Viral Video Gets 30,000 Republicans and Democrats to Vote Libertarian

Last Thursday, a site called Balanced Rebellion launched a video featuring Abraham Lincoln encouraging Americans to reject both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and to vote for Gary Johnson. The site presents a brilliant idea: it pairs up a Republican who hates both Trump and Clinton with a Democrat who hates both Clinton and Trump, so rather than voting to stop the candidate they fear more, each person will be free to vote third party.

“Look, if America is Gotham City, then Hillary is the mob and Trump is the Joker,” the video’s Lincoln declares. “The mob is always there, it’s corrupt, but at least you know what you’re getting. The Joker just got here, he’s creating total chaos, and you don’t know what he’ll do next but you know it’s going to be hell.”

“America, picking between the Joker and the mob is not a real choice. It’s time to vote for freaking Batman.” This kind of Internet humor pervades the video, as Lincoln jokes about getting shot (“too soon?”) and emphasizes that he himself ran third party — in 1860.

Matt Kibbe, president of Alternative PAC, the organization behind Balanced Rebellion, told PJ Media on Monday that over 30,000 people have made the pledge on Balanced Rebellion to vote for Johnson, and are being matched with their counterparts from the Democrat or Republican Party. So far, more Democrats than Republicans have joined the site, but the disparity is not large — Kibbe estimated it to be around 10 percent.

The president noted that the video has reached “8.5 million views in 72 hours,” and called it “a phenomenon.” According to Facebook, the video has been shared nearly 212,000 times, and Kibbe said it has reached 20 million people.  He predicted that this video campaign will match “half a million people.”

“We’re also geo-targeting,” Kibbe added. “The views and the conversions are heavily weighted in states that we think matter for Gary Johnson: Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, Idaho, and New Hampshire.” His political action committee has invested $50,000 into boosting the video on social media, and Kibbe announced that they will be investing another $50,000 on Monday.

He emphasized that the growth of viral videos “is not linear,” and he set the goal high — at 100 million views over the next two weeks.

“To me the biggest challenge that Gary has right now is people knowing he exists,” Kibbe admitted. He said they launched the video at this time in order to boost Johnson’s poll numbers, so he might reach 15 percent nationwide and qualify for the first presidential debate on September 26 in New York City. “We think the next two or three weeks are decisive,” he said. “It would be tremendously helpful to get Gary Johnson on that stage.”

The Libertarian currently stands at 8 percent in the RealClearPolitics average.

Kibbe emphasized that social media and Internet movements like Balanced Rebellion have a real chance in today’s politics. “I think we’re at the cusp of a real paradigm shift, we’ve been seeing hints of it for years,” he told PJ Media. “Going back to Howard Dean using social media, Barack Obama beating Hillary Clinton, the Tea Party movement in 2010 — the two party duopoly is starting to break.”

The video listed three reasons why a third party candidate can win in 2016: the power of the Internet, where 1.7 billion people are on Facebook alone; Johnson’s history as a “balanced candidate,” a Republican governor of a Democrat state, winning votes from both sides; and because two-thirds of Americans have said they would vote for anyone besides Trump and Hillary, and Johnson is the only option on the ballot in all 50 states.

The Alternative PAC president admitted that the social media campaign is most likely to reach millennials, but he did not yet possess any data about the people he has reached so far. “The very fact that it’s a social media campaign on Facebook instead of a dusty old TV buy, it’s going to skew younger, and of course we think that’s an audience that’s very good for Gary Johnson.”

Next Page: Why Gary Johnson is a better bet for a conservative constitutionalist Supreme Court than Donald Trump.

In his interview with PJ Media, Kibbe also emphasized why conservatives should consider Gary Johnson a better option than Donald Trump for Supreme Court nominees. “If you’re looking for a candidate that’s viable, that will be on the ballot in all fifty states, there’s really only one constitutionalist, and that’s Gary Johnson,” he said.

“Whatever specific policy gives conservative constitutionalists heartburn, what we’re trying to convey is that if you want a president who respects limits on power, in that sense he’s quite in line with where Ted Cruz was.” Kibbe noted that Johnson has said “his test for Supreme Court nominees is the Constitution.” While Donald Trump has presented a strong list of potential nominees, his track record provides reason to doubt.

“I wonder if anybody knows what Donald Trump actually believes,” Kibbe said. “He’s been almost everywhere on every issue. His history of course is more liberal, but I think it would be naive to take any of his promises all that seriously, especially his list of Supreme Court nominees. He’s just telling people what they want to hear.”

Balanced Rebellion is “specifically targeting disaffected Sanders voters and disaffected Cruz voters,” the president explained. He listed crony capitalism, permanent war, and big bank bailouts as issues which bring liberals and conservatives together to back a Libertarian.

When it comes to liberals, Kibbe suggested that Clinton’s cronyism and her record of supporting “disastrous foreign interventions,” such as Iraq, the Patriot Act, and Libya, “fundamentally rubs Bernie Sanders supporters the wrong way.”

Conservatives should like Johnson because, as governor of New Mexico, he cut taxes 14 times and left the state with a billion dollar surplus. Liberals should like him because he also gave the state new highways, bridges, schools, and hospitals.

When asked about Bernie’s endorsement of Hillary, the Alternative PAC president argued that endorsements don’t “matter nearly so much as people think.” He argued that “these are philosophical movements,” tethered more to ideas than to influential political figures.

His video emphasizes this “strange bedfellows alliance.” The ad brings up many hilarious analogies:

You have to choose between a corrupt president or a crazy president. Like a two-horse race where one horse cheats, and the other one eats Muslims.

The Balanced Rebellion is a movement that actually gives the third party an actual chance. If you both vote Johnson, neither Trump nor Hillary gets an advantage, only America! It’s like Tinder, but not gross, and it can save America.

Did America waste its vote on Abe Freaking Lincoln? That’s right, I was third party, racists.

Hillary needs a NASCAR jacket to show her corporate sponsors. She’s a giant cuddly Pander bear. Trump’s business failures include: Trump airlines, Trump mortgage, Trump University, Trump steaks, Trump vodka, Trump ice, Trump magazine, Trump new media, the Trump network, Trump on the Ocean, Tour de Trump, and Trump the board game, which is apparently a game where you suck at business, name things after yourself, then become the president.

So you can choose the lady who helped create ISIS or the guy who talks like he’s in ISIS.

Check out the video, in all its cleverness, on the next page!