Michigan Rep. Justin Amash on Why He’d Run for President as a Libertarian and the Culture of the GOP | TIME - Lissandra Villa:
May 7, 2020 - "Rep. Justin Amash announced April 28 that he was launching an exploratory committee to seek the Libertarian Party’s presidential nomination.... 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.... Below is a lightly edited, condensed transcript....
"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 can’t deliberate actual policies, when you have most members of Congress left out of the process, then they start to debate personalities....
"There’s a huge pool of voters who aren’t 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....
"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....
"The culture of Donald Trump that has become dominant in the Republican Party is not going away anytime soon. It’s probably here for at least a decade. It’s a very different tone; it’s a very different style. There’s not much focus on principles anymore, it’s a focus on personality....
"Ultimately I decided that even though I can win reelection as an independent, I wasn’t 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 won’t 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....
"It’s a different kind of campaign, but it’s one that actually may work to my benefit. If we were running a normal campaign, I obviously don’t 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 we’re 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."
Read more: https://time.com/5832934/michigan-rep-justin-amash-gop-president-libertarian/
May 7, 2020 - "Rep. Justin Amash announced April 28 that he was launching an exploratory committee to seek the Libertarian Party’s presidential nomination.... 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.... Below is a lightly edited, condensed transcript....
"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 can’t deliberate actual policies, when you have most members of Congress left out of the process, then they start to debate personalities....
"There’s a huge pool of voters who aren’t 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....
"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....
"The culture of Donald Trump that has become dominant in the Republican Party is not going away anytime soon. It’s probably here for at least a decade. It’s a very different tone; it’s a very different style. There’s not much focus on principles anymore, it’s a focus on personality....
"Ultimately I decided that even though I can win reelection as an independent, I wasn’t 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 won’t 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....
"It’s a different kind of campaign, but it’s one that actually may work to my benefit. If we were running a normal campaign, I obviously don’t 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 we’re 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."
Read more: https://time.com/5832934/michigan-rep-justin-amash-gop-president-libertarian/
No comments:
Post a Comment