I understand protest voting; I'd have voted for Gary Johnson in 2012 against Romney. I would have voted for Ron Paul if he were the nominee. Gary Johnson, being the closest candidate to Ron Paul, would have been a sensible choice. So would have been Virgil Goode to a lesser extent.
Sasse, a supporter of war hawk/"Reagan Conservative" Marco Rubio has nothing in common with Gary Johnson or the Libertarian Party. In fact, many Sasse fanboys like Erik Erikson endorsed his socially conservative rival Austen Peterson. They failed to hijack the LP (ironically forming an unholy alliance with the party radicals) and are tentatively behind Johnson not out of any remote ideological similarities (ironic because they complain Trump has no core ideology) but rather out of a simple desire to spoil the election. If they wanted a third party alternative, then David French should have run.
They have a ton in common on fiscal issues. If (as Sasse and many others seem to think) you take the position that Donald Trump cannot be trusted on literally any issue at all, and you find voting for Hillary to be very distasteful, then Johnson is absolutely the logical protest vote even if you do disagree with Johnson on foreign affairs. Your whole point about Republicans backing Petersen is totally beside the point. There's no contradiction in backing Petersen, seeing him lose, and then backing Johnson.
Endorsing Johnson is absolutely the logical thing to do for Ben Sasse, Kristol, Romney, and the rest of the hardcore NeverTrump coterie. Endorsing Trump after spending months talking about how he's the literal devil would've been hypocritical.
Had Marco Rubio been the nominee, Sasse would be bitching up a storm.
If Ron Paul had been the nominee in 2012,
you would've been the one bitching up a storm about Johnson getting 1%! Give us a ing break.
They want their guy over the will of the rest of the party. People like me who are at least intellectually honest in their voting who backed Johnson in '12? We were RINOs then. Back the party this year? We're stupid.
Er, principles matter more to some of us than the will of the rest of the party. Yeah, backing Trump this year is a pretty stupid thing to do regardless of your political orientation, especially if you're trying to be "intellectually honest". It's even more particularly stupid if you're backing Trump because you're afraid of getting called a RINO.
Well, this stupid RINO has done more for this party in the last week then Vosem and company have ever done. I'd be willing to venture the same about the nakedly ambitious Ben Sasse.
I have no idea what you're doing in real life to promote the party, and I know that you have no idea what I've done. The "nakedly ambitious" Ben Sasse, who just alienated a third of the party or so out of principle, holds down a Senate seat and has done more for the Republican Party than you (or, for that matter, I) probably ever will.
