Strange, the idea of supporting the Libertarian Ticket elicits little negative feedback from Democrats. Maybe they’re just unaware of the Libertarian Party or they don’t realize that they take about an equal amount of votes from them. Not so from Republicans. Beyond the “but Hillary is worse” nonsense, they point to Trump’s  policies presented in scripted and teleprompter supported major speeches. On Taxes, energy, healthcare, foreign policy and supreme court justices he appears to be  reasonably inline with longstanding conservative ideas. Even if you have to hold your nose over his numerous disqualifications,if you support these you’ve got to vote for him. We suggest they look a little closer. In every case they reflect well known conservative thinking, just regurgitated by Trump. By taking Steve Moore’s  and Larry Kudlow’s  ideas on taxes,he  gains both credibility and their active support. Same with John Bolton on foreign policy and the Heritage Foundation on the Supreme Court justices. He takes your ideas and you’re flattered and align with him. The bait is set and you and those who believe in you are hooked. Didn’t anyone notice in each area, he later left himself an out to go in entirely different direction? “I’m for lowering taxes but I may raise them, just an opening bid to negotiate with foreign powers, and I may add people to my list of judges later.” He can just change direction when he perceives it to be in his interest or go where he really wanted in the first place. Just wait for the Switch.

For instance,let’s take a realistic look his supporters main pillar,Trump and the Supreme Court.   Trumpsters support their position with the mantra, “Hillary wins and the court will be ultra liberal for decades.”  They may have to toss their principles on everything else but at least they’ll have prevented runaway government. Really? When has Donald Trump ever done anything that wasn’t in his own interest? He changes positions to align with his interests of the moment, even  changing in an amazingly short time. Given his expressed positions, why would he appoint Antonin Scalia type  justices? You can’t get past the 1st amendment without grave apprehension on where Trump would go. He wants to greatly expand the libel laws to prevent  press criticism, threatened the owner of the Washington Post with anti-trust and would impose a religious test on who could enter the US. We’ve seen his lack of respect for the separation of powers when went after the judge in his Trump University fraud cases and mentioned he would be president when the case went to trial. He’s for greatly expanding eminent domain. Sounds like he would appoint judges favoring an expanded view of government and his presidency. Why would he appoint judges that would rule against him? The Trumsters are kidding themselves.

Anyway, why take the risk on judges? With Gary Johnson everyone knows he would appoint, freedom loving limited government types. The Trumpsters main argument like so much of his shtick just doesn’t hold water.

If they want to change libertarian leaning minds, logic and facts would help,but that isn’t in the cards. Attempts at a reasonable discourse with any Trumpster seems to begin and end with loud assertion that he’ll build the wall or he’ll make America great again. Oh,they always bring up the judges but as you have seen that’s a non starter. They point to his claim to being a successful business man, but until we can see his tax returns, we can’t possibly know how true this is. The only Trump tax returns we’ve seen show he paid no taxes. That’s right none. Someone who claims to worth 10 billion and pays no taxes? How does anyone square this. Given his now known business practices, would you personally do business with this guy? Maybe you would if you have a diploma from Trump University. In any case , how hard is it to appear to be successful when you inherit a huge fortune? “Well, he’ll punish China with high tariffs and bring our jobs back.” Mercantilism went out style in the 18th Century because like socialism in the 2oth it didn’t work. Why do Trump and Bernie Sanders want to go back to failed systems? You try to have a reasonable conversation with a Trumpster and this is what you get.

“Well at least Trump is self funding and is his own man”, his supporter propound. Last we looked he and his people are doing a full court press for funds on all the big donors that supported Romney. Exactly where’s the change? Even for the primaries he only lent his campaign money. If he fails, he writes off the noncollectable debt as a capital loss and the taxpayers kick in to subsidize his failed run. Win and he can force the Republicans to reimburse him. Doesn’t it really make you want to see his tax returns just to see what he’s really capable of?

This lack of positive compelling arguments haven’t stopped the Trumptsters from demanding strict adherence to the prospective Republican ticket. “You owe the party your loyalty”, they demand. Even for party backed candidates this doesn’t hold up. We can imagine the Whig Party Poobahs hammering  Abe Lincoln when he left the Whigs for the third party Republicans. “Abe, we backed you for congress in ’46 and just because of our racist stand on slavery, you can’t be disloyal”, they’d  cajole. “I’m with the Racists” didn’t appeal to Honest Abe then and it shouldn’t hold for today’s office holders and candidates. Beyond those who actually get a direct paycheck from the party or those hoping for some crony capitalist gain, no one owes the party loyalty.  People freely give their money, time and support to the party. The party  owes them not the other way around. Rather than haranguing the rest of us, Reince Priebus, his national committee cohorts and their supporters in Republican Media should be looking for a way to recall terribly flawed product before it put them all out of business. Anyone voting Whig lately?

Perhaps the last and most odious justification for supporting Trump is what we call the “Springtime for Hitler Defense”. The millions of people who had the pleasure of seeing Mel Brookes comic masterpiece “The Producers” in the two movie versions or the stage production will instantly understand the reference. (For those never having the pleasure we recommend the original Zero Mostel- Gene Wilder movie version, but if you like to laugh any version will do.) The plot entails  finding a play that could never succeed for a scam to work. The “Producers” find one that seeks to show the lighter warm fun side of Hitler. The playwright explains “if you knew him as his friends did you wouldn’t dwell on his bad image.” How many people have made a similar argument on behalf of Donald Trump. “Don’t believe the horror you see, take our word for it, he’s really a peach of  a guy” they confide. “He’s just a lout of convenience”. From their elitist pinnacles, they actually think we won’t notice their self interest. For instance, Bill O’Reilly extols the virtues of his buddy Donald while gaining ratings for having him as a semi permanent fixture on his show. This is true up and down Fox News.These people aren’t looking out for you, they’re looking to feather their own nests.

The only argument left against Johnson-Weld is they have no path to win. Really? With virtually no national name recognition, Johnson is polling between 10 & 12%, drawing  equally from Trump and Clinton. If this holds true and he pulls just additional 12% from each, he is right there with them. Given the huge unfavorable ratings of Clinton and Trump and maybe the urge to punish the established parties for their insulting candidates, this and more appears entirely possible.  Indeed on a debate platform with the other two, Gary Johnson may come across as the only sane choice. He’ll make the debates because it’s impossible to have an accurate poll excluding someone already above 10%. As people realize they have another choice, a few more points to above the 15% debate threshold should be a cakewalk. Depending on the vagaries of the electoral college he could win outright or the election is thrown into the House of Representatives. Would Paul Ryan’s house Republicans who would decide really back the  bigoted Trump and tear the country apart? Unlikely. Ryan is ideologically closer to Johnson than Trump. The logical compromise to heal the nation would be Johnson-Weld. Either way Gary Jonson is your next president. All made possible by the the Republican and Democratic parties presenting us with the two worst presidential candidates in the nation’s history.