Why Bernie supporters should consider Gary Johnson

I ran across a link to a Medium post by Ronald W. Dixon entitled Don’t be Fooled: Why Bernie Sanders Supporters Should Stay Clear of Gary Johnson. As one might expect this was shared by a Facebook friend who is the equivalent of an unpaid spokesperson for the DNC and subsequently, Hillary Clinton. You know the type: the ones proudly posting Bernie’s constant appearances on MSNBC and championing his progressive populism…that is, until he threatened the coronation of Ms. Clinton.

One might mistake Mr. Dixon as one of those but as he also wrote an earlier piece entitled A Long List of Reasons I Will Never Vote for Hillary Clinton, so it appears he’s from another camp, the progressive true believers who will vote for Jill Stein. One of the comments on his first piece reads: “American Libertarianism = Get government out of the way so corporations can suck the life out of the planet and religion will burn you at the stake if you speak out about it.” You can probably guess where this is going.

The title itself is something of a straw man argument that suggests Governor Johnson and his running mate, Governor Bill Weld, are out there trying to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes. He says “If we were uninformed enough to fall for his empty rhetoric and silly attempts at pandering to Sanders supporters, then we wouldn’t have even ‘felt the bern’ to begin with.”

I won’t get too far out into the weeds where Mr. Dixon goes through a litany of specific reasons why Johnson has no business wooing Bernie supporters. It comes down to a more PC version of the one-line comment above:

“If we boil down the libertarian ideology to its fundamentals, they essentially believe that we should have as minimal government as possible. Government protections of civil rights? Zip. Government regulations of large, unsustainable financial institutions that have already reeked havoc on our economy? Nope. Government policies that preserve the environment and protect our natural resources? Zilch.”

So in one small paragraph, Dixon defaults to stereotypes that are not only not accurate for Johnson, they don’t hold true for libertarians as a whole. Gee, betcha didn’t see that comin’, huh?

While Dixon touts the standard anti-libertarian line, Johnson points out the ACLU gave him the highest rating on civil liberties in presidential politics. Beyond that, Dixon doesn’t seem to understand that the free market doesn’t mean having government controlled by banks or corporations that essentially write the regulations themselves. I could go on but ultimately, while you can find extremists out there who don’t want any significant government, Gary Johnson isn’t one of them; rather, he believes in limited government not beholden to special interests. The is easily discoverable with a modicum of research like, you know…going to Johnson’s very own website or On The Issues…so you don’t have to take my word for it.

Even though Sanders has endorsed Clinton, one would reasonably expect all the other candidates to reach out to his supporters, considering nearly half of Berners have said they’d prefer someone else. But Johnson isn’t trying to “fool” anyone. He’s never acted as if their aren’t differences between his platform and Bernie’s. In the understandable attempt to build support, he’s attempted to find <gasp!> common ground.

If there’s one thing that scares Clinton supporters almost as much Donald Trump, it’s Gary Johnson. While Bernie’s supporters might ideologically line up more with Stein, Gary is actually likely to get into the presidential debates and if that happens, it’s a whole new ball game. He is already nearing the 15% threshold and in most polls he pulls almost equally from Democrats and Republicans so he’s a good choice for voting your conscience and not worrying about other implications. But if you add Stein into the mix, with insufficient numbers to win the election and pulling only from Democrats, that could mean either a Trump victory or a decision by the House of Representatives. I guess we can applaud someone who votes his conscience but given “the least of three evils” argument from someone who is vehemently opposed to both Clinton and Trump, I can certainly say a vote for Johnson/Weld is the most pragmatic approach. I don’t agree with 100% of their platform either they are a far cry from the major party nominees.

If you understand Stein really does have no chance to be elected (she’s only on the ballot in 23 states) and you’re interested in the issues, it’s useful to look at the debates as a tool for change and then, moving beyond portrayals of Johnson/Weld as cartoon characters interested in converting the White House and Capitol in Washington, D.C. to three tents with a cell phone. It really comes down to your priorities: no, Johnson isn’t going to advocate for taxing people’s investments at 54.2% or acting as if we can legislate everything at the federal level as if we are Denmark or Sweden. If that’s what is most important to you, you’re going to be disappointed. However, if you like a candidate who is honest, opposes unnecessary foreign intervention and military conflict, supports ending the War on Drugs and legalizing marijuana, is a staunch proponent of civil liberties as well as marriage equality and reproductive rights and actually means limited government fer realz (as opposed to the GOP version), there is a lot to like about Johnson/Weld and their successful record as governors in blue states.

So don’t be swayed by people who get their information about libertarianism from Wikipedia or ThinkProgress and lecture you about how naive you would have to be to support such nonsense. Look at Johnson and Governor Bill Weld’s actual accomplishments and statements, perhaps with the kind of analysis that Rachel Maddow put together, and make up your own mind based on a fair assessment of who they are as individuals. If nothing else, it might give you a different perspective and impress your friends.