Jeremy "Spike" Cohen (born June 28, 1982) is an American libertarian political activist, entrepreneur, and podcaster. He was the

Libertarian Party Active parties by country Defunct parties by country Organizations associated with Libertarian parties See also * Liberal parties by country * List of libertarian organizations * Lists of political parties Lists of political part ...

's nominee for

vice president of the United States The vice president of the United States (VPOTUS) is the second-highest officer in the executive branch of the U.S. federal government, after the president of the United States, and ranks first in the presidential line of succession. The vice ...

2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global social and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in t ...

, serving as

Jo Jorgensen Jo Jorgensen (born May 1, 1957) is an American libertarian political activist and academic. Jorgensen was the Libertarian Party's nominee for president of the United States in the 2020 election, in which she finished third in the popular vot ...

running mate A running mate is a person running together with another person on a joint ticket during an election. The term is most often used in reference to the person in the subordinate position (such as the vice presidential candidate running with a pr ...

Early life

Cohen was born in

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

in 1982. Cohen's father is Jewish, and he was raised as a

Messianic Jew Messianic Judaism ( he, or , ) is a modernist and syncretic movement of Protestant Christianity that incorporates some elements of Judaism and other Jewish traditions into evangelicalism. It emerged in the 1960s and 1970s from the earlier ...

, including having a Bar Mitzvah. He purports to have chosen the nickname "Spike" at the age of 3, after the

character Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...

from the 1986 children's film '' My Little Pony: The Movie''.

Career

In 1998, at the age of 16, Cohen began learning

web design Web design encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites. The different areas of web design include web graphic design; user interface design (UI design); authoring, including standardised code a ...

and subsequently started a profitable business within a few years.O’Sullivan, Joseph (September 7, 2020
"Libertarian Party vice presidential nominee Spike Cohen stumps in Western Washington, calls for ending ‘every single bad policy’ "
'' Seattle Times''. Retrieved September 17, 2020 In 2016, after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Cohen sold his web design business and turned his focus to libertarian activism. In 2017, Cohen retired from web design to focus on Libertarian messaging, entertainment, and activism. This culminated with him becoming the co-owner of, and a

podcaster A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing. ...

on, Muddied Waters Media. He is the co-host of ''The Muddied Waters of Freedom'', and the host of ''My Fellow Americans''.

2020 vice presidential campaign

Cohen ran as the proposed running mate of presidential candidate

Vermin Supreme Vermin Love Supreme (born 1960 or 1961) is an American performance artist and activist who has run as a candidate in various local, state, and national elections in the United States. He served as a member of the Libertarian Party's judicial c ...

in the 2020 Libertarian presidential primaries, and was actively involved in campaigning. On May 23, 2020, Supreme lost the Libertarian presidential nomination to Jo Jorgensen, but Cohen remained in the race for the party's vice presidential nomination. Jorgensen showed a preference for

John Monds John Monds (born June 17, 1965) is an American politician and activist. He was the Libertarian nominee for Governor of Georgia in 2010. He was the first African American to appear on the general election ballot for Governor of Georgia. In 200 ...

to be her running mate over Cohen and Ken Armstrong, but despite this, after three rounds of voting, Cohen defeated Monds with 533 delegate votes to Monds' 472. As the Libertarian Party's vice presidential nominee, Cohen became the first Jewish vice presidential nominee of a political party since

Joe Lieberman Joseph Isadore Lieberman (; born February 24, 1942) is an American politician, lobbyist, and attorney who served as a United States senator from Connecticut from 1989 to 2013. A former member of the Democratic Party, he was its nominee for ...

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

Political positions

Cohen has asserted that his and Jorgensen's platform was derived from the Libertarian Party platform. This includes reducing the national debt by reducing the size of government, extensive criminal justice reform and the immediate release of those incarcerated for victimless crimes, demilitarization of the police and the creation of police accountability programs. Cohen supports

presidential pardon A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the j ...

s for Julian Assange,

Chelsea Manning Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning; December 17, 1987) is an American activist and whistleblower. She is a former United States Army soldier who was convicted by court-martial in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage A ...

, Edward Snowden,

Ross Ulbricht Ross William Ulbricht (born March 27, 1984) is an American serving life imprisonment for creating and operating the darknet market website Silk Road from 2011 until his arrest in 2013. The site operated as a hidden service on the Tor network ...

, and

Leonard Peltier Leonard Peltier (born September 12, 1944) is a Native American activist and militant member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) who, following a controversial trial, was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of two Fe ...

. Cohen, a former ally of

performance artist Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

and

perennial candidate A perennial candidate is a political candidate who frequently runs for elected office and rarely, if ever, wins. Perennial candidates' existence lies in the fact that in some countries, there are no laws that limit a number of times a person can ...

, ran during his vice presidential primary campaign on a largely satirical platform promoting free ponies, mandatory tooth brushing, "zombie power", killing "baby

Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

" and "baby

Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...

", and promoting anarchy. Cohen promised that should these not be achieved within the first 100 days of his vice presidency, he would resign and be replaced with Baby Yoda. After officially receiving the Libertarian vice presidential nomination, Cohen acknowledged that such humor tactics were "all fun satire to bring people in", adding "(t)hen you hit them with the actual message. The actual Libertarian message of self-ownership and non-aggression and voluntary solutions and property rights, and so forth."

Personal life

Cohen has been married to his wife, Tasha, since 2010. He lives in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cohen, Spike 1982 births Living people 2020 United States vice-presidential candidates Activists from South Carolina American anarcho-capitalists American podcasters Businesspeople from South Carolina Jewish American candidates for Vice President of the United States Libertarian Party (United States) vice presidential nominees Messianic Jews Politicians from Baltimore People from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina People with multiple sclerosis South Carolina Libertarians