Bill Weld: Elect Trump and Risk Being ‘Enslaved’

William Weld by Gage Skidmore on Flickr/Creative Commons

While one prominent New England Republican thinks the country needs someone like Donald Trump to show some “authoritarian power,” a (newly) Libertarian one says voting for him could lead to enslavement.

Bill Weld, the former Massachusetts governor and current running mate to Gary Johnson, made his dramatic assessment of the future under Trump at a meeting of the Harvard Republicans, a group at his alma mater that has for the first time ever elected not to endorse a candidate from the GOP.

Here’s Weld, who used to be a Republican (and may soon be one again) as quoted in the Herald today talking about history’s empires that descended from dictatorship to ruin:

‘The man on horseback comes along, people say you’re the only one who can save us and then they’re enslaved,’ Weld said. ‘And I think that could happen this year with a Trump presidency.’

The visit to Cambridge comes after suggestions in the Globe that Weld may be more motivated by stopping Trump from getting to the White House than by getting there himself, a claim that followed Johnson’s whiffs on foreign policy and polls suggesting that Trump was ascendant. The notoriously unpredictable Weld even said he would consider helping Republicans after the election is over (he pledged previously to be a “Libertarian for life“). He later countered that Globe story on Facebook, writing that he was committed to helping Johnson get elected and adding that, “My Libertarian hat is firmly planted on my head, and will remain there.”

At Harvard last night, he also cited the claim he’s been making throughout his tenure on the Johnson ticket: That perhaps the candidates the two-party system has produced this year are a sign it’s time for something different. “I think we’d be a long, cool glass of water,” he said, according to the Harvard Crimson. “We would have the best of the Republican Party and the best of the Democratic Party in our administration. … Cut taxes, reduce government spending, and reduce the deficit. That’s our plan.”