A Moderate Proposal
As the distressing 2016 election drags on, I keep hearing how a vote for a third party candidate like Gary Johnson is a vote wasted. This is a puzzling claim, and I want to make this clear: voting for the candidate who has proven himself to be the most principled is certainly not a waste. Here is why.
Gary Johnson is on the ballot in all 50 states, and against all odds, he has risen as a legitimate candidate for the presidency. Despite this, voters are under the impression that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are the only two candidates truly capable of obtaining the necessary 270 electoral votes to win, and therefore are compelled to choose between the lesser of two evils. This logic is equally puzzling, as in the past several weeks it has become painfully obvious that there is only one candidate who can win that many electoral votes, and it’s Hillary Clinton.
Right now Hillary is leading in virtually every single swing state. The individual state polls show that Clinton has a grasp on this election that is practically unbeatable, and the national polls, while not as important or telling as those at the state level, indicate an eight to ten point lead by Clinton as well. The New York Times reported Tuesday afternoon that Clinton had a 92 percent chance of winning the election. Her lead is commanding enough that reports now show that Texas is in play. A recent University of Houston survey showed Clinton only three points behind Trump in this historically red state. FiveThirtyEight shows Trump up a mere six percent in Texas. This is Texas I’m talking about, a state that hasn’t been within ten percent of voting for a Democrat since 1996.
This election also sees typically deep red states shifting back towards the center. Reports of states like Arizona, Utah and Alaska being in play this year are no longer surprising. Alaska has only voted for a Democrat once since it was granted statehood in 1959, and that was for Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. Somehow, Trump is only up four points in Alaska right now, according to FiveThirtyEight.
So if you are only voting for Trump as a protest vote because you hate Clinton, that vote seems arguably more “wasted” than a Johnson vote, since both are votes for losers, right? Right.
For disheartened Republicans, Johnson represents a principled Libertarian option. He pushes for smaller government across the board. Socially he is liberal, supporting gay marriage, the legalization of marijuana, and the right of a woman to choose to get an abortion, but has also supported bans on late term abortions (in accordance with the Roe v. Wade decision). In general, Johnson simply wants to protect your civil rights. Other than that, he aims to get the government out of the way.
Of course, this small government approach becomes much more complicated when you take the economy into account, but here there is still a sound argument for Johnson. Johnson’s proposal to cut the federal budget by an insane 43 percent is extreme and has drawn sharp criticism from his opponents. But with a national debt nearing $20 trillion, is there any other direction to go? Some of the cuts are not feasible, and Johnson has the moderate mind to admit that if a specific department he wants to eliminate is doing beneficial work, it will not be removed. Furthermore, he understands the historically underwhelming growth of the economy in recent years to be the result of over-regulation (i.e. ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank), and subsequently believes in the free market and less government intervention in the economy.
As far as taxes are concerned, Johnson proposes a complete reform of the countries broken tax code. Johnson suggests eliminating federal taxes and replacing them with a consumption tax, which would encourage investment and saving. However, this system could disproportionately hurt the lower class, making it a questionable approach, but I am yet to see a tax plan that doesn’t have serious flaws.
Trump’s plan would add $6 trillion in lost revenue and “doesn’t add up” according to the Wall Street Journal. Clinton’s tax hikes on the other hand would cut a quarter point off of GDP growth each year for the next decade according to the Tax Foundation. Clinton has also stated that tax cuts caused the recession in 2008, a dubious claim that PolitiFact rated mostly false. Clinton has proposed a plethora of programs that she would achieve by increased taxation. To quote Winston Churchill, “I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”
Looking at foreign policy is where many see weakness in Johnson. His basic principle of non-interventionism is vastly different than that of Clinton or Trump. Johnson wants to cut back on the billions of dollars we spend on foreign aid, and has stated he thinks the U.S. should take “our share” of Syrian refugees. While critics refer to him as an isolationist, Johnson seems to be more than reasonable in his approach to these issues.
Johnson has been lampooned over two gaffes, where he failed to recognize the name Aleppo, a city in Syria, and where he struggled to remember the name of a foreign leader he admired (he eventually named Vincente Fox after admitting to having a brain freeze). Unfortunately for Johnson, he was not given MSNBC’s questions ahead of time, unlike the Clinton campaign. These mistakes are embarrassing, but so is Obama claiming to have visited 57 states. A moment like that is not disqualifying, and the way the media is trying to bury Johnson for his Aleppo moment is patently unfair. Clinton received much less media attention for forgetting that “c” meant classified on sensitive state department documents.
Needless to say, voting is important, and you should not have to vote for the lesser of two evils. You shouldn’t have to vote for evil at all.
Donald Trump is essentially unable to articulate policy when he speaks and has made an enemy of both Democrats and Republicans with his antics. He has proposed banning an entire religion from entry into the country. He has bragged about sexual assault and been accused of it by multiple women. He pushed a theory that President Obama was not born in the United States. It is astronomically clear that he does not have the decency, temperament or decorum for the oval office. And Trump knows he has lost the race, so he is already preparing his excuses and claiming that the election is rigged.
Hillary Clinton deleted over 33,000 emails and lied countless times about their classification. She lied in the wake of Benghazi. The Clinton Foundation is taking donations from governments like Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. while she is running for President. There is no doubt that her public opinion is very different than her private opinion. There is no knowing where she might flip-flop next, as it really depends on who pays her.
So when faced with a decision in a decided election between an outlandish, incoherent billionaire with bigoted policy, and a shady corporate politician with big government policy, you don’t have to waste your vote, you can vote for Gary Johnson.
