Jon Corbett’s Endorsement for President

As a younger guy who lives in urban settings, I’m surrounded by individuals who almost uniformly detest Donald Trump, and there is a lot of social pressure to vote for Hillary Clinton in my world.  However, I won’t be voting for Hillary Clinton.  Nor will I be voting for Donald Trump.  For the first time in my life, I’ll be voting for a third-party candidate, Gary Johnson, and I’d like to explain.

First, I agree with those around me that Donald Trump would make a horrible president.  I don’t care about the crude remarks so much as I care that I can’t make out most of his policy, and the parts that I can make out, I dislike more often than not.  In particular, I feel that his immigration policy cannot possibly work, that his foreign policy will get us into more conflicts than out, and that his “tough on crime” viewpoint is not the reform this country needs at a time when it has more prisoners than China despite a quarter of the population.  Beyond his views, I don’t think he has the political experience, the temperament, or the vision to “make America great again.”  I do appreciate that he is a Washington outsider and is willing to speak his mind rather than limit himself to speaking like a politician, but this is insufficient.

So why not vote for the only person who has a chance against him?  On the issues, Hillary and I agree a bit more than Trump, although I am concerned about her perspectives on civil liberties (and not just the second amendment) and on keeping the government lean and efficient.  But, I find Hillary to be dishonest.  It’s more than just her atrocious handling of the e-mail scandal — she just seems like a massive phony whenever she speaks.  Maybe she’s just a bad speaker, but that’s an important part of being president.  I also think her campaign was dishonest in how it played against Bernie Sanders.  I think the DNC is dishonest and does not deserve to be rewarded for its manipulation of the primaries.  I’m tired of the dishonesty, and candidates who can’t keep it real won’t get my vote.  I won’t feel that I am responsible for voting for her for “lesser of two evils” purposes, because this simply lets the DNC (and RNC too) know it can do whatever it wants and we’ll choose whatever it puts out there.     If Trump makes it into office, it is the DNC to blame, not the swing voters who couldn’t stomach Hillary.

The candidate who gets my vote instead is experienced — he’s been the governor of New Mexico for 8 years, and in the political world for over 2 decades — yet he doesn’t sound like a Washington politician.  He commitment to civil liberties is unyielding, and relevant to this blog, he is on the right side of every issue I personally fight for, from abolishing the TSA to securing reasonable gun rights.  He recognizes that the war on drugs has failed, that our national debt is a problem that needs to be fixed now, and that we should get the hell out of the Middle East.

In short, he’s what we need, and even if he has virtually zero chance of getting elected this round, I would rather vote for that than for the “lesser of two evils.”  We’ve done that for too many years now, haven’t we?  It seems to just lead to greater and greater evils.  Let’s stop that now and vote for someone who would actually represent us.  For the purpose of sending a message to the parties, as well as to support someone who I actually would like to see as president, I endorse Gary Johnson for President in 2016.

Check out these three candidates side-by-side on the issues, and don’t forget to vote!  Most states now have early voting, so it’s easier than ever to make it happen.