination is why I was ashamed to remain one. So yeah, for those of you in the Republican Party that are now telling me I need to vote for that “narcissistic psychopath” so that we don’t get Hillary, well F*ck You too! You are the reason the Republican Party is now nothing more than a punchline, and rather than vote like a brain-dead lemming, I stand for change. I will vote for Gary Johnson, and if you want to try to convince me otherwise, be advised that I’ll save you the time offering an apology for the abysmally stupid decision YOU made that got us here, and just tell you to shut the f*ck up now. Fix your own mess. Vote for Gary Johnson.
Yes, spot on!! Especially relate to Ken Crane’s comment.
This is why love lobertarians. They are hilarious.
Johnson mote than most. And now even ron paul says johnson is a loghtweight and that hes backing jill stein instead. Lol.
Ron Paul isn’t actually backing Jill Stein. He just suggested that progressives should vote for her instead of Clinton. But he also feels Johnson isn’t a strict enough libertarian, which makes sense from his point of view. Johnson is more of a classical liberal, and he’s more willing to seek compromise positions.
Hell yes hell yes both goddamn barrels.
beautifully written. By trying to de-legitimize Johnson, democrats are effectively legitimizing Trump. They are propping him up and shouting at the top of their lungs, “TRUMP IS IN THE TOP 2!” If the constant rhetoric against trump is even close to truth, then everyone should be arguing that Johnson should be in the debates instead of Trump, because, while we disagree with his views, he comes without Trump’s long list of scandals, de-humanizing comments, and constant gaffes and nonsensical ramblings.
But even worse than this, they are legitimizing the votes of 66% of Trump’s support. Democrats are saying over and over, it is more logical to vote for trump than to vote for Johnson, because that would be a wasted vote. Everyone voting for trump already knows he is a madman. 50% of his voters say he would use political power to punish opponents. He has already said he would destroy freedom of the press. He calls for war crimes. 22% of his voters say he would start nuclear war. This constant stream of articles and press saying he is evil serves no purpose! We have been told to vote for the lesser evil for generations, anyway.
66% of his support is voting for the candidate most likely to defeat Hillary.
SIXTY-SIX percent.
and 54% of her support primarily to defeat him.
This means his support would wither and die if our country gave up this ongoing lie that we are not allowed to vote outside of the two-party system.
Johnson is a moron and so is every other libertarian out there.
You can all go fuck yourselves if you think that any Democrat is going to apologize for anything.
piss off.
You’re welcome to your opinion of us. As long as you don’t also complain that we’re not voting for your candidate.
I honestly don’t care who you vote for. The entire article was nothing but butthurt whining about Libertarians not being take seriously.
Maybe if you guys had elected someone smarter than a bag of hair, you’d get some traction.
And maybe if you guys did the hard work of getting Libertarians into local and state offices instead of showing up once every 4 years to complain, you’d get some traction.
Libertarians will be taken seriously when they start taking things seriously.
We do. If we don’t have a candidate for president we are considered a fake party. When we do jackasses like yourself act like the presidency is all we care about. Fuck off you dopshit.
You assholes show up every 4 years bitching that we don’t take Libertarians seriously.
You know how many Libertarians are in office in my state?
ZERO!
Yeah, that’s how fucking “serious” you are.
Give me a break, you fucking whiney-ass douchenozzle.
You have made NO case for Johnson, or for Libertarianism, in this piece. Adding Fuck for emphasis is not really an argument.
Why he would made an argument for Johnson if the point of the article is that Democrats literally haven’t been able to convince libertarians why THEY should vote for Hillary instead of Johnson?
It wasn’t intended as an argument for Johnson. That would be a much longer piece, or many pieces. I was just lashing out a bit at the “a vote for Johnson is a vote for Trump” crowd, and even then only the ones who are rude and demanding about it.
Thank you for expressing my own vague dismay. I’ve found HRC proponents far more bitter, rude and obnoxious than Trump supporters. Their histrionics make me more determined than ever to vote against their candidate. It’s all Johnson/Weld here.
I’m #NeverTrump myself, so I’m actually sympathetic to some of their concerns, but the whole “Johnson voters are crazy” approach just isn’t a winning argument.
I’ve hardly ever read such a whinny screed… Makes me want to kick this pre-pubescent moron bitch in the balls. Heres whats going to happen. If you make your point and Trump wins and its determined that the Libertarian vote delivered swing states to Trump the Libertarians will become the most despised movement in recent history and the world for delivering the nation to a raciest, sexist, probably somewhat unstable, 6th grader. You get to stand on the ashes of your Pyrrhic Victory and say “Look what we did”
If you lose and HRC still wins despite your “F.U. vote” the libertarian movement will be reveled as not worthy of any consideration at all, powerless. It will be shown that at the hight of your outrage and rejection of the political system you were still unable to influence the outcome…. toothless libertarian movement, whose followers are shacking their fists at clouds with about as much effect.
Really IMO opinion there is no way the Libertarian movement comes out of this election cycle any stronger…or a winner no matter who wins the election… in fact,,, if this 3rd party movement follows the course of every other 3rd arty movement in recent history it will melt away into nothingness.
You want respect and recognition and political influence you dig in for the long haul, for the long game and worm your way into one of the political parties already in existence and forget about this election entirely. The example that this works is clear and recent. Look at the Tea party. If the Libertarians had any sense (which is yet to be seen) they would stop their pouting and start making plans to infiltrate a weakened, leaderless and directionless floundering Republican party. This is a once in a generation opportunity to really take significant power in a political party while they are on the ropes…. It won’t happen again…. Will the libertarians hold together after the election and become stronger, and more mature, or just fade away like most all together 3rd party movements. So redirect those wounded fee-fee’s and thoughts of “Getting even” and turn that into some type of long term strategy
The nation is headed for economic and social collapse, and escalation of our current state of martial law, regardless of who wins this presidential election. Trump would get us there quicker, Hilary more thoroughly.
Regardless, libertarians all over the country (including the many who run and win in local races) will be ready to pick up the pieces and never let the government get so big and out-of-control again.
This is typical. No apology. No acknowledgement that all of the Democrats’ problems in this election were created by the Democrats.
And your position is incoherent and insulting: If Trump wins, it’s because the libertarians are powerful enough to sway the election. But if Clinton wins, it’s because the libertarians are powerless. In other words, if we vote for Johnson and Trump wins, the Democrats will blame us, but if we vote for Clinton and she wins, the Democrats will say we had nothing to do with it. According to you, libertarians are both powerful enough to make you lose and too powerless to help you win. It makes no sense.
And yet there’s a clear liberal campaign to get libertarians to vote for Clinton to avoid the Trumpocalypse.
I understand that Clinton supporters don’t care about my feelings. Fair enough. And truthfully, that’s been obvious for a while. But are you really so stupid that you think insulting us and threatening us is a good way to convince us to vote for your candidate?
Apparently, yes. And then when your brilliant “We hate you! Vote for us!” campaign fails to win over the libertarian vote, you’re apparently planning to blame us for being too sensitive.
Can you see why I swear so much when writing about this?
I vote my conscience and I cannot in good conscience vote for HRC or Trump. I’ve said more than a few times that if I have to vote for a clown, I’m voting for Ronald McDonald because at least he gives me hamburgers at a fair price.
I am voting for Johnson, not as an F.U.vote, but as a “Please God, Dems and and Reps, come to your senses and vote for someone who will FIX this country, instead of dragging it down in the same direction.” Are you voting your conscience? Or are you voting for HRC because she’s a Democrat? If its the former, you have nothing to fear. You did what you thought was right and feel free to shout it to the hilltops. If its the later though…shame on you.
Its an inflammatory article. But its inflammatory because the content WP sent out is, in itself, offensive as well. I don’t think they realize just how offensive. I’ll not get into it because, frankly, the OP does a solid job describing my outrage. Its done nothing less than more firmly entrench me into the Johnson party and the belief that he is the best man for the job. So if you really want to be ticked off, aim your sights at the Washington Post. They’re the ones who shot your party in the foot.
That’s all I gotta say about this.