I first heard the name Austin Petersen when the 35-year-old libertarian maverick announced his campaign for president in October of 2015. I didn’t pay much attention because I was focused primarily on the endless sideshow that was the Republican race.
When it became clear that Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee, I began to search for other options. For the first time in my adult life, I simply couldn’t support the mainstream Republican candidate. While I certainly agreed with some of Trump’s talking points, there were others I found troubling. Add to that his deeply unsettling personality traits, and that was it.
I needed to find someone to vote for.
During my search for another candidate, I took a second look at Austin Petersen. I watched videos of the Libertarian Party debate on YouTube, as well as clips uploaded to social media by Petersen himself. To my surprise, I found myself agreeing with a great many of his policy positions.
While Petersen is part of the liberty movement, he doesn’t walk in lockstep with the Libertarian Party. He is pro-life, he rejects the non-aggression principle (NAP), and he stands strongly for religious liberty.
Petersen lost the LP presidential nomination to Gary Johnson — but that wasn’t the end of his political track. On July 4, 2017, Petersen announced his intention to run for the Senate as a Republican. If he wins the primary, he will face Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) in 2018.
The following is part I of my interview with Austin Petersen.
Origin Story & 2016 Loss
Petersen was pulled into politics by Ron Paul, whose 2008 presidential campaign inspired him. He became an “activist for the campaign, and volunteered for him.”
“I thought he was a terrific candidate, someone who represented what I believe. That’s what got me into politics.”
Regarding his convention loss to Johnson, Petersen flatly stated: “There is no doubt that I would have represented liberty philosophy in a better light.” That said, he believes “the Libertarian Party was making what they felt was a tactical and practical decision in giving the nomination to someone who had government experience.”
“I think that was a bit of a failure to read the tea leaves in what would have been a conservative victory year,” Petersen noted, “and I think that there wasn’t enough done to reach out to people who were unhappy with their presidential candidate. I think I would’ve represented the philosophy to a much better extent.”
Beating His Democratic Opponent
“Claire McCaskill is vulnerable because she’s shown that she’s out of touch with Missouri voters on many issues,” said Petersen. “She voted against Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court, who was very popular here in the state of Missouri. Also, she was the very first person to endorse Hillary Clinton way back in 2013. Clinton lost by 19 points in the state of Missouri. She was one of the key architects of Obamacare. Lastly, regarding issues on which her base would like her to be strong — like criminal justice reform — she’s out of touch.”
It’s for these reasons that Petersen believes he’s “in a unique position to challenge her.”
“I can win not only the Republican votes — as well as some independent votes because of my background in third-party politics — but also Democrat votes because she’s out of step with her own constituency on those issues.”
Abortion
Petersen is proudly pro-life, despite many in the liberty movement holding a different view.
“I had a change of heart on the issue several years ago before I ever contemplated running for public office,” Peterson said of his position on abortion. “I was listening to arguments from people like Ron Paul and Judge Andrew Napolitano — they had a perspective on life that had a deep impact on me. I also heard people like Christopher Hitchens (of all people) making pro-life arguments from a perspective of human rights. When I tried to gel those two different viewpoints — libertarian thought versus the arguments I was hearing — I realized that I was being inconsistent. I believe that being pro-life is libertarian because without life, there is no liberty.”
“That would be my biggest philosophical change of opinion,” Petersen added.
Breaking In
America’s two-party system is seen by many as an impediment to a philosophically competitive republic, and Petersen is no different:
“I think the party system is fairly locked in, unfortunately. A lot of the problems that third parties have are due to the fact that they don’t have proportional representation. California, for example, has a ‘top two’ primary system, which makes it virtually impossible for any third-party candidate to get to the general election. Unfortunately, due to the voting structures that we have, it necessarily begets the two-party system.”
Second Amendment
While many politicians, even conservatives, are squeamish about fully supporting the Second Amendment, Petersen has no such fear:
“The Second Amendment protects all the others. I like to say that I would overturn the National Firearms Act so fast your head would spin. The government has no right to take away our means of self-defense. It’s very important that we protect the Second Amendment because that is our last line of defense against tyranny. It’s not about hunting; it’s about defense against tyranny. I will absolutely defend our right to bear arms unquestionably.”
He joked: “I believe in a world where gay married couples can defend their marijuana fields with fully automatic machine guns.”
Regarding infringements, Petersen is rock steady: “I’m not in favor of expanding background checks; I’m not in favor of adding taxes. I’m in favor of overturning the National Firearms Act entirely. That includes the Reagan gun ban, that includes the assault weapons ban, that includes everything.”
When I brought up the typical arguments against automatic weapons and high-capacity firing capabilities, Petersen replied bluntly:
“Criminals aren’t going to obey the law. The reason we need assault rifles is in case you’re ever under assault. If you’ve got five or ten people assaulting you, people storming your home, your compound, or your property, and they’re using automatic weapons against you, you should have the right to defend yourself.”
“All these bans do is disarm law-abiding citizens in favor of criminals,” Petersen exclaimed. “The criminals weren’t going to obey the law in the first place. The purpose of the Second Amendment is that the good guys can defend themselves with the same tools the bad guys have, and that includes the government if a tyranny should arise.”
Criminal Justice
While many Republicans take no interest in criminal justice reform, Petersen sees our current system of mandatory minimum sentences as a perversion of the constitutional role of the Legislative Branch:
“On mandatory minimums, I think it’s a constitutional issue. We’ve gotten away from the original intent the Founding Fathers had when they set up our system. The original intent was that judges were supposed to determine the sentences. With mandatory minimums, we’re saying that we do not trust judges, so legislators — who will never come into contact with these criminals, who live in their gated communities, who are not out in the inner cities among the people — are legislating how long these people will serve in prison. That is a mistake. We should take that power from the legislature, and give it back to judges, where it rightfully belongs.”
Petersen also mentioned that he would have supported Senator Mike Lee’s criminal justice reform bill, adding that it’s “definitely a step in the right direction.”
It’s not just mandatory minimums that Petersen is focused on as a Republican candidate, however. “Civil asset forfeiture,” he said, “is an issue that should be fairly easy to rally conservatives behind because in some ways it’s simply legalized theft.”
Political Allies
When asked who in the House and Senate would be his closest ideological allies, Petersen laid out a quick list: “In the House, it’s a toss-up between Thomas Massie and Justin Amash. In the Senate, it would be Rand Paul and Mike Lee. I also find myself in agreement with Ben Sasse, Jeff Flake, and Ted Cruz.” He praised Lee specifically, extolling him as “someone who has a deep understanding of issues, and someone I deeply respect.”
Come back for parts II and III of this interview in which Austin Petersen talks about his positions on religious liberty, war, interventionism, whitewashing history, agnosticism, Christianity, taxation, and so much more!