Mike Gravel represented Alaska in the U.S. Senate from 1969 to ’81. During the Vietnam War era, he made forceful attempts to end the draft. He is probably most well known for reading the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record, thereby lending them official legitimacy. A staunch advocate of direct democracy, he left the Democratic Party in 2008 to run on the Libertarian Party ticket in order to introduce these ideas into the national debate. A policy platform was developed by him and two young colleg-aged men, who urged him to run in the Democratic Primary in 2020. He has since dropped out, but the platform can be found here.

“He’s (Trump) told everybody that anything the Democrats are doing is socialist. Well, fine. We can accept that. But what we want to do is add the fact that anything the Republicans are doing is equally socialist. The only difference between them is: with Democratic Socialism, the people benefit. With Republican Socialism, the people get screwed.” Former Senator Mike Gravel