On feeling the Johnson

As a longtime, fairly hardcore libertarian, this year I have felt like I’m stuck between Scylla and Charybdis. On the one hand, I am supposed to be horrified that once again the Libertarian Party has picked an ex-Republican (and this time, another one as his running mate) to represent to the public what libertarianism means. On the other hand, I feel like promoting this ticket to my progressive friends, as a clear alternative to the presumed “choice” between a neocon warmonger and a raving-lunatic crony corporatist! (I also expect to be accused of attempting to “polish a turd”—a metaphor all too familiar to my fellow songwriters. Oh well . . . !)

The main problem with the LP ticket of Gary Johnson and William Weld is that it’s unsatisfactory to a lot of libertarians; from less-than-negative comments about Hillary and her peccadilloes from Johnson, to wishy-washy (and often clueless) stances on gun rights and foreign policy from Weld, some hardcore activists have just thrown up their hands, as this “liberal Republican” pair continue to distort and water down libertarian positions in all of these areas.

The irony might be for those of us who’ve been fighting for decades to get someone who was NOT just another conservative on the ticket; we might be overlooking the good things about these two in that regard. The value of this pairing could be in how it presents a non-threatening (albeit admittedly watered-down) version of our pro-liberty positions, along with a pair of candidates who might not (this time) be passed off as the “cannot-win idealists” we usually run. Instead, we have two men who have (each) both governed at the executive level (as a state’s Governor) and faced the need to work effectively with opposition (both New Mexico and Massachusetts were at the time strongly dominated by liberal-Democrat spendthrift politicians, in both legislative houses)—and managed to advance some variation on a less-authoritarian, less-invasive version of “governance” in the process.

According to most accounts, both men were measurably successful in doing so, and in spite of these obstacles, both then got re-elected, while at least holding the line on fiscal matters in their respective states. In New Mexico, Johnson is still known as the Governor who vetoed more bills than all his fellow governors in the other 49 states combined; Weld, during his tenure in Massachusetts, inherited a Michael Dukakis-driven deficit and proceeded to remove it and rebalance that Commonwealth’s budget during his first term, and then reduce it considerably in his second. Since both men’s tenure the states they governed have taken market shifts away from the mainly statist tendencies they had exhibited before they took office.

What also sets these two apart from previous efforts is that they both qualify as “liberal Republicans,” in the vein of the late Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield . . . and very few others (don’t feed me that Rockefeller-liberal crap!), none of them in recent memory. The GOP has become so dominated by racists, religious fanatics, social fascists and warmongers, it’s sometimes hard to imagine there were once large pockets of social concern, civil libertarianism and world peace within its ranks.

Gary Johnson and William Weld are not from that mold: Johnson has been a longtime advocate of legalizing cannabis, and has come to advocate an end to all prohibitions of any substance for adult use (even if he does not always express this coherently); Weld, meanwhile, was an early supporter of gay rights and marriage-equality, long before it became cool to do so. Johnson is also primarily concerned with ending wars and bringing the troops home (a characteristic apparently appreciated by active and former military personnel, who in recent polls have chosen Gary above all others as their choice for President).

Meanwhile, the Democrats have fallen so far that you can no longer find a Gene McCarthy or a Bill Proxmire—hell, not even a Barney Frank!—who supports peace, civil liberties and has at least a clue about market-base economics. Every one of them (with the possible exception of the “Independent” senator from Vermont, and maybe the junior Senator from Massachusetts) now seems to have become a neocon, xenophobe, warmongering, authoritarian neofeudalist, just like most of their cohorts “across the aisle.”

So here I am, trying to affirm my libertarian roots, and the absolutism of my radical stance on voluntaryism and self-ownership and the Non-Aggression Principle, while also seeking to promote the LP ticket to those who would otherwise just be holding their noses and voting “lesser evil” . . . except this time needing vomit bags to carry out the task. NOBODY sane wants either one of those options anywhere near the Oval Office, let alone the Red Phone or the Doomsday Button.

Hillary Clinton represents pretty much everything that is wrong with the Democrats, magnified several times: she is a warmongering interventionist on foreign policy, a meddling nanny-stater on domestic issues, a hypocrite on civil liberties—and an authoritarian in general. On the “other” hand, Donald Trump is . . . a warmongering racist on foreign policy, a xenophobe on immigration, a crony-corporatist/neo-feudalist on domestic issues, a hypocrite and a tyrant on other civil liberties issues—and an authoritarian in general. (I am still trying to figure out how either one of these idiots could be a good thing for America’s future; so far the only positive I can see is that neither of them should last more than one term. Maybe that’s the only thing we have to worry about: surviving until 2021 somehow.)

Meanwhile, we have the Johnson/Weld duo: two liberal ex-Republican governors (Johnson reportedly joined the Libertarian Party back in 2003, while Weld claims to have been at least “libertarianish” since long before he was Governor of Massachusetts. In fact, he ran again in New York over a decade later, seeking dual endorsements from both GOP and LP, although that did not end well, and nearly cost him the LP nomination this time around.). Both have executive governing experience, both in states dominated by the “other” party. They managed in their respective terms to cut spending and kill tax increases, while also championing civil liberties issues (cannabis in Johnson’s case, marriage-equality in Weld’s), long before either concern had achieved the popular support they know today.

To make matters worse (or better, depending on your view of all this), this generally libertarianish duo of ex-GOP governors is now showing up in the polls, despite every effort by most mainstream media outlets to ignore or even specifically exclude the ticket from their polling. Reports have been coming in from a number of directions than many pollsters begin and end with “Are you voting for Clinton or Trump?” and any attempt to say “Gary Johnson” (or anything else) is leading to a hangup or a repeat of the question, or both. The obvious conclusion to be drawn from this is that the vaunted Fourth Estate is just as colluded with the PTB as the rest of the political cartels are.

Ultimately, to the end of promoting the LP ticket, as well as offering some common sense advice to my friends, I keep reminding them that unless they live in one of about five states, the likelihood of their vote(s) having any effect on the outcome is roughly that of winning Powerball next week. Most of us (including here in Tennessee) have about a zero chance of either overcoming (or augmenting) the “red-state effect” that has chosen a Republicant pretty much every time since before I was born; despite “yuuge” majorities for the Demeaucrat in Nashville and Memphis, the rural areas and other metropolitan areas overwhelm the tally, even failing to choose “native son” Albert Gore in 2000. Same goes for Texas, despite Austin, Dallas and Houston. The opposite happens in California and New York, among others, where large majorities in the major cities (Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, etc.) outstrip all the red-state rural and suburban areas around those states.

The only way to have your vote actually show up in any of those states is if it is for a third-party, on-the ballot candidate; last I looked, there’s only one of those (Gary Johnson, Libertarian Party) likely to be on all 50 ballots, with maybe as many as two others (Jill Stein, Green Party; Darrell Castle, Constitution Party) in more than a handful of states. (By the way, if your intention is to truly “waste your vote” by writing in Bernie Sanders, Ron Paul, Calvin Coolidge or Mickey Mouse, you might as well just stay home. Recent laws in most states now require an official “sticker” campaign endorsed by the candidate, or at very least a signed consent from said candidate, allowing his/her name to be written in. Good luck getting Silent Cal or Mickey to sign for that these days.)

One final thought, regarding the legitimate concerns of libertarians about some of the “anti-liberty positions” they’ve heard Johnson (and even moreso, Weld) take over these recent months and far back into their careers. I’ve been listening to those complaints, and then to the actual words being uttered; to my ears, Gary Johnson at least has been fairly careful whenever he brings up an off-platform position: he generally says that the issue should be studied further, and that he might be “open to discussion” on it. (Even in his recent stance on using a “carbon tax” to discourage polluters, he was fairly careful to state it as a policy to be considered, not a first-day-in-office priority.)

Perhaps it’s because we are too used to seeing Dem and GOPer politicians, once in office, using their being “open to discussion” as a lever to enforce mandates; Johnson appears to me to be going from the other end of these matters, starting from a place of opposition, but being “willing to consider it.” (Even in his alleged advocacy of the TPP fiasco, he is now noting that he sees "a lot of crony corporatism" in what he has seen so far of it, despite some possible good points.) I've also seen and heard numerous times when he's been asked to simplify the message by reporter A or TV host B, and more often than not has gone right to “choice” as a methodology for peaceful coexistence; I’d maintain that if he were half as “statist” as some claim, he’d be talking about what new regulation or law we needed to deal with whatever issue.

So what is my problem here? Well, I’d like to promote the LP ticket, as a far better option for anyone outside the party to consider, given the no-win situation created by the war-party wings (Demeaucrat and Republicant alike), and see a significant number of my friends, family and other colleagues pull the Johnson/Weld lever in November, so that the “liberty message” shows up on the radar for a change. If this is truly the moment for a real “paradigm shift” in politics (as it already is on so many other levels), then the fragmentation of the Republican AND Democratic parties could lead to a true challenge to the duopoly (multiple parties; 4, maybe 5 or even 6), as early as 2018.

However, I’d also like to make sure that once this election is over, I don’t have to spend the next four years explaining and clarifying what a “libertarian” actually is, since it goes a lot farther than that dreadful “socially liberal, fiscally conservative, less government” meme it’s been getting from Gary, Bill and their apologists.
I am still working on that question, but so far I'm just convinced this is one very peculiar political year.