Given a choice between Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump on the November ballot, libertarians should opt instead to take a bullet, according to one of the top officials at the Cato Institute.
“We talk about this sometimes among libertarians,” David Boaz, the libertarian think tank’s executive vice president, told the Washington Examiner. “We concluded that the correct answer is, if someone puts a gun to your head and says you have to choose between Clinton and Trump, the correct answer is, take the bullet.”
Boaz added that was what he expected would happen. “One way or another we’re going to get the bullet, except for the 0.5 percent chance that Gary Johnson might wind his way through to a House of Representatives upset or something.”
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Boaz said he considers the Libertarian Party’s presidential ticket of former New Mexico Gov. Johnson and former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld to be “moderate.” The description came in response to questions about the criticism the two have received over past proposals, including Weld’s support for gun control measures, and some of their current positions, such as the application of discrimination laws to Christian bakers.
“I think the cake issue is like one-half of 1 percent of the issues facing America … I just think there’s been an inordinate amount of attention to it,” Boaz said, though he noted, “I disagree with Gary Johnson on that.”
“They are clearly running as moderate libertarians. They governed as quite libertarian Republicans. But the standard in the Republican Party is different from the standard in the Libertarian Party,” Boaz added. “I’m not really a moderate libertarian … if I were running for president, I’d be a much more forthright, hardcore libertarian. And I wouldn’t be getting 10 percent of the vote. So I think that’s kind of the tradeoff.”
