The weeks after Labor Day are the time for some voters to start flirting with their more far-flung options. The conventions are over and the parties picked their candidates. Anyone not happy with the two major parties’ choices now naturally looks elsewhere, to the smaller parties’ candidates. This year, Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson, the former Republican New Mexico governor who is running with former Republican Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld, is getting the most eyeballs, garnering just shy of double-digit nationwide and better than that in some areas of the country.
And he’s getting attention for good reason. Johnson has successfully portrayed himself as a harmless, mostly stoned, laid-back kind o’ fella. This is a persona he’s been building for a few election cycles. He’s goofy and likable, also in a relatively harmless sort of way, in a year where the competition appears anything but. Also, “Libertarian” as a name sounds appealing, conjuring the image of freedom and liberty, which can be very attractive for someone who doesn’t have the time or inclination to actually delve any deeper than surface level to learn more about what actual libertarianism is.
So, could Johnson could be the perfect vehicle for a disaffected former supporter of Bernie Sanders? Or for a more cosmopolitan, small-government Republican voter? If you’re the latter, you’ve probably been flirting with voting Libertarian your whole life, but their laissez-faire extremism or mathematical impossibility of actually winning probably turned you off. (Now that the passed decades have washed away the white supremacist undertones of the Barry Goldwater campaign, you probably view him in a more kind light as a libertarian hero.)
If you’re a former Sanders supporter willing to vote for Gary Johnson, you must be ready to pinch your nose and eat any pile of shit you can stomach not named Hillary Clinton. The Libertarian Party disagrees with Uncle Bernie on everything from bank regulation to taxes on the rich to campaign finance reform. I mean, why not vote for a party that once had an actual Koch brother on their presidential ticket? Right? Because that fucking makes sense.
But, you know. Gary tokes and thinks weed should be legal. He likes Ed Snowden. And his name isn’t Hillary. Surely, that’s plenty? So why not flush all your other principles down the toilet and vote for the doofus in the mom jeans?
The big catch here is that Gary’s a lifelong Republican, and he’s not really a Libertarian. Not a true libertarian, at least. So, let’s straighten out some things and take a closer look at Gary Johnson’s platform, and see where he stands in relation to Sanders and his own party.
Taxes:
Johnson wants to eliminate all income tax … all of if … and replace it with a consumption tax. This is the most regressive form of taxation there is. If you don’t know what “regressive” means, it means the opposite of “progressive,” a term with which you’re probably more familiar. Progressive means that the more of us who HAVE MORE, PAY MORE than those who have less but the services paid for with those taxes are available to anyone who needs them and those services are created to disproportionately help those who need them the most. A progressive income tax is one way to try to even the scales in an uneven society; it creates a society whereas those of us who have benefited from the social pact we have all made to each other help out those who have benefited less.
Consumption taxes (aka sales taxes) have their place, but they are by definition regressive. Since they are applied equally, they disproportionately affect those who have less. Relying on a society to fund its government using purely regressive tactics means that we would live in a society that functions on the backs of the poor to the benefit of the rich.
Sanders verdict: The opposite of what Bernie believes, who is very much in favor of a much-more-progressive income tax than the one we have now.
Libertarian verdict: Very much in line with the Libertarian Party platform, which does go an explicit step farther and would eliminate the IRS altogether. Which does beg the question of how the government would collect those consumptive tax revenues, but … eh … technicalities, right?
Government Spending:
Johnson mentions cutting government spending by a lot, but is very vague on his website about what that entails. In the past, he has mentioned cutting government spending by as much as 43 percent. (Or maybe it’s to 43 percent. As I said, he’s really vague and cagey about this.) Sure, anti-war protesters, that would mean a lot of military spending cuts, but it would also mean a lot of cuts to education spending, college grants and loans, food stamps, unemployment insurance, welfare, low-income housing subsidies, and other progressive priorities.
In addition, Johnson would encourage the federal government to give the states the power to declare bankruptcy, to shuffle off “unwanted” expenses. The thing here is that anyone who follows municipal bankruptcies knows that the first “unwanted” expenses that governments drop when given the change are any long-term promises and liabilities, primarily pensions and benefits to government employees.
Sanders verdict: Bernie never wanted cuts of spending, but has instead proposed more taxes on the wealthier people and corporations to cover the difference.
Libertarian verdict: Libertarians would go much farther than the 43 percent cut that Johnson has cited in the past, reducing the federal government to a bare bones organization with just enough funding to barely function, and eliminating anything that isn’t part of that skeleton crew.
Military Purpose, Spending, and Veterans:
Johnson would pull back all soldiers on foreign soil, even those in Europe and South Korea. He doesn’t necessarily want to reduce the military to a purely defensive force, but he’d pull back all overseas forces and reduce spending drastically. His proposals for the Veterans Administration and veteran benefits and healthcare is very vague but it appears that he’s proposing privatizing veteran healthcare and yet still keeping the VA around, so it’s not clear what he actually wants.
Sanders verdict: Sure, Bernie wants to reduce our overseas military exposure and entanglements, but he didn’t propose to radically reduce the size of our military (remember that he has pushed for military spending in his own districts too), and he certainly wouldn’t advocate privatizing the healthcare of our veterans.
Libertarian verdict: Johnson’s position is a half-measure, at best, for his party. The Libertarians are fearful of federal power at their core and would reduce our fighting force to the smallest possible to still serve as an effective defensive force. Also, they don’t belief in any government-run programs, much less government-supplied healthcare, so they wouldn’t be ok with keeping around the VA in any form, and would completely privatize all veteran services.
Drug Policy
We all know by now that Johnson is pro-marijuana-legalization, and he was the CEO of a recreational marijuana company in 2014. He has been very up front and honest about the fact that marijuana should be legalized. Not so much for any other drugs, although he would prefer that punishment be more lenient.
Sanders verdict: Bernie was never in the Legalize It camp, although he certainly is in the leniency for nonviolent drug offenders camp. (But who the fuck isn’t nowadays?)
Libertarian verdict: This is less than a half-measure for Libertarians, who made this statement one of the central tenets of their platform: “Individuals have the freedom and responsibility to decide what they knowingly and voluntarily consume, and what risks they accept to their own health, finances, safety, or life.” They believe that all recreational drugs, prostitution, and anything else that involves adults making decision about their own bodies and minds is their business and thus should be legal. And Johnson’s stand is childish and small-minded, in comparison.
Civil Rights
“Responsible adults should be free to marry whom they want, arm themselves if they want, and lead their personal lives as they see fit — as long as they aren’t harming anyone else in doing so.” This includes abortion and drugs. This also sounds well and good, but a federal government that isn’t willing to use power to enforce the rights of its citizens over the petty despotism of state and local opposition might not as well believe in the rights of its citizens at all.
Sanders verdict: Bernie protested for civil rights in the Sixties and has always been on the right side of rights issues (even if it took him just as long as everyone else to come around on gay marriage). But a lot of that fighting was for federal protections against local discrimination. Wishing upon a star doesn’t solve the world’s problems, and neither does just saying you think all people should be free and equal if you’re not willing to put your money (and power) where your mouth is.
Libertarian verdict: Johnson’s party is with him here. On paper, they support everyone’s freedom to be who they are, say what they want, and do what they want, but there is zero political capital in the movement to enforce those beliefs on a federal level. And what Johnson says by omission, the party platform is pretty specific about: “Members of private organizations retain their rights to set whatever standards of association they deem appropriate, and individuals are free to respond with ostracism, boycotts and other free-market solutions.” Basically, a Libertarian government will not discriminate against its citizens, but it will not stand in the way of its citizens discriminating against each other.
Bank Regulation:
Johnson is very careful to say nothing about banks and financial regulation. In this way, he doesn’t have to take a very unpopular position. As both a Republican and a Libertarian Johnson doesn’t back bank regulations (or many regulations at all, really).
Sanders verdict: Heavy regulation of the financial sector (being willing going to any lengths to break up the banks, even with no real legal and constitutional standing to do so) is a fundamental pillar of the Sanders campaign. Reinstating Glass-Steagall, regulating non-deposit investment banks, capping interest rates on loans and credit cards, and any other way to constrain the financial industry is the main driving force of Bernie’s campaign.
Libertarian verdict: Per their platform, “We favor free-market banking, with unrestricted competition among banks and depository institutions of all types.” Libertarians are the ultimate laissez-faire capitalists, favoring the market to solve all problems that arise in society, to an almost surreal religious degree.
Healthcare:
Johnson would repeal the Affordable Care Act and cut Medicare and Medicaid 43 percent, as part of the 43 percent cut for the rest of the government budget cuts he favors. He then favors means-testing to provide only benefits to the poor, and giving the remaining $0.57 on the dollar to the states as block grants with no strings attached to spend however they feel like. Which will mean drastically worse healthcare choices for the poor and middle class, or even none if a state decided to spend its money on other things.
Sanders verdict: Universal healthcare is another pillar of Bernie’s run for the presidency, and Johnson’s plan would horrify the senator from Vermont.
Libertarian verdict: Yet another half-measure from Gary. Libertarians believe in no government-supplied healthcare, in any form. The market, as always, rules all, no restrictions, regulations, or tax-backed subsidies.
Social Security:
Johnson favors raising the retirement age to upwards of 75 and privatize some of Social Security funds. He also favors eliminating all income tax, including the payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare, which would then kill all SSI funding going forward, and the encroachment of privatization on the other funds would water the Social Security fund down until it’s all privatized and the program needs to be dissolved.
Sanders verdict: Bernie favors not only protecting Social Security from private interests, but also raising more funding and expanding coverage by lifting the cap on the amount of income taxed.
Libertarian verdict: Libertarians hate Social Security maybe more than anything. More than Medicare, or Medicaid, or even income taxes. They hate the social safety net, and nothing represents the social safety net better than Social Security—the most popular social safety net program every created.
So what do you think of goofy Cousin Gary now?
Johnson is Libertarian Light. In the mid-Nineties, there was a species of political animal called a Moderate Republican. This sad, short-lived creature believed a lot of the secular beliefs of the Republican Party (the hatred of Social Security and Medicare, the loathing of taxes and welfare) without the need to link those economic beliefs at the hip with the ultra-religious wing of the party or the white supremacist wing.
That’s what Johnson is, and it is, in fact, his best quality. Because while Moderate Republicans were still hell-bent on scrapping the social safety net and gifting everything they can to the rich and powerful, being a True Libertarian is so much worse.
And Bernie Sanders would never vote for that, and certainly not over someone who believes 90 percent of what he believes, like Hillary Clinton. So why would you?