When you hear the name Gary Johnson, what do you think of? Chances are that you think of either Aleppo or foreign leaders (or lack their of). We have all seen the video of Gary Johnson asked what Aleppo was, and many people claimed that was their reason for not voting for him. Did you see the rest of the video, before or after that 10 second clip? Have you wondered why they didn’t share the whole video everywhere? It is actually pretty simple. It would have shown you that he was not the clueless candidate they wanted you to think he was. The Aleppo question was completely unrelated to the previous topic, and once Gary regrouped, he actually gave an answer that made perfect sense. Here is the text, brought to you from Time.com.
BARNICLE: What would you do, if you were elected, about Aleppo?
JOHNSON: About?
BARNICLE: Aleppo.
JOHNSON: And what is Aleppo?
BARNICLE: You’re kidding.
JOHNSON: No.
BARNICLE: Aleppo is in Syria. It’s the — it’s the epicenter of the refugee crisis.
JOHNSON: OK, got it, got it.
BARNICLE: OK.
JOHNSON: Well, with regard to Syria, I do think that it’s a mess. I think that the only way that we deal with Syria is to join hands with Russia to diplomatically bring that at an end. But when we’ve aligned ourselves with — when we’ve supported the opposition of the Free Syrian Army — the Free Syrian Army is also coupled with the Islamists.
And then the fact that we’re also supporting the Kurds and this is — it’s just — it’s just a mess. And that this is the result of regime change that we end up supporting. And, inevitably, these regime changes have led a less-safe world.
GEIST: So alliance with Russia is the solution to Syria. Do you think Vladimir Putin and Russia are good and a reliable partner?
JOHNSON: Well, I think diplomatically that that is the — that that has to be the solution, is joining hands with Russia to bring — to bring this civil war to an end.
BRZEZINSKI: Joe?
SCARBOROUGH: So, Aleppo is the center of a lot of people’s concerns across the planet about the terrible humanitarian crisis that’s unfolding not only in Syria but, especially, in Aleppo.
You asked, “What is Aleppo?” Do you really think that foreign policy is so insignificant that somebody running for President of the United States shouldn’t even know what Aleppo is, where Aleppo is, why Aleppo is so important?
JOHNSON: Well, no, I do understand Aleppo, and I — I understand the crisis that is going on. But when we involve ourselves militarily — when we involve ourselves in these humanitarian issues we end up — we end up with a situation that in most cases is not better, and in many cases ends up being worse.
And we find ourselves always — politicians are up against the wall and asked what to do about these things and this is why we end up committing military force in areas that, like I say, at the end of the day have an unintended consequence of making things worse.
I don’t know about you, but that seems like a pretty good answer to me. Think about what just happened! He acknowledged that he was confused (instead of spitting out gibberish like most politicians would have done), and then gave a real answer, an answer that actually answered the question. AMAZING!
Now, the second thing Gary Johnson became famous for. September 28th, 2016, Johnson was asked about his favorite foreign leader. As he said himself, he had an “Aleppo moment. He was trying to think of the name of the former president of Mexico, but couldn’t think of his name. For this, he was torn apart. The biggest thing people have said to me has been, “Why didn’t he just name anyone, any foreign leader?” The answer is simple. It is because he had a specific person he was thinking of, and just naming anyone would not have been naming who he looks up to. Again, he didn’t just spit out a random answer. He knew who he wanted to say, and, seeing as how he has morals, he wanted to list that specific person.
The simplest way to put it is this. I voted for Gary Johnson because he was the only candidate that I respected as a person.
