Scoff at the title; go right ahead. I don’t blame you one bit for dismissing this.

Frankly, I also don’t think that Gary Johnson will get elected president. That said, if Republicans decide to revolt against Donald Trump, Johnson may just be the right fallback option, and an appealing one for them at that.


If I’m a Republican with clout in the party, I’m clamoring to get as much support as possible directed Johnson’s way. It’s the only conceivable way that he’d have a chance to win.

Look at what’s going on here. The backlash against Trump’s inevitable nomination has started in full force, eroding the Republicans’ once-solid base and dividing between the fanatical and various factions of the bewildered. Between several prominent Republicans reluctantly supporting Trump, and several others refusing to do so, the once-famously cohesive Republican Party has lost its cohesion. At the very least, Reagan’s 11th Commandment is no more.


And Hillary Clinton will likely win the Democratic nomination. Hillary Clinton! Republicans despise Hillary, and yet they still can’t come together.

If I was an influential Republican, I would go to Gary Johnson and support his campaign. Republicans be very wise to collectively jump over to Johnson. At this point, what do they have to lose? If Trump wins, they still lose, so why not support someone who isn’t a complete embarrassment to our proud nation?


For starters, Johnson is guaranteed to be more likable than either Trump or Hillary. Chad Kroeger is probably more likable at this point. Sure, Johnson probably has some skeletons in his closet like everyone else, but they’re bound to be few, if not invisible when compared to the veritable graveyards that both Trump and Hillary have in theirs.

There’s no way that Johnson will — or even can — do anything to make him less likable than either Hillary or Trump. Further, he’s not a nobody, either: He was Governor of New Mexico for a term. Multiple people have made the leap from former governor to president.


In addition, his positions will appeal to three large Republican factions. First, the original Tea Party, “give me liberty or give me death” types — those who are more purely libertarian than the bigoted wackos who hijacked the movement — will like his fundamental libertarianism. Second, and similar to the first, business-first types will appreciate Johnson’s laissez-faire economic platform. Third, the evangelical types, those who truly base their voting decisions on religion, can’t possibly like Donald Trump. Granted, Johnson is not strongly religious, and his positions on social issues will never inspire passionate evangelical support, but given that he’s facing Trump, they may consider looking past these issues this time around.

Further, so many people are disgusted at the likely Trump-Hillary matchup that, if the Republican factions listed above linked up en masse and threw money and visible support behind Johnson, he could attract plenty of independents. He really could. Besides, everybody likes a coming-out-of-nowhere story, and Johnson would fit this narrative.


If large groups of Republicans, as well as a large part of the party structure, abandoned Trump and went for Johnson, he’d be able to win the presidency. Seriously, I sincerely think this. And he wouldn’t be a horrible president, either. He always struck me as a reasonable, principled, pragmatic guy, despite his libertarian ideology.

Like most political ideologies, libertarianism can be split into its social aspect and its economic aspect. This is admittedly simplistic, but it helps to shed a basic light on political perspectives. In terms of the social aspect of libertarianism, I should note that I am very much a civil libertarian — in fact, I’m passionate about maintaining and promoting the right to freely share information and opinion, due process under the law, and the government staying out of people’s personal lives. I think the First Amendment is the single most wonderful set of words that anyone has ever written. If anyone questions my zeal for the right to freely share information and opinion, I have an ACLU membership card in my wallet that should answer all doubts. Thus, I line up quite well with the Libertarian Party in this regard — even more so than the Democratic Party, in fact.


That having been said, I vehemently disagree with economic libertarianism. Money, and the pursuit and accumulation of it, inherently leads to corruption. It is entirely too easy to take advantage of others and ignore the humanity of one’s peers in trying to gain money, and as the richest among us have demonstrated, very few people ever feel they have enough. If I was in that position, I could easily see myself feeling the same way — wealth is a tantalizing elixir, and nobody wants to have less money. This is why I don’t believe in small government. Regulations, and systems constructed to regulate, are vital to provide the public with basic protection against people and companies who have the ability to harm others in their pursuit of wealth.

Thus, I can’t see myself supporting Johnson. I completely get why libertarianism as a whole is appealing, though, and if there’s any time for the Libertarian Party to rise, it’s now. Plenty of Republicans surely have to be willing to defect. Hell, plenty of them left the Libertarian Party to join the Republicans when the Tea Party movement hit its zenith. Now that Donald Trump is somehow the Republicans’ standard-bearer, heading back couldn’t possibly be that hard.


I don’t say this as a Democrat, either. None of this should be interpreted as me promoting Johnson, nor should it be seen as some sort of weak divide-and-conquer ploy to aid Hillary in her quest for the White House. Truth be told, I don’t really like Hillary. While the chance of me voting for her is better than 50%, if I do cast my vote her way, I’ll do it with one hand while plugging my nose with the other.

I approach this from a legitimate place of sincerity and care for the country: Aside from Trump’s most ardent supporters, why wouldn’t Republicans want to slide over to Johnson? If they do, and he gains momentum from it, then at least technically, we could actually have a third-party president. Imagine that! Granted, Johnson was Republican until 2012, and he left the party to join the Libertarians and face Romney as their candidate, but surely many Republicans can forgive this in light of the big orange threat that looms over their future.


Several years from now, when The Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Campaign Season is little more than a memory and a stain on our history, countless retired politicians will sit in their homes and wish that they would have run, or continued to run, for president this year, knowing they could have averted disaster. Surely, many of them already look at what has happened, convinced to the heavens that they would have been able to win the presidency against the other party’s train wreck of a candidate.

For them, it’s too late. All that the rest of the would-be major-party candidates, save for Bernie Sanders (though only technically), have left now are regrets.


Speaking of regrets, the Republican Party probably has more than a few at the moment, given the events of this past week.

President Gary Johnson, as far-fetched as that may seem, could alleviate them.