Many of my peers have expressed a general sense of discontent with our current two-party political system. The solution, it would seem, is to vote for a third party candidate. Now, a lot of my Hillary supporters say that there is a mathematical issue with a third party candidate. That is to say, if the progressive vote is split between Mr. Johnson and Secretary Clinton, the presidency will be lost to both and the seat will be all but gift wrapped to Mr. Trump. However, this is not the main problem, not by a long shot.
The main problem with the Johnson train isn’t the numbers game, it’s the fact that Johnson is just as bad as Clinton and Trump. Yep, I said it. People think that Hillary is a liar, careless, and a criminal (Think: emails, Benghazi). On the other side of things, people think that Trump is insensitive, sexist, racist, and incompetent (Think: “Locker room talk” leak, and “Blacks have nothing to lose,” or “Mexico sends us criminals and rapists”). So, in short, both of the major party candidates have some glaring deficiencies and that’s why everyone is so discontented. For some reason, there are people on both sides of the aisle who think that Johnson is a safe alternative. The truth is, though, he has some of the same glaring deficiencies.
Before I get into his policy issues, I want to point out one of the most glaring issues: Aleppo. Now, I am not going to lie; I had very minimal knowledge of Aleppo myself until the very public interview in which Mr. Johnson admitted that he didn’t know anything about it. However, I knew enough about it to know that there were atrocities happening in Syria. But here’s the thing: I am not running for the Head of State. Gary Johnson is. For a man who wants to be president, not knowing about one of the largest and high profile war fallout situations is universally considered to be “bad”. Yes, much of Mr. Johnson’s message focuses on issues at home. However, it simply isn’t feasible to run on a national platform and not have a working knowledge of these major overseas events.
Another issue is his handling of Mr. Trump. Johnson called Trump a pussy. On television. What? How can we condemn Trump and all of his uncouth comments and simply overlook Johnson’s statement? Remember, the problem isn’t that Trump is saying what he is saying; the problem is anyone saying those sort of things in the public sphere. I am all for freedom of speech but part of being a politician is being able to display some semblance of diplomacy and level-headedness. From what I’ve seen, neither Trump nor Johnson has the ability to be a good role model for children. Yes, all humans slip up every once in a while but there are things that are generally inexcusable. Clinton’s “basket of deplorables.” Johnson’s, “Trump is a pussy,” and Trump’s [pick your favorite shitty thing he’s said and insert it here], are all things potential Heads of State and Commanders-in-chief cannot be excused for saying. Every industry has standards and, as the highest job in the land, the presidency has the highest standards.
Finally, let’s look at Johnson’s policy stances. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why my more progressive friends are pushing for a Gary Johnson presidency. Non-interventionism is inherently anti-humanitarian, reduction of taxes ultimately causes suffering in the infrastructure – and takes money away from our already drained education funds. He also doesn’t want the government act on climate change, which is arguably one of the most dangerous threats to humanity that we know of, because he promotes “free market solutions” to climate change. He wants to allow wanton spending on campaigns – which ultimately leads to campaign corruption and undermines democracy – and he wants to discontinue Medicaid, Medicare, and Social security. He has said some pretty decent things about cutting military spending and his social platform is overall on the plus side. But his economic and fiscal policies do not follow the progressive platform at all. Yes, he doesn’t have all the flak and dark cloud of uncertainty that consumes the other two candidates but that is only because he hasn’t been as high profile as Clinton or Trump over his entire lifetime.
