Like it or not, Gary Johnson did grow the Libertarian Movement

Believe it or not there are many people who did learn about Libertarian ideas through Gary Johnson. To more die hard libertarians like myself Johnson in 2016 May have seemed a far cry from the kind of bold messaging that motivates myself but I was never the audience.

To people who barely follow politics or thought only the 2 party box existed, Gary was a nice guy making sensible common sense propositions calling himself this word they never heard before, “libertarian”. Many of those people went to look up what libertarianism is and found themselves learning about people like Hazlitt, Nozick, Mises, Friedman, etc. and have become more holistically libertarian since. We do have to remember how far we’ve personally traveled to believe what we believe and not assume we can always shortcut that process of discovery for others by spoiling the ending.

Now, I was brought in by Ron Paul in 2008 which was a more direct path as he often suggested to his supporters to learn about Austrian economics and Mises. So while Gary wasn’t often listing suggested reading his personality and overall super nice guy persona did stoke curiosity in many about this word “libertarian”.

Entries to being a deeper libertarian come in many forms and Gary Johnson was one for many in 2012 and 2016 and whoever is chosen in 2020 regardless who it is will be too. There will always be people who are looking for the tiniest sliver of common sense every few years and they’ll always find the LP candidate and find themselves saying... “that makes a lot of sense, why hasn’t anyone said that before?”