Why this libertarian hopes Bernie Sanders wins

We disagree on just about everything. But in some key areas he's as close as I'll get.

Bernie Sanders.
(Image credit: Illustrated | ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)

Anything close to my politics and a plausible shot at the American presidency will never coincide in the same person. That is true in this election; it has been true of all elections in my lifetime; and I expect it to be true of all elections in my years to come. As my colleague Damon Linker has explained analyzing data from the 2016 cycle, the libertarian quadrant in American politics is increasingly empty. Authoritarianism is on the rise and there is little in the way of a principled anti-war movement in America. Our presidential options reflect these trends.

The effect, for me, is a sort of detachment from electoral spectacle. It isn't that I don't care about the outcome. I do. But there's a reason people bet at the track: It's just different when you have no horse in the race. Whether I'll vote in the general election this year remains to be seen — usually I'm drawn out by ballot questions or offices like district attorney — but if I make it to Minnesota's open Democratic primary on Super Tuesday (the GOP primary is functionally canceled), I'll vote for Bernie Sanders.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.