US presidential election: is there a third way?
Meeting with a libertarian
Jo Jorgensen, Libertarian Party candidate for the 2020 US presidential election. Getty Images / LightRocket / SOPA Images / Paul Hennessy
Text by: Carlotta Morteo Follow
7 min
In the American presidential campaign, we only hear about the Republican and Democratic parties.
However, there is a third, on all the country's bulletins: the Libertarian Party.
He defends ideas shared by many Americans but he is invisible in the media.
Meeting in Atlanta with Carlos Ocon, one of his loyal supporters.
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For several days, the crane has stopped working.
The libertarian Carlos Ocon, the worker in his thirties who operates it, reported it to the site manager but he believes "
they have a cash flow problem
," he said.
With the Covid, the site was three months late.
While waiting for a spare part to be sent to him, he hangs out on social networks, sitting in his small cabin ...
"
It's a city on the move, the climate is mild, it's very green, there are people from everywhere and even if the rents are starting to go up, it's still quite affordable,
" says Carlos.
He is of Nicaraguan descent, he grew up in Florida and moved to Atlanta less than a year ago.
On average, 36 people settle in Georgia's capital every day, that is, in just 10 years, 730,000 more residents in this "black Hollywood", known to house film, television and recording studios.
Atlanta is a pillar of
African-American
entertainment
. "
And that dynamic is thanks to low tax rates!
Carlos smiles.
The city has in fact opted for a very competitive tax policy to attract businesses, particularly in the audiovisual sector and new technologies: 6% on average.
Biden and Trump sent back to back
A skilled worker, he had an education “
the hard way
” with his immigrant parents, and spent four years in the Marines.
A strong work ethic, which resonates with his political philosophy.
In recent years, he has become akin to libertarians.
“
Trump keeps bragging about
his economic record
before the pandemic.
But the truth is that he has certainly lowered taxes, but by widening the deficit like never before!
And opposite,
Joe Biden wants to help everyone
- students, retirees, the poor, the climate - which will create more and more debt.
Carlos says.
Federal taxes, government regulations ... very little for him.
But unlike Republicans, he doesn't have a problem with gay marriage, abortion, or legalizing drugs - quite the contrary.
In short, very liberal from all points of view.
Pro-weapons within the country, but against US interventionism abroad.
Libertarians want to decentralize power to states, so that the will of the people is better reflected at the local level.
According to the party's metaphor: "
Make the United States a huge Switzerland, with the atomic weapon in addition."
"
His candidate: Jo Jorgansen
For Carlos, there is no question of "
voting for the least worse
".
He supports tooth and nail Jo Jorgensen, the unrecognized candidate of the Libertarian Party, business leader and university professor who, in view of the extreme polarization this year, risks making an even lower score than that of his predecessor, Gary Johnson in 2016, which obtained 3.3% of the vote.
Carlos knows very well that they don't stand a chance, but he is convinced of one thing: “A
lot of people are very disappointed with the two big parties.
We need a third way, more neutral, able to recreate a space for dialogue
. ”
Often, libertarians, followers of the deregulation of the economy, side with Donald Trump.
But Carlos is intransigent: “
He's a liar and a manipulator, like all the politicians he supposedly criticizes.
He divided the country, consciously or not, we can feel it day by day.
He alienated a large part of the population by blowing on racial embers, when things were generally better in society.
And now he has the whole Congress against him.
So even if he wanted to do anything, good or bad, he would be stuck.
With him, the dead end is assured.
"
As for Joe Biden: “
He has had high responsibilities for 47 years.
And what do we remember from him?
The worst crime law in American history.
As a senator, he co-wrote a law that criminalized drugs, including cannabis, resulting in the mass incarceration of thousands of African Americans.
It was in 1992. “
If he really wanted to fix it, he could have done it before.
"
Against ObamaCare
Carlos is keen to say that, of course, "
like his mother who votes Democrat,
" he would like everyone to be able to be treated properly, at a lower cost.
But don't go talk to him about ObamaCare, it annoys him: “
I've never had health insurance because considering the prices, at my age, it's not worth the trouble.
When Obama's health law came into effect, we all had to take out insurance.
Except that, for example, I earn "too well" my living to benefit from the ObamaCare public offer.
So I was forced to take out private insurance, and the cheapest I found was $ 600 a month!
Obviously I did not subscribe to it.
So at the end of the year, when filing my taxes, I had to pay a penalty, since I wasn't covered.
It was calculated as a percentage of my income, that is, $ 800 in penalties for the year.
It's a lot.
I am not against a public option.
But forcing us to subscribe to it, while the insurance problem in this country is that the sector is monopolistic and lacks competition ... it just comes down to enriching private insurance
.
In 2019, Donald Trump lifted the requirement to be covered, and despite all the attacks on ObamaCare, 20 million low-income people are still covered, and the administration upheld the ban on insurance refusing people with a medical history.
“
We must be inspired by the health model in Singapore,
” he says.
In any case, there is no chance that we will not hear his candidate on all these subjects by November 3, since "
the media are pretending that small parties do not exist!"
He concludes, smiling behind his mask.
Despite his presence on the ballots of 50 states - a feat - Jo Jorgensen, but also Howie Hawkins, the candidate for the Green party (present in 30 states), were never invited to debate, and it is extremely rare to see them on television, on public or private channels.
Like Carlos, I have met a small number of people who this year will dare to “
resist the steamroller of two-party politics.
"Convinced that the system"
will end up imploding one day, and that then, it may be their turn.
"
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