I sat down with actor, writer, and Project X star Jonathan Daniel Brown to discuss why, as a Democrat, he won’t be voting for Hillary Clinton, and why a substantial amount of Bernie Sanders supporters are now starting to look elsewhere.
Charlie Nash: Judging by your Twitter account, you dislike the Clintons as much as every other sane guy, and you are now supporting the Green Party’s Jill Stein in the US presidential election. When was your red pill moment? When did you start to question the establishment, and Hillary Clinton in particular?
Jonathan Daniel Brown: I have never been a fan of the Clintons. I have always been much more left wing than the Democrats I’ve known. I’m certainly not a fan of the Republicans. I’m not a fan of Donald Trump. I highly dislike Donald Trump, but I don’t buy the Democratic argument that the Clintons are a lesser evil.
My moment when I started questioning the establishment? I mean I’ve always been a rebellious little shit. I got in a lot of trouble as a kid at school for talking back. I mean, I got good grades, but I had “poor behavior.” I just have an anti-authoritarian streak in me, and I see the Clintons as the authoritarians.
The way they have ran their campaign during the last year and a half, especially with the release of the WikiLeaks DNC leaks proving that there was collusion with the Democratic National Committee, is so underhanded and slimy to me. It’s not acceptable. So the reason I’m voting for Jill Stein is while I know realistically that this isn’t about winning an election, it’s about sending a message that you can’t spend a year and a half cheating 45% of the Democratic Party out of their shot, and then expect us to fall in line. I won’t do that. And while I think Donald Trump is a terrible candidate, and I don’t think he’d be a good president, the idea that he is more evil than Hillary Clinton… I’m not so sure about that.
The Democrats and the Republicans all take money from the same people, they work for the same people, and saying that will piss people off, but I don’t care. That’s how I feel.
CN: You used to support Bernie Sanders, who has now endorsed Hillary. What do you think about that whole situation? What do you think is the right thing for Bernie Sanders supporters to do now?
JDB: I spent a year and a half volunteering for the Bernie Sanders campaign, and he was a massive part of my life. His ideals are my ideals. But I think that it’s going to be a very hard pill to swallow for at least half of us.
I imagine about half of us will vote for Clinton, and then the other half will scatter. Just from people I’ve talked to, I think it’s about half. I think we’ve been pretty evenly split and half of us are just going all over the place.
I’ve talked to people who are voting for Gary Johnson, I’ve talked to a few people who are voting for Trump, I’ve talked to a few people that are voting for Jill Stein. I think we’re all just kind of going off.
I don’t think that Bernie Sanders’ campaign was in vain. I think that what he did proved mass corruption in our political system. And even though he didn’t win, I think he will probably be looked back on very kindly in history. I really do believe that.
CN: I know it seems silly to say that this election has been the least political because of the difference between the policies of the two major candidates at the moment, but it seems to have been predominantly about the establishment versus the anti-establishment…
JDB: I agree with you. This has been an election between the comments section versus the bloggers in a weird way. This has always been an election between the establishment and the anti-establishment. I don’t really know whether those dynamics are still in play now that Trump has been endorsed by the GOP, so that technically makes him the Republican establishment whether Paul Ryan and the others want to admit it or not, he’s now in charge of the Republicans, so does that make him anti-establishment still? I don’t know. I mean possibly, but at the same time if he’s now taking money from the RNC, who knows.
It’s difficult for me. The GOP when I was a kid were the ones who pushed us into war, they were anti-gay… but now you have Tim Kaine who has got a horrible record on social issues, so it’s very confusing.
Hillary Clinton was against gay marriage until I was 24 years old. It’s crazy to me. On the other hand, Donald Trump seems to have a decent record on gay people, but I’m not comfortable with his policies on immigration.
I understand where that anxiety is coming from. I don’t think everyone who is voting for him is a horrible bigot or racist, but I’m also not comfortable of those policies.
To read what Jonathan Daniel Brown had to say about #GamerGate, the mainstream media, social justice, and Twitter, make sure you check out part one of the interview here.
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.