Photo: Bridget Mulcahy/Politico
Zen and the art of trolling Trump
Mellow Libertarian Gary Johnson isn’t running for president — he’s running to be America’s bodhisattva in chief.
By Glennn Thrush, Politico.com, June 6th, 2016:
Gary Johnson, full-time Libertarian presidential candidate and onetime cannabis entrepreneur, only appears to be running on a happiness platform of high times and low taxes.
In fact, this ostentatiously chill 63-year-old is fueled, just like Donald Trump, by outrage over immigrants. Except he thinks they are getting a raw deal.
Story Continued BelowJohnson was sitting placidly in a Manhattan hotel conference room last week — bodhisattva smile on lips, ear buds dangling around his neck — when I asked him whether he thought Trump was a legit small-government candidate. His grin dissipated like sativa smoke.
“Well, no, I don’t think [Trump] represents smaller government!” Johnson told me during a taping of POLITICO’s “Off Message” podcast. “I mean, just what he’s talking about when it comes to immigration, in a state that’s 50 percent Hispanic, are doors not going to be knocked on in New Mexico, my door included? But when they get to my door, gee, I’m white, so — well, but maybe we’d better check your basement or your attic to make sure that you’re not harboring any illegal immigrants. … Absolutely, it’s racist. When he calls Mexicans murderers and rapists, that is incendiary.”
Read the rest of the article here.
Read the full transcript of the interview here.
If his articles sounding a positive note about Drumpf are not satire, let’s hope not. And I say that as someone who always enjoyed his cartoons.
“His performances are definitely improving, overall.”
He’s certainly getting more practice.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/ben-sasse-might-support-gary-johnson-223924
And then there’s this development.
GJ’s been blitzing, getting more and more press. Tucker Carlson — someone who’s dabbled in L politics — did hit GJ with a gotcha: polygamy. GJ muffed it, despite it being an otherwise B+ performance.
Perhaps his answer could have been:
Marriage equality is all about the idea of equal protection under the law. The laws have historically recognized marriages between 2 people, so it was high time to allow for 2 people of the same gender to wed, just like 2 people of different genders.
Polygamy involves 3 or more people. That’s more than equal protection.
If 3 or more want to form some kind of extra-legal bond, I certainly don’t have a problem with it.
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Alternatively, he could have said, “Ya know, I don’t have a position on that. It’s not an issue I’ve thought much about. This country has many more pressing matters, in my judgment.”
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His performances are definitely improving, overall.
His positions sound agreeable to me. I wonder if Scott Adams will find him worthy of writing a post about?