Articles of Unity

The Articles of Unity, also known as Unity 2020, is a grass roots political movement started by the public intellectual and evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein that seeks to provide an alternative ticket for the 2020 United States presidential election to avoid electing either Joe Biden or Donald Trump.  The Unity 2020 ticket will consist of two candidates drafted from the left and the right who have agreed to govern as a team with the president of the ticket being chosen by a coin flip.  They would try to make decisions by consensus and the president would only make a decision in a case that there could not be consensus or in the case of an emergency. Unity 2020 has currently selected Tulsi Gabbard and Dan Crenshaw to be the two candidates but neither person has yet to state publicly if they will run on the ticket. They currently plan to gain ballot access in all 50 states by working with third-parties that already have ballot access and running on their ticket.

Beginnings

 

Bret Weinstein first proposed Unity 2020 by posting a whitepaper entitled "Articles of Unity: A Patriotic Plan To Save Our Republic" on the website Medium on June 29, 2020 that outlined the basic tenets of the proposal^[1].  The largest announcement was on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast episode #1494 on June 18, 2020^[2]

Motivation

According to Weinstein, The Articles of Unity and the Unity 2020 movement stems out of a concern that the current Democratic and Republican parties in the United States are consumed by extreme partisanship and show a lack of leadership at the highest levels of government.^[3] In an interview with the National Review, Weinstein argued that many Americans are concerned about corruption, unhappy with the options offered by the two party system, and that that there are a large number of Americans that fall into the “exhausted majority”, which consists of Americans with political opinions between the far left and far right can form the base of support for the Unity 2020 movement for the 2020 United States presidential election.^[4][5]

Concept

 

Articles of Unity poster on lamp post, Los Angeles, September 2020

Bret Weinstein has discussed the Articles of Unity on multiple media outlets.  The concept behind Articles of Unity, as described on its website^[6], is that two candidates would be drafted from the left and the right.  A coin flip decides who runs at the top of the ticket as president.  When elected they would agree to govern as a team.  Only when they do not agree or in the case of war or emergency can the president make a decision without consultation with the vice president.  After four years, the president and vice president would trade positions.

Bret Weinstein outlines three minimum criteria for the two candidates, although he does not defined the qualities in detail:

1. Patriotic
2. Highly capable
3. Courageous

The Articles of Unity and the Unity 2020 movement claims that this plan can avoid being a spoiler for the 2020 United States presidential election because it disempowers both Democratic and Republican parties by drawing candidates from both sides of the political divide. There is also a fail safe; if there is no viable path to the presidency for the Unity 2020 ticket then the race will be suspended. They have publicly stated that their ballot access plan for all 50 states involves teaming up with third-party tickets that are already on the ballot and then running on the same ticket^[7].

Articles of Unity and Unity 2020 in the media

Since announcing this on The Joe Rogan Experience, Bret Weinstein has appeared on many media outlets discussing the idea, such as the National Review,^[4] Rising,^[8] Tucker Carlson Tonight, ^[9] the Triggernometry podcast,^[10] and others. Big Think and Reason have also published content about the idea.^{[11][12][non-primary source needed]}

In August, Twitter banned the Articles of Unity account.^[13][14][15]

History of similar ideas in the United States

There is a history of people proposing similar ideas to Unity 2020 in United States history.^[16]

John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, seriously consider picking senator Joe Lieberman as his vice-presidential running mate but did not based on advice from his advisors that it would divide the Republican party and harm his chances at the White House.^[17] McCain regretted this decision and later said that it was "another mistake that I made [in my political career]"^[18] and that "my gut told me to ignore [the advice] and I wish I had".^[17]

Abraham Lincoln in the highly contested 1864 United States presidential election replaced his vice-president with the Democrat Andrew Johnson and ran on the "National Unity" ticket instead of the Republican ticket.^[19]

List of endorsements

• Melissa Chen^[20] (journalist)
• Nate Boyer^[21] (former professional American football player and Green Beret)
• Eric Weinstein^[22] (managing director at Thiel Capital and podcast host)

External links

• Articles of Unity Website

References

1. #Unity2020 (June 29, 2020). "The Articles of Unity". Medium.
2. "Joe Rogan Experience #1494 – Bret Weinstein". www.youtube.com. June 18, 2020. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
3. #Unity2020 (June 29, 2020). "The Articles of Unity". Medium. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
4. NR Interview (July 30, 2020). "The Unity 2020 Ticket: An Interview with Bret Weinstein". National Review.
5. Hawkins, Stephen; Yudkin, Daniel; Juan-Torres, Míriam; Dixon, Tim (2018). Hidden Tribes: A Study of America's Polarized Landscape. More in Common.
6. "The Vision". Unity2020. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
7. "Unity2020 Ballot Access Plan". Articles of Unity youtube channel. September 1, 2020.
8. "Rising – The Hill TV- Unity 2020 Plan". www.youtube.com. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
9. "Bret Weinstein Introduces the Unity 2020 Plan on Tucker Carlson Tonight". www.youtube.com. June 29, 2020.
10. Kisin, Konstantin; Foster, Francis. "Bret Weinstein – We Can Stop a Civil War". Triggernometry. Retrieved 2020-08-29.
11. "How #Unity2020 plans to end the two-party system, bring back Andrew Yang". Big Think. 2020-07-02. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
12. Weissmueller, Zach (2020-08-28). "Can the Republican Party Survive Trump?". Reason.com (published August 28, 2020). Retrieved 2020-08-29.
13. Harper, Cindy (2020-08-31). "Twitter suspends account of non-partisan group Articles of Unity". Reclaim The Net. Retrieved 2020-09-03.
14. "Rising on The Hill TV – Bret Weinstein: How Twitter Is Censoring A Third Party Effort" (published September 12, 2020). September 13, 2020.
15. Homan, Timothy R. (2020-09-11). "Grassroots activist describes frustration with Twitter over account suspension". The Hill. Retrieved 2020-09-14.
16. Wheelan, Nick Troiano and Charles. "The last presidential 'unity ticket' was in 1864. We need another bipartisan pair in 2020". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2020-09-05.
17. Martin, Jonathan (2018-05-05). "At His Ranch, John McCain Shares Memories and Regrets With Friends". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-09-05.
18. Yilek, Caitlin (2018-05-05). "John McCain regrets choosing Sarah Palin as 2008 running mate over Joe Lieberman". Washington Examiner. Retrieved 2020-09-05.
19. Greenspan, Jesse. "Lincoln's Hard-Fought Civil War Re-Election, 150 Years Ago". HISTORY. Retrieved 2020-09-05.
20. "Melissa Chen twitter account". Twitter. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
21. "Unity2020 Campfire With Bret Weinstein, John Wood Jr. & Nate Boyer". www.youtube.com. August 12, 2020.
22. "Unity 2020 Campfire Discussion – Bret and Eric Weinstein". www.youtube.com. August 5, 2020.