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I’m with #WomenWhoVoteTrump, Otherwise I’m Stuck with Clinton
Elections are choices, and next month, the American people will effectively choose one of two people to become America’s next president, either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.
The most recent polls suggest that many Americans are rethinking whether they should support Trump over Clinton because of his crude 2005 interview with Billy Bush, mitigated by his debate performance, but then tested again with allegations of unwanted groping and kissing by assorted women.
We don’t know if the allegations are true — Trump has denied them. But the video is real. And I certainly found Trump’s remarks reprehensible. It’s repulsive to hear a grown man treat women as objects and so cavalierly discuss pursuing women as if they were just points on an ego scoreboard. But it’s also not a surprise.
I grew up with New York tabloids talking about Trump, and paid attention during the primaries — seriously, who can be shocked that in a private setting he talked this way?
But this election, to an even greater degree than most, is not about electing a candidate I like, but one that I dislike less, who will do a less-bad job as president.
There certainly are things Trump could do to lose my support. If the media, for instance, unearthed a recent speech in which Trump said that the public positions on key policy issues are different than his real private views, I’d be rethinking my support.
But that’s not what Trump did, it’s Clinton who proudly admitted to being two-faced on some policy issues.
If the media found an interview with him cheerleading wide open borders, gutting gun rights, or creating a single-payer health care system, I’d have a problem.
If he thought that the president should be able to rewrite major laws through executive orders and the labyrinth of agencies ceaselessly generating regulations that would have me worried.
If he was promising to continue the failed economic policies that have enriched the politically-connected in Washington while destroying opportunity for those in inner cities and Middle America, and making everyday life ever more expensive, that would give me pause.
But those aren’t Trump’s positions — they are Clinton’s.
If Trump said that he would only select judges who thought their job was to advance a liberal political agenda rather than defending the Constitution and leave legislating to the people and their elected representatives, I would hesitate. But that’s not what he has promised; it’s what Clinton promises.
I might decide that Trump wasn’t fit for office if the media uncovered documents that showed that Trump hadn’t actually made his money building his businesses, but rather had amassed millions by using a government position to wring hefty payments for speeches and for his foundation from bankers and foreign governments.
But it wasn’t Trump who built a fortune exploiting government power — that was Clinton and her family.
I might be concerned if we knew that once Trump was in office, the deep institutional self-serving corruption which has corroded the integrity of the IRS, the VA, apparently the State Department, and now the FBI, would continue. Because countries survive bad leaders, but once their institutions become deeply corrupt, restoring integrity and trust is incredibly difficult.
But Trump is the broom to clean out the Augean stables that is Washington — it’s Clinton who is the embodiment of this cozy, unscrupulous dishonesty.
I’d be worried if I thought that in a Trump presidency the media would downplay all scandals and evidence of corruption and abuse of power.
But we know that the media will be the most attentive watch dog if Trump is president, followed by many in the GOP themselves, ready to pounce on anything that would be remotely out of bounds, while Clinton will enjoy the same sycophantic treatment that she always enjoyed: Excuses of misplaced evidence are accepted, repeated claims of not remembering when deposed are not a matter of concern, and complaints of corruption and wrongdoing poo-pooed as mindless conspiracy theories or dismissed as old news.
New Clinton email describes @maggieNYT as a “friendly journalist” who has “teed up” stories and “never disappointed” https://t.co/HL67S6vjKW
— The Intercept (@theintercept) October 9, 2016
I’d be appalled if Trump truly disrespected women: If I learned he was complacent about practices that would put the nation’s — and women’s — security at risk, or if I saw him asking women on his staff to do illegal things, like destroying evidence, to protect his sorry self.
Or if I saw him lying to women across the country that they could keep their healthcare and their doctors and their costs would go down, or hear him call large numbers of women “deplorable” and “irredeemable,” or touting that he had hired women because they were women, not because they were individuals who were good at what they do.
But Trump doesn’t disrespect the women in his life, his business, on the campaign trail, or in this nation; it is Hillary who jeopardizes us, lies to us, and disrespects us, and who is the worse role model for my children.
Yes, just about everyone has said that this is an election of imperfect choices. That’s true. Yet for me, it’s still an easy choice to make.
Voting for Trump does not mean condoning his lewd comments or behavior, it simply means faced with two choices, one is clearly better than the other.
When it comes to rebuilding the economy so that it works for American families, having a court that adheres to the Constitution and respects the will of the people, and creating a government that is accountable to the people and not corrupted by its service of the politically-connected, Trump is far superior to Hillary on just about every measure.
Cross-posted at The Hill.
Published in General
Well done!!
Yep. And there’s this: I missed the intro and didn’t recognize the voice, but there was a guest host on Mark Levin’s show on Friday (maybe Inga Barks, she fills in for Levin on occasion.)
She said that what’s going on now is a voter suppression effort. Not “get out the vote,” but discourage your opponents’ lukewarm voters from voting for him/her or even at all. The persuasion equivalent of slashing your opponent’s voters’ tires on election morning.
One of the points that Scott Adams has been making for over a year is that while we like to think that we make reasoned decisions, we mostly don’t.
Don’t think that just because you’re smart you can’t be swayed by advertising or other propaganda. You can. You knew that whoever was opposing Hillary was going to be the target of a very well funded and corrosive negative campaign. That hasn’t changed just because it’s Trump opposing her.
Yes it is! Thank you HeatherHiggins.
True that if a flawless candidate was running against Hillary, there would be a smear campaign against him. But in this case, what is said about Trump is well earned and deserved. They had to do very little work. Trump is the opponent who keeps on giving. The fact that the Dem machine can be dishonest (so can the GOP machine by the way) doesn’t mean that the Rep candidate is all innocent.
The point isn’t to decry “dishonesty” in the Dem machine. I must say I was shocked, shocked to learn of it.
But the best advertising, the best propaganda, the best lies, have a kernel of truth. The point is: do not underestimate the extent to which not your thinking but your feeling is influenced by the negative campaigning, do not underestimate the extent to which your decision making is based on feelings and do not overestimate the rather small extent to which most of your decision making is actually based on facts and logic. That isn’t always a bad thing, of course.
The best thing is to be aware of the limitations of the available facts and the extent to which logic is even a useful tool for a given set of facts. It often isn’t. But smart people who overestimate the extent to which they are using logic can be pretty easy to con. Especially when some very skilled people are helping them do the overestimation.
I just came across this which reinforces the fact of bipartisan dishonesty, (unless it’s a troll/false flag…) Before you calibrate your BS detector to read it, first quantify your hatred of Hillary and of Trump. Evaluate the document accordingly.
One might even state this more circumspectly: “… one (choice) clearly has a much higher probability of yielding outcomes more consistent with my political values than the other.”
However it’s stated, it will probably remain a life-long mystery why otherwise sensible people like Jonah Goldberg and Stephen Hayes cannot see past their disdain for Trump to this simple reality. No matter how awful Trump is—or even may become as President—a dispassionate assessment of probabilities makes him the better choice. This assumes, of course, one favors conservative political outcomes—which of course those two gentlemen do, hence the mystery.
Well said and thank you @heatherhiggins
How is Hillary saying in speeches something different from what she says right now in any way different from Trump abandoning his entire belief system at age 70?
The theme of “GOP base distrusts Washington” seemed to drive a lot of Trump’s appeal. If we can’t trust Republicans who said their whole lives they agreed with us, then why can we trust this man who started saying what we wanted to hear ~15 minutes ago?
Trump’s “entire belief system” has been “What’s best for me?” It’s the exact same for Hillary Clinton. The difference is what’s best for Trump now is building a wall, defending our sovereignty, creating jobs for low skilled workers, nominating conservatives to SCOTUS, repealing Obamacare, etc, etc. He may not do any of that, but he’s likely to do at least some of it. Hillary guarantees she’ll not do any of it . . . promises to do the opposite.
They are both despicable human beings. That doesn’t change the fact one or the other will be your next President. Choose wisely.
Last time we ran a boy scout (!) and the democrat media (is there any other kind?) painted him as the worst of the worst – and even managed to throw mud on his most lovely wife Ann.
Romney gave time and money to charity his whole life, while B Obama only talked about it – and actual giving only started when he ran for national office. Ann was a lovely and devoted mother, also giving time to charity, but she was vilified while Michelle is given credit for being a wonderful mother type (I personally didn’t see it – she was ok in that department – but certainly not a role model).
So very true. Our candidate is always villified, and we just turn tail and run. Not this time.
Thank you so much for the OP Heather. No one could have said it better.
Thank you Lily, b/c this is one of the more bizarre fantasies I hear from supposedly center-right sources: Somehow it would be different if it weren’t the “flawed candidate” Trump . . . all we needed was a non-flawed candidate, right? THERE’S NO SUCH THING, but as you point out probably the closest ever had to be Romney and it made not one wit of difference. This is why I think it’s only trolls pushing this theme . . . it’s too nonsensical to be sincere.
Democrats consistently out-smart the GOP duffers in political warfare every four years. Now they’ve effected the demographic change that has them on the verge of a permanent majority. Yet even now the GOP can’t seem to ever anticipate the obvious acts of political warfare that Democrats will employ. #Sad.
I think you have been hoisted with your own petard here: Why would doing any of that be what’s best for him as president? What would be best would be to Arnold-style reach across the aisle and reach bipartisan agreements on increasing corporate regulation, and nominating moderates to the Court. You concede his entire platform is that which helps him – why would he not help himself as president by being a moderate and big-spender, intervening in the economy at random like FDR?
BTW, the low skilled jobs aren’t coming back at good wages, or at all, no matter how many dumb trade laws they pass – they are coming back with robots doing the work. Demands on employers of big spending on benefits and HR compliance means this: why would any employer not automate when they could?
The document could be authentic. Don’t discount it so easily unless you have evidence that it is not authentic. Let us judge for ourselves.
I gave you 5 reasons why it’s utter crap.This is standard internet hoax 101. People are so desperate right now they’re losing complete control of any discretion they may have had. This is the result of being played by a long con. Trump voters are just the next iteration of Trump University Alumni.
People who post and believe this kind of garbage are embarrassing themselves and Ricochet itself.
It doesn’t even really matter if it’s crap or not. Beck and Kristol are not a pair of shining lights for those of us in pursuit of freedom.
I submit that document may be garbage; on the other hand, it may not be. Let us decide for ourselves. Each side in the campaign is throwing whatever they can at the electorate right now in hopes it will stick. Since we have no problem with posts about unprovable complaints from women over 30 years ago, why should we not allow documents of questionable provenance.
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Good post @HeatherHiggins. It is baffling to me that anyone would choose to elect the thoroughly corrupt one over the crude one. Nether trait is wonderful. Crudity is individually destructive. Corruption is destructive to the republic.
First character didn’t matter, now truth doesn’t matter. How long until freedom itself must also be thrown overboard in order to achieve your ends and destroy your perceived enemies?
I’m voting ‘crude’ over ‘corrupt’ and Trump gets my vote.
I think the Billy Bush tapes do go too far. It’s funny how both Trump and Hilary have corrupt charitable foundations, are pathological liars, rumored be in bad health, have legions of sex scandals in their pasts, and in general suck as human beings.
I think I may skip voting this time around. What a terrible election.
Ditto
The Crude vs. Corrupt calculation is false. Both of these candidates have proven themselves corrupt at every point in their adult life.
It’d be more correctly calculated as corrupt, lying, sociopath robot rape apologist with possible signs of early onset dementia vs. corrupt, lying, sociopath sexually assaulting orangutan with acute narcissistic personality disorder.
Very cute, and wholly unpersuasive. Your statement is as truthful as that guy above with the invoice listing Glenn Beck and Bill Kristol as payees from the Clinton Foundation. BTW, did you even read @heatherhiggins article? , Excellent job Ms Higgins.
Interesting that the best arguments for voting for Trump are exactly the same we’d make if Jeb Bush or even Mitch McConnell were running. They are not Hillary.
This statement is ludicrous.