Mediaboss Marketing

Had Pelosi agreed to a simple up-or-down vote on the Senate amendment, it likely would have passed easily, and reauthorization of the broad surveillance authorities, along with some real reforms, would be on their way to becoming law.

The Housewas initially scheduled to vote late Wednesday evening, but postponed the vote. Leaders from both the Republican minority and theCongressional Progressive Caucus said they were whipping members to vote no. Even if it passes, Trump has promised to veto it. Trump, of course, has been known to break promises, so Pelosis gamble may still pay off.

For the first time in the history of the House, the lower chamber allowed for remote proxy voting, as dozens of members of Congress stayed away from the floor amid the coronavirus pandemic. The vote is expected to be close, the result of furious last-minute lobbying by civil libertarians on both the left and right, as well as opposition from Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

The politics of surveillance, even in normal times, scramble the typical partisan tendencies, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Pelosi, and Schiff often aligning on questions about the breadth and depth of state power to surveil and track Americans. Opposing those congressional leaders is the civil liberties community, which includes both progressives and conservatives with libertarian leanings, but which rarely can muster a majority in Congress for its defense of the Bill of Rights.

The civil liberties argument has gained new traction in recent months, with Trumps outrage over theU.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, or FISA, courts handling of surveillance of his campaign, particularly the deeply flawed application for a warrant to surveil former adviser Carter Page. Although it was initially designed to review intelligence surveillance applications for suspected agents of a foreign power, after 9/11 the secretive FISA court signed off on expansive interpretations of surveillance law. Now, as Trumpfeels victimized by it, he and his allies have found religion on the question.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, a famously eccentric conservative in the House, remarked at a Rules Committee hearing Wednesday morning on the oddity of House Democrats fighting to give Trump surveillance powers he wasnt asking for, despite his clear determination to use law enforcement for his own political ends.

It sure seems strange to me. For Democrats to vote for this reauthorization, even with these amendments, would have to be sort of saying, we have so much trust in Donald Trump and the people hes appointed that they would never lie to a FISA court. They would never just go after their enemies. We feel like he can be trusted and so can all the people hes appointed, he said. We know hes cleaned out some folks at the Justice Department, FBI, I mean, think about it.

The unlikely coalition of Trump and the civil libertarians was enough to stall the legal reauthorization of the FBIs call detail records program, an amended version of the Patriot Act that allowed federal law enforcement to collect phone records. The authority lapsed in March after McConnell was unable to force through an unamended reauthorization.

Earlier this month, the Senate reauthorized those programs with additional restrictions, but an amendment that would limit the governments ability to collect internet browsing history without a warrantfellone vote short of the 60 votes it needed to pass.

Pelosi then instructed Schiff to come up with a compromise version with Lofgren, rather than allow an up-or-down vote on the Senate language. The result of those negotiations was an amendment, introduced by Lofgren and Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, that reintroduced the restriction on collecting browsing history, but applies it only to U.S. persons.

However, Lofgrens and Davidsons amendment leaves up to interpretation what federal agents should do when they dont know ahead of time whether U.S. persons information would be swept up in information requests giving the secretive FISA court room to allow bulk collection and task the FBI with purging U.S. person information afterward. The agreement broke down when Schiff andLofgrenoffered different interpretations of their measure.

If the government wants to use a dragnet and order a service provider to produce a list of everyone who has visited a particular website, watched a particular YouTube video, or made a particular search query, it cannot seek that order unless it can guarantee that the business records returned will contain no U.S. person IP addresses, or other U.S. person identifiers, Lofgren said at a Rules Committee hearing Wednesday morning. That interpretation was enough to win the backing of Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

In a statement, Schiff said that the amendment prohibited orders that to seek to obtain U.S. persons browsing information, leaving open the possibility that the FBI could seek to collect visitor logs from a website that contained Americans, as long as that was not their primary purpose.

Statements like that, noted Charlie Savage in the Times, can be used by judges to determine legislative intent and confounded what had appeared to be a settled issue.

That led to pushback from both the left and right, and the renewed attention not only risked reforms that had been won in the Senate and failed to win support for the amendment Schiff advocated for, but it also drew a veto threat from Trump. Wyden, who co-sponsored the failed amendment in the Senate, withdrew his support, saying in a statement that it flatly contradicted the intent of his amendment in the Senate, and urged the House to consider his version.

The Rules Committee adjourned Wednesday morning without advancing the amendment,meaning that the House will vote on the version that passed the Senate.

Lofgren said that she would have preferred an amendment not be limited to U.S. persons, but that it was necessary in order to secure a vote from House leadership on the motion. I know concerns have been raised about limiting this to U.S. persons, Lofgren said Wednesday. In my ideal amendment, I would not have included this limitation, but I was led to understand that a compromise might be necessary in order to get a vote.

David Segal, executive director of Demand Progress, which lobbied against the legislation, said that Pelosi and Schiffs apparent own goal came from too close of an alliance with the national security establishment, which, he argued, has led them to line up against reforms that could have passed, and in support of a bill that harms Americans, might not pass, and would likely be vetoed.

Trump, too, trashed the compromise, which led House Republican leadership to urge its members Wednesday morning to oppose the bill en masse. If roughly1 in5 go along, Pelosi has no path to passage without Republican support.

The opposition of a vast majority of Republicans gifted theCPC a fresh opportunity to flex its muscles in the House, after a disappointing effort to influence coronavirus relief packages. Trumps turn against surveillance authorities has produced enough Republican opposition that a concerted effort by progressives could block passage.

Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wisc., a CPC co-chair, told The Intercept that thecaucus was urging its 92 members to vote no.

We have grave concerns that this legislation does not protect people in the United States from warrantless surveillance, especially their online activity including web browsing and internet searches, said Pocan and fellow co-chair Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., in a statement later on Wednesday afternoon. Despite some positive reforms, the legislation is far too narrow in scope and would still leave the public vulnerable to invasive online spying and data collection.

On Wednesday, Pelosi was insistent the vote should go forward. With an intelligence bill, with a FISA bill, no one is ever really that happy, Pelosi said. But in all humility, we have to have a bill. By late Wednesday evening, the vote was postponed.

Update: May 27, 2020, 9:40 p.m. ETThis piece has been updated to reflect that the Houses vote, scheduled for Wednesday evening, has been postponed.

Read more from the original source:
Left-Right Alliance Takes Aim at Surveillance Bill - The Intercept

We, as a society, are now experiencing a crisis of trust. The three pillars that weve had faith in all our lives institutions, government entities and the media have all failed us. From trusting financial institutions to guard our assets to expecting politicians to enact smart policies to hoping the media informs us on issues truthfully, weve entrusted these institutions to have the publics best interest in mind and to provide crucial guidance in times of crisis. Instead of witnessing any of that, we have seen politicians, government agencies and the media fail catastrophically in the critical, early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the few reasonable voices offering practical advice coming from Silicon Valley insiders sounding five-alarm fires from their personal social media accounts.

As they say, history has a way of repeating itself, and if weve learned anything from the financial crisis of 2008 which bailed out the wealthy banks and left a large swath of the population struggling and jobless its that the centralized institutions put their own interests in front of ours.

The 2008 crisis destroyed the publics trust in the banks and eventually led to the birth and proliferation of cryptocurrency. This genesis moment for cryptocurrency occurred, as it became evident that banks, and associated third parties, were unable to safeguard peoples assets. People wanted to permanently remove, on a structural level, any financial middlemen masquerading as goodwill actors and to control their own money and their own destiny.

There are similar patterns that we can identify between the fallout from the financial crisis of 2008 and the current crisis were living through and how trust in all three pillars has all but disappeared nowadays. During this pandemic, weve realized that:

Stemming back to its early days, the crypto industry has always had a hint of doomsday gloom around its narrative. After all, why would anyone need this marvel of a cryptographic peer-to-peer decentralized financial network if we can simply trust governments, media and institutions to just do their jobs well? As it turns out, our current reality is uncomfortably close to what cryptocurrency enthusiasts always feared they must prepare for in a dystopian future that is now our present day.

The need to replace legacy social systems based on blind trust with decentralized alternatives that are based on fundamental mathematics to empower the individual is now extremely clear. We can expect the natural reaction of the tech-savvy public to be similar to the last crisis: For every centralized institution that claims we know whats good for you so just trust us, well begin to see the emergence of a decentralized alternative that people will actually trust not because they blindly delegate that trust, but because the source code of that distributed network and its rules of operations (oftentimes as the literal source code) will be visible to everyone in the network to review and improve upon.

The intertwined roles of fundamental cryptography and decentralization will quickly grow in our society once we get out of the immediate needs of dealing with this current crisis. After the dust settles, the outcome will be a second genesis moment for fundamental cryptography to power up many verticals shifting to distributed and decentralized alternatives. What will be the most interesting industries to put on the watchlist?

Were now entering a new era of self-reliance that incorporates finding our own trusted sources of information, compensating them outside of for-profit media models and bringing about a grassroots style of citizen-journalists that fully own their own broadcasting power. Instead of a few dozen major media outlets, we will follow thousands of experts who can provide deep and extremely specific coverage for any domain. Substack, Twitter lists and YouTube podcast stars are already filling that void. Adding cryptographic artifacts for reputation and compensation will only accelerate that trend.

We have already started seeing the green shoots of progress that will define how society learns and evolves from this crisis. The biggest winner of all might be the philosophy of libertarianism that shuns large institutional solutions and prefers to bestow all the power on the technologically educated and empowered individual. This might be the catalyst we needed to shift public opinion toward libertarian solutions after seeing such an abject failure of legacy models.

This will usher in an age of reason based on science, research and, most of all, data and facts. Individuals joined in myriad reputational, professional and financial networks will be able to reach an online consensus and enact policies with speed and intellectual depth unseen by any previous generation. And that, perhaps, will be the most lasting positive change in the post-COVID-19 world.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Max Skibinsky is the co-founder and CEO of Vault12. Most recently, Max was an investment partner with Andreessen Horowitz where he focused on enterprise security and Bitcoin.

See the article here:
What the Birth of Crypto Can Predict for the Post-COVID-19 World - Cointelegraph

Rep. Justin Amash announced April 28 that he was launching an exploratory committee to seek the Libertarian Partys presidential nomination.

There had long been buzz about a potential presidential run around Amash, who last year left the Republican party and became an Independent member of Congress (a spokesperson for Amash says he is now officially a Libertarian member of Congress). Though hes been critical of Trump and the Republican party, Amash says his main argument is broader: He believes the country is locked in what hes repeatedly called a partisan death spiral in which representative government is broken.

Amash, who says he will not seek reelection to his current House seat, spoke with TIME via Skype from his home in Michigan on May 3, where he discussed the state of the current Republican party, how he believes campaigning virtually levels the playing field, and why he thinks he has a pathway to the nomination.

Below is a lightly edited, condensed transcript of the interview.

As a presidential candidate, what would the core idea of your campaign be?

The core idea is liberty and representative government. And what we have right now in Washington is a very broken system. What happens right now too often is a few leaders in Congress negotiate with the White House, and they decide everything for everyone. And this leads to a lot of frustration and a lot of partisanship because when Congress cant deliberate actual policies, when you have most members of Congress left out of the process, then they start to debate personalities.

Why are you dipping your toes into this with an exploratory committee instead of just outright running?

Im new to the Libertarian Party, and Im seeking the nomination of the Libertarian Party. I want to be respectful of all the delegates, I want to be respectful of the people who have been a part of that party for a long time. And Im starting it as an exploratory committee so that I can try to earn the nomination, and if Im able to get further along and obtain the nomination, then we can talk about changing it to a full committee.

Do you have a deadline then when it comes to deciding whether you will actually run versus exploratory?

I dont have a specific deadline in mind. I think as this goes on, well have a better idea of where we stand with the delegates. And there may come a point where I feel more comfortable moving forward concretely and saying, yes, Im in 100%, Im going all the way. But right now I want to make sure Im being respectful of the delegates and working to earn their trust. And Im going to continue to work to do that over the next few weeks.

Why now, when its so late in the election cycle, and in the middle of a pandemic?

Well for one thing, I think its important to think about the fact that the election cycles have been getting longer. Theyre starting early in the year before the election, and we dont need that much campaigning going on for a presidency, otherwise these things are just nonstop, around-the-clock, and people get really tired of it. But actually, at the beginning of this year, in February, I started to look at it very carefully, and wanted to consider whether I would be a candidate, and I would have made a decision earlier, but then we had the coronavirus pandemic come up, and I had to make the decision, the right decision, I believe, to delay the final judgement of whether Im going to jump in or not, because I want to be able to represent my constituents during this time, I wanted to make sure Im in top of what was going on in Congress, and I wanted to reassess how a pandemic situation where were all stuck at home would affect the campaign.

Is it still possible to advance the things you want to talk about as a third-party candidate?

It is possible to do that, and the way Im going to do that is by getting my message out there. And if I do that, I feel confident that people will see that among the three candidates, the one running as a Libertarian Party nominee right now, or seeking the Libertarian Party nomination, is the one who will be the most compelling and qualified candidate of the three.

Do you think your presence in the race will help or hurt either candidate?

I think it hurts both candidates. The goal is to win, so you obviously want to take votes from both candidates. Theres a huge pool of voters who arent represented by either of the parties, and a lot of times, they just stay home or they settle for one of the two parties, but they would be happy to vote for someone else if they felt there was another candidate that was compelling.

Have you thought about whether youd vote for Biden or Trump?

I would not vote for Biden or Trump. Getting rid of Donald Trump does not fix the problems because Donald Trump is just a symptom of the problems. The problems will still exist with Joe Biden in the White House.

Is there anything that your friends in the Republican Party could do to redeem themselves now in your eyes?

I dont think that theres any way to pull them back from where they are. The culture of Donald Trump that has become dominant in the Republican Party is not going away anytime soon. Its probably here for at least a decade. Its a very different tone; its a very different style. Theres not much focus on principles anymore, its a focus on personality.

What makes you think that theres a viable path for you?

When you think about whether Republicans are firmly behind Trump, yes, theyre firmly behind Trump because they dont see an alternative. And they view the alternative right now as Joe Biden, and thats not a viable alternative for most Republicans. So there is a path for a third candidate to receive votes from Republicans.

Michigan has been in the news recently for the protests against the governors coronavirus policies. Can I ask what you made of them?

I support people protesting. I support their right to protest. I think people are very upset in Michigan about much of the overreach. I do condemn and denounce things like using Nazi flags or Nazi symbols at protests. Or coming into the state capitol holding weapons in a way that might be intimidating to many people.

What about the protests where folks havent been adhering to socialdistancing practices?

It shouldnt happen where people dont keep away from each other by at least 6 ft. I mean, were hearing from doctors and epidemiologists and others. We should adhere to those guidelines.

What was the decision not to run for reelection like?

It was one of the most difficult decisions of my life. I think its important to focus on one race at a time, and this is the race Im focused on. Ultimately I decided that even though I can win reelection as an independent, I wasnt sure it would make the same kind of difference to our system as running a presidential campaign and winning that campaign. If you win as an independent, some people might just write it off to some oddity of the third district of Michigan, saying, well in that district, an independent can win, but it wont work anywhere else. If you win the presidency as a Libertarian, you have a chance to really upset the system in a way that can restore our constitutional process and our representative government, and to me that is the more important thing.

Whats it like being home and deciding whether you want to run for President under these circumstances?

Its a different kind of campaign, but its one that actually may work to my benefit. If we were running a normal campaign, I obviously dont have the name ID yet to go out and hold massive rallies or any of those kinds of things, like the President might, or maybe Joe Biden might. So were at a point where we can compete with the other candidates through video and through technology, and I have an advantage in that, maybe, as a younger candidate, going out there and getting my message out on social media and elsewhere.

Thank you! For your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters. If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder.

Write to Lissandra Villa at lissandra.villa@time.com.

Go here to read the rest:
Michigan Rep. Justin Amash on Why Hed Run for President as a Libertarian and the Culture of the GOP - TIME

A rebel member of the US Congress, Justin Amash, has signalled an expected run for the White House as a Libertarian in a move that could disrupt the November presidential election.

On Tuesday night he unveiled his website outlining his campaign, and announced the launch of an exploratory committee, the traditional forerunner to an official candidacy, later tweeting: Lets do this and also saying that he would seek the nomination of the Libertarian party.

Americans are ready for practical approaches based in humility and trust of the people, Amash announced. Were ready for a presidency that will restore respect for our constitution and bring people together.

Amash defected from the Republican party last summer, continuing in office as an independent.

The announcement was met with an immediate flurry of comments from across the political spectrum that ridiculed Amashs move.

The US system is dominated by two parties, Donald Trumps Republican party, and the opposition Democratic party, for which Joe Biden is the presumptive nominee to challenge for the White House in November.

There are some small fringe parties, such as the Libertarians and the Green party, but none have any members holding national office, although fielding a candidate for the White House can arguably prove decisive in a close election.

Amash had previously told several reporters he would only run as a third-party candidate if he had a realistic chance to win.

Critics noted that his White House ambitions are a long shot, and could instead sway votes away from would-be supporters of Biden.

He could wind up going in the books as the guy who voted to impeach Trump one year, then tipped the election to him 11 months later, Joe Walsh, a Republican Trump critic, wrote in a Washington Post opinion article.

Amash appeared to balk at the backlash, however. In an interview with MSNBC, he likened pushback to his presidential run to anti-American voter suppression.

This is about democracy, this is about representative government, he said. The idea that were going to tell people we cant have another choice on the ballot because it might upset one or the other candidate, thats ridiculous.

The congressman is perhaps most known as one of two non-Democratic votes to impeach Donald Trump, marking a political career defined by Republican favor that fell nearly as quickly as it rose.

First elected to Michigans third congressional district in the 2010 amid the rise of the conservative grassroots movement that solidified into the rightwing Tea Party wing of the Republican party, aimed at disrupting business as usual on Capitol Hill.

The son of a refugee father and immigrant mother immediately earned the ire of more moderate Republican colleagues with disagreements over foreign intervention by the US and surveillance of the public.

Amash then founded the House Freedom Caucus, a group of ultra-conservatives who often voted to the right of party initiatives. As a staunch critic of Trump, he ultimately left the Republican party in 2019, symbolically on the Fourth of July, after becoming disenchanted with party politics and frightened by what [he] see[s] from it.

The two-party system has evolved into an existential threat to American principles and institutions, he wrote at the time.

Meanwhile todays Freedom Caucus members are known as some of the presidents most loyal supporters. Trump weighed in, sarcastically noting Amash would make a wonderful candidate.

Especially since he is way behind in his district and has no chance of maintaining his congressional seat, Trump tweeted. He almost always votes for the Do Nothing Dems anyway.

The congressman faces a tough re-election, with several Republicans running against him.

While the viability of a third-party candidate is low, high-profile figures have played spoiler in historic races. The most successful third-party bid, Ross Perots 1992 run, resulted in the billionaire gaining 19% of the popular tally without winning a single electoral college vote.

The Libertarian partys most recent nominee, however, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, only won slightly more than 3% of the national vote in 2016.

Third parties received 6% of the popular vote overall, one of many factors considered in Trumps upset win over Democrat and former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

Amash characterized Trumps win another way.

The way we got Donald Trump is because every Republican who didnt like [him] were told, incessantly, You must vote for Donald Trump because hes the Republican nominee and you have to vote for the Republican, he said.

There are millions of Americans who arent represented by either Donald Trump or Joe Biden, who arent represented by the Republicans or the Democrats, he added. And those Americans deserve a choice on the ballot.

Visit link:
Justin Amash explores running for US president as Libertarian - India Gone Viral

When I got on the phone with Rep. Justin Amash (I-MI) the day after he announced the launch of an exploratory committee for a potential run for the White House, my first question was, Why are you doing this?

The question didnt come as a surprise to Amash, who entered Congress in 2010 as a strident Tea Party fiscal conservative only to leave the GOP last year before becoming the lone House conservative lawmaker to vote to impeach President Donald Trump. Now, five months later and staring down an increasingly impossible reelection bid hes considering a third-party presidential run as a libertarian.

Amash, 40, told me hes running because he believes hes the best person for the job. I think its important that we have someone whos honest, whos practical, who will have humility about the entire legislative process and the entire process for government and will allow us to get back to a place where we have a government that actually represents the people.

Amashs decision didnt come as a total surprise after all, he tweeted on April 15 that he was considering a presidential run. But the reactions to his announcement came fast and furious, particularly from Never Trump conservatives concerned he could pull votes away from Joe Biden and help incumbent Donald Trump win reelection.

Others noted Amashs lack of national name recognition and the historic lack of success for third-party candidates. A writer at the conservative-leaning blog Ordinary Times said Amashs 2020 campaign would be something 10 years from now you will be mildly upset for not remembering during a rousing round of bar trivia while waiting on your wings at B-Dubs:

Democrats only liked him for having the token R-turned-I to make their impeachment technically bipartisan. Trump voters arent going to give him anything but vitriol. So if your plan is for a little-known lame duck congressman with no discernible achievements in the one job he has held outside of a brief stint in the family business to revolutionize American politics, you might need to reconsider what you are pitching the American people.

Amash knows this. Hes tweeted about the angry response his announcement had received, and he told me hes well aware of his lack of name recognition. Its important to get out there, talk about the issues, talk about the approach I would take to government, talk about the practical ideas Id bring to the table, he told me.

The Congress member is making a big bet, not just on himself and his ability to reach out to Americans outside of his home state of Michigan, but on Americans in general, who he believes are far more libertarian-minded than their voting patterns indicate. Its highly unlikely to pay off. Even if voters say they want an option other than Trump or Biden, history shows third-party candidates rarely affect the outcome of an election. Amash, if he wins the Libertarian Partys ticket, probably wont be any different.

People are being left behind, he told me. They dont feel like theyre being treated fairly. They want to be treated with respect. And right now we have a government that doesnt do that, and people have an opportunity in this election to change that.

Before Amash became better known as a vigorous opponent of Donald Trump, he was a Tea Party stalwart and co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus. In 2010, a Michigan outlet described him as a throwback who preaches a gospel of old-school conservatism: less government, lower taxes and less regulation. He was known briefly as Dr. No for his penchant for voting against bills supported by his Republican allies, but some libertarians believed he could inherit the mantle carried by former representative (and former presidential candidate) Ron Paul as Americas best-known libertarian.

He argued against reauthorization of the Patriot Act (and was nearly primaried for it) and legislation aimed at prosecuting and fining websites that promote sex work. He opposed the Affordable Care Act, argued against federal support for the city of Flint, Michigan, and supported adding a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

But libertarian-leaning conservatism has lost its luster in the Trump era, and among many Republicans, so has Amash. He left the House Freedom Caucus last June, after the caucus voted to condemn him for tweeting that Trumps conduct regarding the Ukraine investigation was impeachable. As I wrote last year:

But the crackup between Amash and the HFC is indicative of a larger and growing divide between Republicans and libertarians, one with real-world implications for Congress and our politics.

The growing conservative populist movement (of sorts) that stands directly athwart libertarian values of free minds and free markets is being felt in Republican politics. Rising stars in conservative circles, like Sen. Josh Hawley, are arguing against so-called free market orthodoxy on trade and calling for the regulation of social media companies, arguing that holding big companies accountable who have amassed significant market power and are using it among other things to squelch conservative voices is a conservative cause.

But Amash isnt running as an independent in 2020. Rather, he wants to contest the nomination for the Libertarian Party, believing, as he told me, that voters value being a part of something, including a political party.

Given the current dynamic with both parties, Amash said, the Libertarian Party can pull a lot of votes from those parties and can also consolidate a lot of independent voters who are not strongly affiliated with either party.

The Libertarian Party nomination process also offers Amash the timing he needs to make an entrance into the presidential discussion. While the Libertarian Party does hold primaries and caucuses, those events are nonbinding. The presidential nominee is ultimately chosen at the national convention, currently scheduled to take place in late May. The candidate who wins the most delegates at the convention wins, period.

And while Amash is popular among libertarians, he has not previously identified with the party, leading some to feel as if the Libertarian Party is, as Reason Magazines Matt Welch said, sloppy seconds for former Republicans.

If he wins the nomination, its the fourth consecutive former Republican elected official [to win], Welch said. It kind of starts making you feel a little bit used. Daniel McCarthy, a writer at the conservative outlet the Spectator, wrote of the Libertarian Party, the fact that it doesnt even have a leadership cadre of its own, but every four years now turns to a former Republican as its presidential standard-bearer, is revealing.

But Amash offers valuable attention and a fundraising opportunity for the party, which Welch told me it badly needs. The main problem is that the natural state of affairs for third parties in this country is just misery, he said. So yes, you could try to reassert yourself and say, Lets have some home grown energy, [and nominate] lifetime libertarian types of people from within, and you will go out and you will get your 0.4 percent of the vote, which has been pretty constant over long periods of time.

The current frontrunner for the nomination, Jacob Hornberger, founder of the libertarian think tank Future of Freedom Foundation, agrees. Hornberger won primary contests in New York, North Carolina, California, Missouri, and Connecticut. And though he somewhat dismissively told the Dispatch that Amash would likely run a Republican-lite campaign, he also told Vox he welcomed the national media attention the Michigan lawmaker might bring.

Congressman Amashs entry into the race for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination provides a big benefit to the LP, he wrote in an email. It not only brings an air of excitement to the race, it also focuses the attention of the national media on the LP presidential debates. ... Moreover, whoever wins the LP presidential nomination will now be assured of national media attention.

Welch added that Amash is actually the most libertarian dude of this parade of Republicans by far hes objectively more libertarian than [2016 LP nominee] Gary Johnson in most ways, and certainly more than [2008 nominee] Bob Barr.

He certainly is. Amash voted against a proposed national suicide prevention hotline because he thought the bill lacked a constitutional basis. He voted against a bill expressing support for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. He thinks the Department of Education should be abolished. In fact, on many issues, particularly those regarding executive power and the role of government, Amash is far more conservative than Trump.

But Amash believes his views mirror those of most Americans, but those Americans arent being heard. When I spoke with him back in July, he told me:

One of the reasons Ive always described myself as libertarian and use that word repeatedly is so that people will connect the word to the work Im doing. One of the things I like to tell libertarians when I go to conferences and other places is that libertarians are not really a small minority in the country. Most Americans have rather libertarian tendencies or classical liberal tendencies the spirit of this country is very much libertarian or classical liberal.

Most Americans, in my view, fall within the sphere of libertarianism or classical liberalism. They might not call themselves libertarian, they might not call themselves classical liberals, but they fall within that sphere and could support a party that presents those ideas. And so I think that there is room for a third party presenting those, thats presenting that vision.

When we spoke, I was reminded of a conversation I had in 2016 with Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson. He also told me, I think most Americans are libertarian, they just dont know it, adding that libertarianism in his view, a combination of fiscal conservatism and social liberalism made him the ideal alternative to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. (Johnson won just over 3 percent of the popular vote in 2016.)

And while the Libertarian Party is growing rapidly, relatively few Americans describe themselves as being libertarian, though they might hold libertarian views. So whether any more Americans would vote for a Libertarian Party nominee for president than in 2016 is questionable, particularly in an election many see as a binary choice between Trump and Biden.

While many Americans support the concept of third parties, they dont tend to vote for them, particularly in presidential elections featuring an incumbent nominee. For example, while in 2016 third-party candidates (Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson, and independent candidate Evan McMullin) received roughly 7 million votes, Johnson won just 1.2 million votes in 2012. Ralph Nader won 2.8 million votes in 2000 and received just over 465,000 votes in 2004.

As FiveThirtyEights Geoffrey Skelley detailed in 2019, while many voters identify as independents and thus might be more amenable to a third-party candidate, their voting patterns indicate otherwise:

For example, if we include independent leaners with the party they preferred, 92 percent of Democrats and Republicans backed their respective party nominees in the 2016 presidential election. And despite the 2016 election featuring the two most unpopular major-party nominees in modern times, only 6 percent of voters decided to cast ballots for third-party candidates. In fact, the last time third-party candidates accounted for more than 10 percent of the vote was more than 20 years ago, in the 1996 election.

I spoke with David Byler, a data analyst and political columnist at the Washington Post, who told me these results are due, in part, to partisan affiliation and increasing political polarization. All of that stuff has downstream effects on third-party candidates. Its just hard for them to get a lot of votes, he said. And in most scenarios, even in 2016 when we had two historically really disliked candidates, the third-party candidates, Johnson and Stein, didnt crack double digits.

Byler added that the voters who look to third parties are generally not interested in either Democrats or Republicans, contra concerns from some liberals and anti-Trump conservatives who think Amash could play spoiler. Some [third-party voters] are Republicans or Democrats who are protesting against the major-party candidates or feel like they cant vote for their partys candidate. But some of them are just libertarians, and are people whose true first preference are these third-party candidates and arent really as up for grabs as I think people might think.

And even that portion of third-party voters who are protesting the two main parties will probably shrink this year, according to Miles Coleman, associate editor of Sabatos Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics. In 2020, Democrats are less disposed to a protest vote if it means Trump staying in office. Coleman told me, If Im a Democratic voter and Im not too enthused about Joe Biden, well, its more important that we beat Trump.

I dont think that were going to see as much of a third-party influence in 2020, Coleman said. Because I think compared to 2016, both sides are going to probably be doing a better job of mobilizing their base.

Its worth noting another possible factor in Amashs decision-making though he told me he felt confident I could win reelection in his district, available data says otherwise. Yes, Amash stopped fundraising earlier this spring in advance of a possible presidential run, but he faced an uphill battle in any case, running as an independent in a state that permits straight-ticket voting against both Democratic and Republican candidates (particularly as a Trump critic).

Amash told me hes not worried about accusations that his run might keep Trump in office. People should vote for the person they want to win, he said. And if someone wants me to win, they should vote for me. And if someone wants someone else to win, they should vote for that other person. Its a pretty simple, frankly, and more choices is better for the American people.

Moreover, he fundamentally believes that Trump and Biden represent equally bad choices for American voters.

If people want to vote for me, they can vote for me. And if they dont want to, theyre welcome to vote for one of the other candidates, he said. I think theyd be making a mistake. And I think they probably know that theyd be making a mistake voting for one of the other candidates. And I think most Americans would believe that, but thats up to each person and theyre allowed to do whatever they want. Theyre individuals.

Correction, May 4: A previous version of this story misstated Gary Johnsons 2016 vote total.

Support Voxs explanatory journalism

Every day at Vox, we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you, and our audience around the world, with information that has the power to save lives. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower you through understanding. Voxs work is reaching more people than ever, but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles, videos, and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today.

See the original post:
Justin Amashs potential third-party presidential bid, explained - Vox.com