April 29, 2020

"The best and surest way to beat Trump is to... give all the disaffected Republicans, conservatives and independents only one alternative to Trump."

"Giving them a conservative alternative might be ideologically satisfying, but it increases the likelihood that Trump can pull off another narrow win In the past several months, I’ve been approached about running as a conservative independent in the general election. I’ve had people suggest that I run as a Libertarian. My answer has always been the same: No. Because I won’t do anything that might help Trump win.... I know how committed Justin is to the founding ideals of liberty and limited government. When this is over, I’ll gladly join him in fighting for those principles again. If he wants, I’ll join him in starting a new political party. Right now, our only job is ridding the White House of an authoritarian con man. The last thing we need is a third-party candidate. Not this year, congressman."

From "You can’t win, Justin Amash. You can only help Trump get reelected/We both came in with the tea party wave. Reelecting this president isn’t the way to go out," by Joe Walsh (WaPo). This Joe Walsh is a former member of Congress and the author of a book called "F*ck Silence: Calling Trump Out for the Cultish, Moronic, Authoritarian Con Man He Is." He's not the Joe Walsh doing the guitar solo in "Hotel California" (the best guitar solo of all time according to a 1998 poll of readers of Guitarist magazine).

"The last thing we need is a third-party candidate. Not this year...." You could say that... or you could say the opposite. This is THE year for a 3rd-party candidate. This is the ONE time the 3rd-party candidate can actually win. Biden is a terrible candidate — way too old and seemingly mentally debilitated and burdened with a late-breaking sex-assault allegation. And Trump is very divisive and very, very weird.

And why would Amash necessarily hurt Biden? Why wouldn't he hurt Trump, which would help Biden?

From the comments over there: "Don't believe a word of this article. Amash won't draw anything among Democrat voters. He's a hard right conservative. Walsh was recruited to write this by the GOP for the same reason the Mafia sends your best friend to kill you."

64 comments:

Birkel said...

Amash is hard right?
That is a special kind of stupid.
Rates a 0.990 on the Inga scale.

BUMBLE BEE said...

C'mon baby! Papa needs a lakefront home!

mikeski said...

Gee whiz, seems to me that I was assured by Skipper Kristol and the rest of them that it would not help Hillary to push the candidacies of Gary Johnson and Evan McHugeDome, because elections are not binary. Now, it appears, I am to believe that the election is binary, and I would only be wasting my vote on a third party protest candidate.

What could have changed in such a short period of time?

Ralph L said...

Would that Trump were authoritarian. Heads need to roll. Trains need to run, on time or not.

rehajm said...

Yep. There's some kind of twisted logic of a conservative candidate running and helping Trump. As with at Althouseblog the comment section sorts out the propaganda.

Nonapod said...

I can honestly say I've never heard of this Justin Amash guy before today. And I barely know this Joe Walsh person who isn't the famous guitar player guy. But as far as I can tell they seem to exist in this tiny little universe of people who claim to be a thing that they're clearly not and that imagine themselves to be far more significant than they actually are.

Gusty Winds said...

Nothing more disingenuous and scummy than never-Trump Republicans struggling to regain their dreams of relevancy through a Democrat win. Rubin, Sykes, Amish, Walsh, Kristol...

What they don't realize is THEY are the reason Trump won the GOP Primary and GOP voters tossed the establishment to the curb. Dems can't pull off the same thing. GOP voters are just more independent than Democrats; the party of dependency.

In 2016 GOP voters had the GUTS to push their establishment to the side. Two decades of betrayal and broken promises. We faced a probable loss….and won. God it was sweet.

Drago said...

Justin Amash (I-China), is not exciting the usual NeverTrump/FakeCon suspects.

How strange.

Because in 2016 those very same NeverTrump/FakeCon suspects were arguing additional candidates, like NeverTrump/FakeCon Egg McMuffin, was not an issue at all and should be welcomed into the fray.

Hmmmmm, its almost as if the NeverTrump/FakeCon liars were lying in 2016 and it was all a ploy to hurt Trump and now in 2020 the shoe is on the other foot and those same dregs are arguing the opposite!

The best part? They are arguing their contradictory positions on......"principle"!

LOL

This is quite similar to how the dems/left/LLR-left #MeToo movement has become the #WhoMe? movement.

Bay Area Guy said...

I don't think Amash will help Trump win. It's too hard and to early to say whether he would take more votes from Trump or Biden.

However, I do think Amash is an idiot, and should not run, because he's an idiot.

Rick said...

Amash won't draw anything among Democrat voters. He's a hard right conservative.

These people think Althouse is a hard right conservative.

Amadeus 48 said...

Joe Walsh is a notorious idiot. There aren't many Republicans I won't vote for. I never would have voted for Joe Walsh.

Sebastian said...

"all the disaffected Republicans"

All five of them?

I mean, after what the Dems tried to do to Trump with the hoax and impeachment, after Trump governed more conservatively than expected and presided over the Trump economy, after Dems nominated Biden and went hard left, what "Republicans" remain "disaffected"?

Che Dolf said...

If any mainstream 2016 GOP candidates had taken an immigration stance even vaguely in synch with right wing voters, Trump would not have been the nominee. Scott Walker started down that path, but one of his billionaire donors reined him in, and that finished his candidacy. Cruz tried to ape Trump, but it was unbelievable because he was on record advocating massive expansion of legal immigration.

The party's funders and their toadies deserve to keep losing as long as the importation of cheap labor remains their cardinal goal.

stevew said...

Ah, the quadrennial argument about the affect of third-party candidates on the major party candidates election chances.

Yancey Ward said...

Poor Don Felder.

phantommut said...

Isn't that the Walsh who got to a first approximation zero votes in the early Republican primaries?

Yancey Ward said...

Amash would draw any support from Trump, but the truth really is this- it would be far less than Gary Johnson drew off in 2016. Amash would get Egg McMuffin level support, and probably not even that.

Limited blogger said...

Did any of these geniuses pick Hillary to win?

Yes? Ok Trump is fine.

Automatic_Wing said...

Joe Walsh the guitarist is worth talking about the other guy, not so much.

I feel like his song In The City from The Warriors soundtrack is the most 70s thing ever. Moreso than disco or even serial killers. In The City is the boiled down quintessence of the entire decade.

It's like, how much more 70s could this be? The answer is none. None more 70s.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

Why does the Mafia send your best friend to kill you?

The only thing I can guess is that killing you would really tick off your best friend, so having him do it is the only way to make sure he stays loyal.

I don't see how that would apply here though.

narayanan said...

Justin Amash should run and should ask to be sugar-daddy'ed by Mike Bloomberg.

Stimulus cash for Campaign Professionals so they can stay in business for next round

Bob Boyd said...

And why would Amash necessarily hurt Biden?

Because the neverTrumper Republicans imagine they can unite and be a significant, even decisive, chunk of votes for the Dem candidate.
They worry some of that protest vote will be siphoned off by Amash in what is expected to be a close election.

Martin said...

Joe Walsh may be the only person in public life who speaks to fewer people than Justin Amash.

Clyde said...

Amash wouldn't hurt Trump because he can only get the Never-Trump vote. Anyone who would vote for Amash wasn't going to vote for Trump anyway; either they would go with Biden/Whatever Democrat or vote third party or stay home.

J. Farmer said...

Fuck off, Amash. Nobody wants libertarianism.

John Marzan said...

Better that these never trumpers vote for amash than vote for the Dem nominee, whoever she may be.

bagoh20 said...

Something nobody in the world ever says: "Who is Donald Trump?"

Bay Area Guy said...

Justin Amash is a disaffected Republican from Michigan.

We have a certain notorious commentator who is a disaffected Republican from Michigan....

How many disaffected Republicans are there in Michigan?

Lurker21 said...

I’ve had people suggest that I run as a Libertarian.

Time to up the dosage on the Thorazine, Joe.

Michael The Magnificent said...

Two words: Evan McMullin.

Achilles said...

"Amash won't draw anything among Democrat voters. He's a hard right conservative."


It is no longer about Right and Left.

It is about Nationalism vs. Globalism.

Amash represents China, not the US. Most people in DC represent some foreign entity and take money from them. Hillary just made it undeniable.

He agrees with Biden more than he agrees with Trump on this spectrum so he would take more votes from Biden in November.

Steven said...

Oh, lord. The Libertarians are going to nominate somebody, whether Amash runs or not, and they'll get about the same amount of the vote no matter what.

The circumstances are much different than in 2016. Gary Johnson could actually plausibly claim to be the most qualified all-51-ballots candidate in 2016, given his quite successful governorship of New Mexico. And he also was plausibly more conservative than candidate Trump. Johnson had his record in NM. Trump was the man who had supported an assault weapon ban and legal abortion (in his 1999 book), who donated a lot of money to Democratic politicians, and who on the campaign trail said positive things about single-payer healthcare and his Clinton-appointed liberal judge sister.

So, in 2016, a conservative could plausibly conclude that whichever major-party candidate won, he'd wind up with an ethically-challenged New York liberal as president, and yank the Johnson lever to signal his desire for a qualified conservative. That's why Johnson did better in 2016 than any previous Libertarian candidate.

This year? It's utterly clear that on most policy grounds, a Biden administration is going to be less conservative than second term of Trump. It's no longer reasonable to think in policy terms it doesn't matter who wins. If you're a conservative, either you have personal objections to Trump enough that you want Biden to win despite policy and will vote Biden, or you don't and you'll vote Trump.

The only people who are going to vote for Amash are the same 0.3-0.5% who voted Libertarian 1984-2008. And they're gonna vote Libertarian whether or not Amash iis the candidate.

Birkel said...

"Nobody wants libertarianism."

Now let's be pedantic and define what libertarianism means. And unless your definition meets my ever-changing exacting standards, I will assume you have no significant argument.

Anonymous said...

This will be as effective as Jill Stein’s demands for re-counts: it will generate a few million in funding. That’s all this is about.

rcocean said...

How many people who voted for Trump in 2016 would leave him in 2020 for Amash? Almost zero. And the goofy losertarians are going to be goofs no matter who they nominate. If you're trying to predict what those goofballs who voted for Johnson-Weld in 2016, will do in 2020, good luck with that!


If I was a Biden supporter, I'd be much more worried about another Green party candidacy.

Lurker21 said...

"Don't believe a word of this article. Amash won't draw anything among Democrat voters. He's a hard right conservative. Walsh was recruited to write this by the GOP for the same reason the Mafia sends your best friend to kill you."

And that is also spin. Ron Paul was about as right-wing as you could get, but old lefty hippies loved him because of his anti-war stand. Amash is similar, though without the folksy, funky, old guy flavor. I doubt Amash will win over many celebrities, but he would pick up more anti-Trump voters than Trump voters.

JMW Turner said...

Automatic-Wing: unfortunately, The Captain and Tennille was pretty fuckin seventies...

Tom T. said...

Why would libertarians vote against the only president to make an effort to cut federal regulations and not start new wars?

Mark said...

Amash won't draw anything among Democrat voters.

But with him, it might be that Biden won't draw anything among anti-Trump Republican voters.

Automatic_Wing said...

JMW - Fair point.

Love your paintings, big guy.

J. Farmer said...

Now let's be pedantic and define what libertarianism means.

David Boaz’s definition works for me. See how easy that was to do without having a conniption fit?

And unless your definition meets my ever-changing exacting standards, I will assume you have no significant argument.

That was never the point. Your uber defensiveness not withstanding. But depending on the conversation, it may be worthwhile to clarify terminology given the breadth of the subject (E.g. anarchism vs anarcho-capitalism vs minarchism vs classical liberalism) to prevent talking past each other.

jimbino said...

I vote Libertarian, expecting to lose, but as a lesson for future generations who need to realize that we have nothing like a democracy in the USSA, what with the two-party system and the electoral college aberrations.

eddie willers said...

I clicked on the thread just to see how often the lead guitar solo on Hotel California was corrected.

Poor Don Felder

Yancy Ward wins first (and only?)

Bruce Gee said...

Ok. I'll cut to the chase: the only thing that beats Trump in 2020 is widespread voter fraud. Nothing else comes close.

Lurker21 said...

Why would libertarians vote against the only president to make an effort to cut federal regulations and not start new wars?

How many LP voters are really libertarians? How many are just people who are dissatisfied with the two major parties? How many seriously want or expect less government regulation and how many are only registering their discontent with the other parties? And once you get a president who may not be starting new wars, the emphasis moves to ending the ones we are in.

Drago said...

jimbino: "I vote Libertarian, expecting to lose, but as a lesson for future generations who need to realize that we have nothing like a democracy in the USSA, what with the two-party system and the electoral college aberrations."

The electoral college was pure genius on the part of the Founding Fathers.

Pure genius is beyond the capacity of little minds to understand.

Gospace said...

jimbino said...
I vote Libertarian, expecting to lose, but as a lesson for future generations who need to realize that we have nothing like a democracy in the USSA, what with the two-party system and the electoral college aberrations


Gee, a republic organized as a republic isn't a democracy.

Color me surprised.

BTW, we should repeal the 17th amendment and make it even less of a democracy. As well as overturn Reynolds vs Sims

Inga said...

Amash won’t be taking many voters from Biden. He is doesn’t support gun control legislation. He is anti women’s right to choose abortion. He is pro lowering corporate taxes. He is pro appealing Obamacare. He is anti same sex marriage. He voted no on the Violence Against Women Act. And more.

He isn’t a liberal candidate, he won’t hurt Biden, however he may pull some votes from Trump, but it’s doubtful if his candidacy will make much of an impact.

Automatic_Wing said...

eddie willers said...
I clicked on the thread just to see how often the lead guitar solo on Hotel California was corrected


No need for a correction, Joe Walsh definitely played the Hotel California solo along with Felder.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KUGmtGA4gHI

n.n said...

Is the commenter American? Hard right anarchist. Right libertarian. Center conservative. Then there are the diverse left ideologies ranging from liberal to progressive to totalitarian.

stevew said...

I'm confused. Amash will help defeat Trump by taking all the votes of the people that didn't and won't vote for Trump?

Re: Hotel California.

Felder provides the opening guitar work, and it is exceptional. Joe Walsh (no relation, sadly) provides the iconic lead riff later in the piece. A tremendous composition by both. One of the Eagles' best tunes, IMO.

Steven said...

Johnson got more than seven times the percentage of the vote in 2016 that Libertarian tickets averaged 1984-2012; 3.28% instead of 0.45%.

The roughly-0.45% will vote for whomever gets the Libertarian nomination, but what the remaining 2.83% does is massively important. If they had gone Trump in 2016, he'd have won the popular vote, shutting down all sorts of moaning and nonsense. If they'd gone Clinton in 2016, she'd currently be President -- Trump's margin of victory in five states (Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Arizona) was less than the number of excess Johnson votes (percentage who voted Johnson in 2016 over and above the percentage who voted for Barr in 2008).

Joe Walsh, I think, is entirely wrong about whether Amash will appeal to them, but he's absolutely right that they're the crux of this election. If the election is anywhere near close, how they vote will decide it.

gilbar said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
rcocean said...

Walsh is the typical Never Trumper. In 2016, it was "I can't betray my principles and support Trump. If Hillary wins, that's the price I'll pay". Now in 2020, its "Principles be damned. We'll do ANYTHING to elect Biden"

LOL!

rcocean said...

Even if you assume 100% of the idiots who voted for Johnson/Weld had gone for Trump, they still wouldn't have changed the results in more than 3 or 4 small states. And if they'd gone for Hillary they'd all gone for Hillary, they would've barely won her the election. That's why Walsh is saying what he is. He's banking that all those Losertarians were anti-Trump and will go for Biden in 2020.

rcocean said...

Find a libertarian who will spell out what specific real life policies he's for and against. And then watch him tap dance, and Evade any questions as how certain of those stances are "libertarian". Its a clown philosophy.

jeremyabrams said...

He'll draw NeverTrumpers, who otherwise would vote for Biden or his replacement.

Tom said...

Amash won’t hurt Trump. The never Trump GOPer would have either not voted or voted for Biden. Some of them will vote for Amash now.

And, frankly, the best thing for the LP is for Biden to collapse after the nomination and for a Trump landslide to be obvious. That helps Amash get over 3% in every state, securing the LP ballot access in every state (the toughest issue for the LP to overcome).

And, then Amash sets up a nice 2024 run.

Gunner said...

Don't these Never Trump fake conservative twerps like Rubin and Walsh realize that their new SJW friends will still not invite them to the "cool table"?

DeepRunner said...

So...small thing, but...Joe Walsh of The Eagles was half of that guitar solo in Hotel California. The other half was the guy who actually wrote the music for the song, Don Felder, who sued The Eagles when he was thrown out of the group.

stevew said...

Good point DeepRunner. Having seen a bunch of interviews with Joe Walsh I'm willing to bet he would say the same thing. Felder sued the Eagles but those Eagles are really Don Henley and Glen Frey, both of which were all too happy to tell any and everyone.

Steven said...

And if they'd gone for Hillary they'd all gone for Hillary, they would've barely won her the election

Right, an electoral vote result of 318 to 220, a greater margin than any Republican has managed since 1988, would have been "barely", and the fact that it was "barely" would have made Hillary's presidency a non-disaster. You are soooooo SMART, rcocean. Trump should hire you as a spokesman to insult the swing voters who have the election this fall in their hands.

bbkingfish said...

I think that if Amash gets the right person to run as his VP (say, Tulsi Gabbard), his could be a very attractive candidacy for many younger Democrats...not to mention independents.

Also, he will have hundreds of millions of Koch-bucks at his disposal, so he will not be running a shoestring campaign, as normally is the case with third-party efforts.

Sam L. said...

"You can’t win, Justin Amash. You can only help Trump get reelected/We both came in with the tea party wave. Reelecting this president isn’t the way to go out," by Joe Walsh (WaPo). I trust NOTHING from the WaPoo. The NYT and the TV nets, too.