Posted on 02/28/2020 4:35:50 PM PST by CheshireTheCat
Being an eternally sunny optimist, I had been thinking for a while about what a Donald Trump landslide versus a Trump squeaker might look like. (I refuse to contemplate the possibility of a Democratic victory.) Specifically, I had been thinking mostly in qualitative terms about the impact of the Libertarian Party on the election, and how things might look different in 2020 versus 2016. Harsanyi’s article got me to try to think about it a bit more quantitatively.
(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...
Author does not know many libertarians. A lot of them are “lifestyle libertarians.” They want abortion, pot, open borders, and gay marriage. They don’t seem to care much about free markets, property rights, smaller government, or economic freedom. Even if they give lip service to the later, they show up at the legislature on lifestyle issues.
Assuming they will vote R is a big stretch. Some will. Some will vote Sanders.
I’m hoping for an election along the lines of 1972 or 1984.
McGovern or Mondale
That won’t happen because CA. went for Reagan NO CHANCE of that happening today!!!
Libertarianism (and I was one for a long time) is a fantasy for intelligent young whites and degenerates of all races.
It’s not real in a real world.
The author goes on to note, “2016 was a spectacular outlier for the Libertarians, when they won 3.3 percent nationally with their 4.5 million votes.”
This is compared to previous years when they got barely a million votes.
I contend many who voted L in 2016 were Republicans or Republican-leaning independents who were afraid Trump would be worse than McCain. In 2008, when McCain ran, Bob Barr was the L party candidate. He was at least a principled constitutionalist. Of course, many R’s might not have voted for him because they did not want to see Obama get in and they might have been hoping something would happen to McCain, making Palin president.
In 2012, Romney might have seemed a safe enough bet and Gary Johnson too much of a wacko to support.
In 2016, perhaps Trump seemed more of a wacko than Gary Johnson to some R’s, hence Johnson’s much higher vote in 2016 versus 2012.
If my hypothesis is correct, I doubt Trump seems that much like a wacko anymore to these voters.
I think the likely wacko replacement to Johnson in 2020 for the L’s will get more of the displaced Dem vote. Even if I am wrong about the leanings of those who voted for Johnson in 2016—if many were Dems or Dem leaning and could not stomach Hillary—the L candidate will get their vote again because whoever the eventual Dem candidate is will upset a fair number of Dems.
If only 1 million of the 4 million who voted Johnson in 2016 were people who would have otherwise voted R if not for the candidate being Trump, that’s about 1 million people, give or take a few stubborn ones, who are satisfied now that Trump is not a RINO and will vote for him.
Libertarian Party should be ignored, or maybe mocked.
It’s a magnet for unserious troublemakers and I’m glad that it sucks that group of self-defeating time wasters and the fools whose willing credulity to nonsense enables them away from the GOP.
If the economy (aka markets, 401Ks, IRA’s, etc...) collapse in the next few months, then you can through all of this guy’s musings out the window.
If the rats can keep the Corona virus scare going through the spring into early summer, Trump will be in BIG trouble.
I became a Libertarian after reading Steven Chapman’s columns. Libertarians (believe it or not)are pro life. Potheads who ended up turning recent GOP senate seats to the rats in Wa., Mt., and one of the Dakotas.
In the 1990s, I was disillusioned with the Republicans, I went Libertarian. After Bush undid Reagan’s legacies, I thought the Libertarians would be for America, but 20% of the Libertarian platform is about drugs, open borders and sex, things I disagreed with.
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