WASHINGTON — The vice-chairman of the Libertarian Party said he won’t be protesting President Trump “yet” because President Bush and President Obama had policies worse than Trump’s degrading comments.
Arvin Vohra, who ran for a Senate seat from Maryland last November and challenged Rep. Donna Edwards’ (D-Md.) House seat in 2014, said in a statement released by the party today that even though he lives in the Beltway he won’t attend Saturday’s march on Washington as it “suggests that Donald J. Trump’s inappropriateness is somehow worse than the government abuses under Barack Obama and George W. Bush.”
“I won’t support that kind of value reversal. I will not engage in the fantasy that idiotic locker room humor is worse than bombing civilians, or hypocritically refusing to pardon people for marijuana use after admitting to marijuana use. I will not pretend that Trump’s election antics are worse than warrantless wiretapping, or the Patriot Act, or the Wall Street bailout,” Vohra said.
“If and when Trump bombs his first wedding or hospital, I will happily march in protest. If and when he refuses to scale back or end the drug war, I will march in protest. If and when he supports a Wall Street bailout, or a program as diseased as Common Core, I’ll gladly march,” he added. “If he wastes money on a wall, I will march. If he refuses to pardon Snowden or dismantle the Patriot Act, I will march. If he creates a Muslim Watch List, I will march.”
Vohra dubbed the planned protests as “about people acting as if every kind of abuse is fine, except for social rudeness.”
“Bill Clinton’s continuation of the War on Drugs and signing of the Defense of Marriage act was far worse than sexual infidelity. The fact that the media and public focused on the latter just made them look silly. This march is no different,” he continued.
“I will not support a political ideology that suggests a whiff of sexism or racism is worse than the blatant abuses of government power over the last years. Because when you march against the former, but excuse the latter, that’s exactly what you are saying.”
Libertarian Party chairman Nicholas Sarwark on Thursday called on congressional Republicans to “immediately” end Obamacare’s mandate to buy medical insurance, “and immediately end any associated tax penalties.”
The GOP plan to extend the mandate for three years, he argued, “would impose a dilemma on taxpayers: Either pay for three years of health insurance premiums, co-pays and deductibles they can’t afford, or pay a tax penalty for three years and get no insurance.”
“The mandate needs to end now, not in three years during which Republican politicians may find endless excuses to betray Americans and keep the mandate in place,” Sarwark said. “…Profiteers in the medical industry – including insurance companies, pharmaceuticals, and medical cartels — want to maintain the status quo. They donated over $1 billion to political campaigns and PACs in 2016 – for both Democrats and Republicans – in the hope that little will change. They want the $2 trillion medical gravy train to keep flowing.”
Join the conversation as a VIP Member