Libertarian VP Nominee Weld Is Shifting Focus To Stopping Trump

Well this is certainly an interesting development if not entirely surprising. Bill Weld it seems has decided to stop campaigning and focus his efforts entirely to stopping Donald Trump from winning.

Boston Globe - VP hopeful Weld is more interested in attacking Trump

The Libertarian vice presidential candidate, William F. Weld, said Tuesday that he plans to focus exclusively on blasting Donald Trump over the next five weeks, a strategic pivot aimed at denying Trump the White House and giving himself a key role in helping to rebuild the GOP.

Weld, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts, said he is focusing on Trump because, while he disagrees with Hillary Clinton on fiscal and military issues, Trump’s agenda is so objectionable it’s “in a class by itself.”

“I think Mr. Trump’s proposals in the foreign policy area, including nuclear proliferation, tariffs, and free trade, would be so hurtful, domestically and in the world, that he has my full attention,” Weld said.

Weld, meanwhile, has denounced Trump as a “huckster” with a “screw loose” and has said his plan to deport 11 million illegal immigrants “would remind me of Anne Frank hiding in the attic.”

Weld’s new plan calls for him to focus his fire on Trump in a handful of red states — as well as in at least one swing state, New Hampshire — where the Libertarians are running strong. Nationally, the ticket is drawing about 7 percent support.

No statement from Gary Johnson but according to Weld, he's on board with Weld's decision:

Weld insisted he and Johnson remain “happy warriors” and said Johnson is fully supportive of his anti-Trump campaign. “I have had in mind all along trying to get the Donald into third place, and with some tugging and hauling, we might get there,” Weld said.

It seems Weld was just kidding about that whole "Libertarian 4 life" thing. Awkward! Hopefully he didn't get any tattoos. At this point he's throwing in with the GOP #NeverTrump'ers to thwart Trump — no doubt with an eye toward finding himself a place back with the GOP.

It's going to be really interesting to see what Johnson does going forward.

a reply to: theantediluvian

Libertarian against free trade?

Just kill me now.

Bill Weld is against modernizing America's infrastructure, transportation systems, and becoming energy independent? My God, another person suddenly in the clutches of Hillary's mafia! The campaign got ahold of that 15 year old girl in Pennsylvania yesterday and made her into Hillary's image.

a reply to: theantediluvian

It is really irrelevant, because Hillary Clinton is just waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too criminal to get the office, and she is the only actual threat to Trump, both literally on his life, as well as the election.

So as much as we know you actually love Trump, its going to be Trump and Pence till 2024. Eight more years for google, twitter, and facebook to literally manipulate peoples thinking to embrace the one world government and abandon American sovereignty . See that is the mainstream now, and it is so much more effective since it uses AI to personalize the experience and make the manipulation that much more believable.

Welcome to the hive. Me?? I am still trying to track down those invisibility cloaks that were invented ten years ago and the world just stopped talking about it. Yea right, like governments and the scientific community just said "oh look, this piece of wearable video and camera technology can literally project the illusion of invisibility, lets just ignore it and not spend ten years refining and perfecting the technology???"

YEA RIGHT!!! Funny thing is, I have a book calle "The Light of Other Days" that was written a few years before that, and not only was that tech mentioned, but so was the surveillance state and society. It ends in a hive mind, and as we can see with google, facebook and twitter, we are almost there.

Donald Trump has to win, or we all lose.

originally posted by: Metallicus
a reply to: theantediluvian

Libertarian against free trade?

Just kill me now.

Trump is against free trade.
Tariff! Tariff! Tariff!

a reply to: Phage


Phage, what is the smoking gun revelation from HRC's emails? Is there even one, or is the whole scandal much ado about nothing?

a reply to: theantediluvian

Dang. And someone just gave me a reason to seriously consider voting for Gary.
Now what I going do?

originally posted by: Mousygretchen
a reply to: Phage


Phage, what is the smoking gun revelation from HRC's emails? Is there even one, or is the whole scandal much ado about nothing?

What?
What does that have to do with Libertarians?

a reply to: theantediluvian

So the VP of the alleged Libertarian, who somehow swung further left than Clinton, is deciding to give up campaigning? I'm so shocked that he is making a desperate play to salvage whatever political clout he didn't piss away by aligning with Johnson. A real shocker.

a reply to: Metallicus

Against free trade? No, he said he didn't like Trump's policies regarding free trade. "Free trade" is usually something of a misnomer. Gary Johnson in fact supports the TPP. I don't know who his economic advisors are specifically but I assume they are libertarian economists.

I know that the previous position of the LP was to withdraw from all trade agreements but I believe there has been something of a shift. I know that Caplan and Henderson are both for the TPP. As I understand the arguments, TPP is seen as the lesser evil.

In fact, you might not realize this but Stephen Moore (probably Trump's top economic advisor?) was actually for TPP along with his buddies Kudlow and Laffer (aka Team Trickle-Down).

Investor's Business Daily - The Conservative Case For Passing Trade Promotion Authority

The unions are out to kill a U.S. trade deal with Asia, and they are now joined in an odd-bedfellows alliance with the Pat Buchanan protectionist wing on the right. For this reason the coming vote in Congress on trade promotion authority represents an economic gut-check moment for the GOP. Passage of this law would allow the completion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free-trade agreement that would cover most of our Asian trading partners (excluding China). The U.S.-Asia trade zone would rival the European Union in size. It would be good for both sides of the Pacific.

It gets better:

TPA has been the major vehicle by which major free trade agreements over the last 30 years, including the seminal North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and others with Asian nations, have been approved.

These trade bills have lowered tariffs here in the U.S., thus benefiting American consumers (Wal-Mart's everyday low prices could hardly exist without trade) while expanding export markets for American producers.

Republicans can be excused for wondering why they have to do all the political heavy lifting to put more power into this president's hands when Obama won't lobby for votes from his own party the way Bill Clinton did so effectively in the '90s to get NAFTA and other deals done. The modern Democratic Party, alas, is no longer the party of free-traders like FDR, JFK and Clinton. That's sad.

Looking more and more like the Libertarian Party has been bought off.

Something strange is happening.

I was a Ron Paul supporter.

When he dropped out I gave my vote to Gary johnson.

I am now starting to regret that decision.

Ante, I know that me and you, and many many people on here on ATS will fully admit that both Trump and Hillary are not good. In fact, judging by their unfavorability numbers, I would say that most of the country feels that way.

So all third parties stand to gain by attacking HIllary and Trump. But what do the Libertarians do? Stop trying to get votes, and attack Trump.

This shows to me that the Libertarian party is not a serious third party.

I haven't delved deep into Weld and his thoughts, but just a cursory look at the source provided in the OP makes me scratch my head. He is against Trumps stance on free trade. Yet Hillary is also against the TPP, so what about Trumps plan does he hate so much more that it is worth just exclusively attacking him.

He doesn't like Trumps foreign policy, so am I to assume he would be a Libertarian that is for Hillarys foreign policy of Nation building? I though Libertarians were for limited government?

This shows to me that the Libertarian party is no better than the other two parties, it is politics as usual for them.

The world vs Trump.

I like it.

Trump Train 2016

a reply to: Grambler

In my opinion it has more to do with Weld himself than the LP and I'm no fan of the LP. Weld is a former Republican of course and my impression has been that he only switched to the LP to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond so he could snag a nomination like he has.

Weld also has known Clinton for decades since they were young attorneys together.

I'm not saying that Weld isn't legitimately horrified by the propsect of Trump becoming President. There are a lot of conservatives who see Trump as fraud who is hijacking the GOP and believe that his strategy in this election will ultimately alienate important voting blocs, ensuring future losses for the GOP.

The LP has a history of being tightly associated with the Koch brothers as well. The Koch brothers are the US's most influential right-wing oligarchs. Back in August, some of the lesser oligarchs who are supporting Trump tried to get Charles Koch to take a meeting with Trump and he refused.

There's a few interesting articles about it. Here's one at The Hill.

Putting it all together, I think it's more of a thing with Weld wanting to jump back to a GOP that isn't led by Donald Trump but I don't see the LP putting up much resistance to Weld going on the attack against Trump as Trump is generally viewed as having policies contrary to their own agenda.

Trump is starting to remind me of an old Godzilla movie.
Except in this case it's a huge orange monster stomping around the political landscape. Swarmed by hundreds of attackers that resemble gnats and are brushed off just as easy. It's beyond my why little Johnson and his crew would join the fray here.

This is great an entire nation of triggered masses!
You simply can't crack his defenses and if you get his attention it generally doesn't end well for the attacker.

Liberals have held a monopoly over low information voters so long it has made them complacent and lazy in regards to facts and reality. Debates generally degrade into ad hominem attacks to shut down any kind of intellectual opposition to their carefully crafted narrative.

Trump is the wrecking ball to this!

Now the Libertarians seem intent on paint a target on their ass as well?
Have fun with our representative Trumpzilla!

a reply to: xuenchen
By attacking Trump only Gary/Bill cut directly into Hillary's votes.By attacking Hillary they cut into Trumps votes.

I suspect the democrats are spreading rumors again. They are either playing the "you said [insert something in the past] gotcha game" or taking something Gary or Bill said out of context.

This gotcha shaming tactic does not work on Trump because he has said so much that it is meaningless to attack just one thing he says.(Trump/Pence just ignore it and keep attacking them.)