As someone who thinks this election basically boils down to the two evil sides of Richard Nixon duking it out for the nuclear suitcase, I'll admit to having been Johnson-curious* for a bit.
I mean, I'm sympathetic to the whole libertarian thing. Sure, I think the reducing incarceration levels is a mistake ("oh, please, let all the criminals go free, I feel too safe now"). But as long as you're not committing acts of violence or alleviating others of their property, I mostly want the government to leave people and businesses alone. So sure, I thought, why not take a look at the guy running under the Libertarian Party banner?
Granted, as I think even his most heroin-addled libertarian backers would admit, he's not the best libertarian. Yeah, he's cool with the government forcing people to bake cakes for religious ceremonies they find offensive. Okay, fine, he called for banning burkas. That's not super liberty-friendly. And sure, he's fine with massively increasing the size of government.
In this election cycle, though, all that could possibly be forgiven. It's a real "dumpster fire" out there, as the youngs say. But then I saw something yesterday that I could not forgive. Something so heinous and inappropriate that I may have thrown up in my mouth just a little bit.
No, not his Aleppo gaffe; who cares. As my ignorant** colleague Matthew Walther put it, none of us knows everything and we'd all be better off reading a book or watching a Zack Snyder film. (Matthew loves 300 and Jane Austen equally.) Aleppo, Agrabah, whatever.
No no. What horrified me was that I finally saw this image of Johnson:
My. God. I can't be seeing this right. Let's isolate Johnson:
dear lord i was right all along there it is
Let's set aside the weed-addled grin and instead focus on his wardrobe. It's bad enough he's dressing like a standup comedian half-assedly emceeing an open mic night—a t-shirt under a sport coat, Gary, really? A sport coat that you can't even be bothered to keep on? That's how the leader of the free world is expected to comport himself? But wearing a t-shirt with a peace sign on it like some kind of dope-smoking hippie doofus?
Hold on, I'm receiving a transmission:
Seriously, though, this is disqualifying. As I said, I'm very open to the idea of the government leaving people alone. But I'm also heavily committed to the idea of exporting that ideal via extremely large amounts of ordnance. There's only one appropriate peace sign, Gary, and it's this one:
If he were to throw that t-shirt on, well, I'd reconsider. Until then, I remain ever-vigilant, searching for a candidate who isn't terrible.
* Archer?
Thank you.
**Yes, Matthew, antimatter is real.