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An Open Letter to the NeverTrumpers from a Sympathizer
I am not here to condemn the NeverTrumpers. I share their instincts. Donald Trump is — I will not put a fine point on it — a swine. I followed him in the tabloids haphazardly in the mid-1990s when I was a visiting professor at Yale and took coffee each morning at a Lesbian-operated place in New Haven where the tabloids were always lying around. He was then and is now a man who revels in adultery. I was not surprised about his conversation with Billy Bush. I would even bet that he had similar conversations on the links with Hillary Clinton’s husband. He is seventy years old, and he is still engaged in the kind of banter typical of eighth-grade male hot dogs. Put simply, like Charming Billy, he never really grew up. But, unlike the Big Dawg, he has almost no impulse control. If you attack him for anything, you will set him off, and you will get schoolboy taunts in return. The man is desperately insecure.
He is also no conservative. He has no understanding of the road that we are on fiscally. As a businessman, he borrowed and borrowed and borrowed, and his lawyers arranged things so that, when his enterprises went bankrupt, someone else was left holding the bag. If he becomes President, that someone else is apt to be you and I.
He has no knowledge of foreign affairs, no sense of the fragility of the international order. He has instincts, not ideas. He is understandably annoyed that our allies contribute little to the common defense. But he does not appreciate the degree to which our well-being in the long run is tied up with our alliances. In office, if unrestrained, he could do great damage. He could take us back to the isolationism of the 1920s and the 1930s. Plenty of people on both the left and the right already long for that. The generation that now commands the stage has no memory of World War II and its origins, much less the Cold War.
But, I would suggest to the NeverTrumpers, you should hold your nose and vote for the slimeball anyway. I offer you two reasons: Hillary Clinton & the Democratic Party.
The second may be the more important. For, let’s face it. The lady is not well. Her doctors are lying to us. And she is not apt to last more than eighteen months — which means that, if she is elected, we are apt to have Tim Kaine, an admirer of liberation theology, for our president.
More to the point, however, whether she lives on and on or not, hers will be Barack Obama’s third term. Obamacare will be fully institutionalized and any reforms that are made will put us further on the slippery slope to a single-payer system. Think about it: you can have medical care as good as that which the federal government provides to veterans. To be sure, Trump has blathered nonsense about this at one time or another. But he is running for President today as an opponent of Obamacare.
That is not, however, the most important matter at stake. The real issue is whether in the future we will have open discussion of political issues and free elections. Think about what we have now — a federal bureaucracy that is fiercely partisan. An IRS that tries to regulate speech by denying on a partisan basis tax-exempt status to conservative organizations. A Department of State that hides the fact that its head is not observing the rules to which everyone else is held concerning security of communications and that colludes with a Presidential campaign to prevent the release of embarrassing information. A Department of Justice that ought to be renamed as the Department of Injustice, which does its level best to suppress investigations that might embarrass the likely nominee of the Democratic Party. An assistant attorney general that gives a “heads up” to that lady’s campaign. An Attorney General who meets on the sly with her husband shortly before the decision is made whether she is to be indicted. A federal department that promotes racial strife and hostility to the police in the interests of solidifying for the Democrats the African-American vote.
Think about what else we have now — a press corps that colludes with a campaign, allowing figures in the Clinton campaign to edit what they publish. Television reporters who send the questions apt to be asked at the presidential debates to one campaign. A media that is totally in the tank for one party, downplaying or suppressing news that might make trouble for that party, inventing false stories about the candidates nominated by the other party, managing the news, manipulating the public, promoting in the party not favored the nomination of a clown, protecting the utterly corrupt nominee of the other party from scrutiny.
Let’s add to this the fact that the Democratic Party is intent on opening our borders and on signing up illegal aliens to vote. If you do not believe me, read what Wikileaks has revealed about the intentions of Tony Podesta. Barack Obama promised to “fundamentally change America.” He called his administration “The New Foundation.” Well, all that you have to do to achieve this is to alter the population.
To this, I can add something else. Freedom of speech is under attack. Forty-four Senators, all of them Democrats, voted not long ago for an amendment to the Constitution that would hem in the First Amendment. Ostensibly aimed at corporate speech, this would open the doors to the regulation of all speech. The Democratic members of the Federal Election Commission have pressed for regulating the internet — for treating blogposts as political contributions and restricting them. Members of the Civil Rights Commission have argued that freedom of speech and religious freedom must give way to social justice. There is an almost universal move on our college campuses to shut down dissent — among students, who must be afforded “safe spaces,” and, of course, in the classroom as well. There, academic freedom is a dead letter; and, in practice, despite the courts, in our public universities, the First Amendment does not apply.
We entered on a slippery slope some time ago when the legislatures passed and courts accepted laws against so-called “hate crimes” — that punished not only the deed but added further penalties for the thought. Now we are told that “hate speech” cannot be tolerated — which sounds fine until one realizes that what they have in mind rules out any discussion of subjects such as the propriety of same-sex marriage, sluttishness, and abortion; of the damage done African-American communities by irresponsible behavior on the part of fathers; and of the manner in which Islam, insofar as it is a religion of holy law, may be incompatible with liberal democracy. If you do not think that a discussion of these matters is off limits, you are, as the Democratic nominee put it not long ago, “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic.” You are “deplorable and irredeemable.” You are, as she said this week, “negative, dark, and divisive with a dangerous vision.” It is a short distance from demonization to suppression. And, let’s face it, the suppression has begun — in our newspapers, on television, on our campuses, on Facebook, on Reddit, in Google searches.
One more point. The courts are now partisan. Thanks to Barack Obama’s appointees, in many parts of the country, the circuit courts have ruled out expecting people to present picture IDs when they vote. Elsewhere — for example, in Michigan — the circuit courts have ruled out eliminating straight-line party voting. All of this is aimed at partisan advantage — at making voter fraud easy and at encouraging straight-line voting on the part of those not literate in English. Who knows what the courts will do if the Democrats can get a commanding majority on the Supreme Court? We have already had all sorts of madness shoved down our throats by those who legislate from the bench. If you think that it has gone about as far as it goes, you do not know today’s Democratic Party. I doubt very much whether the Democrats will really try to shove through a constitutional amendment in effect revoking the protections extended to speech and religion in the First Amendment. That would be too controversial. They will do it, as they have done many other things, through the courts. Can we tolerate “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic” speech — speech that is “deplorable and irredeemable,” that is “negative, dark, and divisive with a dangerous vision?” Surely, surely not. And this would be easy. If we can punish the “hate” in “hate crimes,” why not punish it or outlaw it in speech? All that you have to do is to “reinterpret” the First Amendment.
We live, moreover, in a world of rampant prosecutorial indiscretion — where a Clinton, guilty of something that would have put anyone else in jail, gets off without an indictment and a Bob McDonnell, who has done nothing illegal, is prosecuted to the hilt. We live in a world in which colleges and universities are pressed to use kangaroo-court procedures in adjudicating the love-life of randy undergraduates and in which only the man can be held responsible for the tomfoolery that both are engaged in.
Need I go on? If Trump is elected President, this is apt to end. The man has been burned. This campaign has been an education for him. If Hillary is elected President, this will not only go on. It will deepen. That is a certainty.
As for Hillary herself, what should I say. She worked for the investigation that nailed Richard Nixon, and she was fired for lying. She put her cronies from Arkansas in charge of the White House Travel Office, driving out nonpartisan folks who had been serving everyone well for thirty years, and to cover her indecent behavior, she sicced the FBI on these hapless folks. At her behest, the head of the office was tried for malfeasance and, of course, ruined financially — though he was found not guilty. Think about what she did: she destroyed the lives of ordinary, innocent folk for her own convenience.
I will not go on about what she did to the women foolish enough to fall prey to the allure of her husband — though that, too, says much about her willingness to damage others for her own convenience.
She is also inept. In her husband’s administration, she pushed single-payer and nearly brought Charming Billy down. In the Obama administration, she pushed an intervention in Libya that soon turned quite sour. And when the ambassador who had begged for more security lost his life, she deflected responsibility from herself by blaming it all on a hapless Egyptian Copt who had made a short film that nobody had hitherto noticed, and she and her colleagues in the Obama administration saw to his imprisonment.
As Secretary of State — in conjunction with the Clinton Global Initiative and what Doug Band calls “Bill Clinton, Inc.” — she ran a shakedown operation aimed at enriching her family and illegally raising money from foreign donors to pay for her Presidential campaign in waiting. To get around the Freedom of Information Act, she did all of her business by email on a server kept in her home that the world’s intelligence agencies could and did hack. In short, she is both corrupt and irresponsible.
Is Donald Trump unfit to be President? I fear so. Is Hillary Clinton unfit to be President? As Nancy Pelosi would say, “Are you kidding? Are you kidding?”
So we must choose. I suggest that we swallow our pride and pick the lesser evil.
Is it not obvious when you think through everything which of the two is the lesser evil? Both will do damage. Both will do serious damage. Neither is admirable. But Donald Trump is apt to do less damage.
I realize that what I have said is not reassuring. But we should not succumb to wishful thinking.
Nonetheless, for all of his failings, Trump will do some very good things. And, in his way, he has already done some good — by forcing Americans to think about issues that we are forbidden to discuss.
We are in for a bad four years. But there is nonetheless bad and there is worse. Unpleasant though it may be, it is better to pick bad. I will not tell you that a vote for Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, or Egg McMuffin is a vote for Hillary. That it is not. But it might allow her to squeak into office — and, if she wins, there will be hell to pay.
Published in Politics
Do you mean, would I rather run off the road into a ditch at 20 mph or do a head-on with a tractor trailer at 75 mph? Gee, let me think about . . . Okay, I’ll take the ditch!
Dr. Rahe summarizes the argument on each side as well and as fairly as anyone has this cycle. I agree with nearly every point except the conclusion. Having listened to his interview with Peter I would say he overestimates both congress’s impotence and the power of a president to roll back the march through the institutions or make a difference in the culture war. For this reason I weigh Trump’s ruinous foreign policy more heavily and Clinton’s ruinous domestic policy more lightly. The long term effect of a trump presidency on the trajectory of the conservative movement should also factor into our decision.
Putting aside my disagreement as to whom that would refer, “pride” is exactly what this is not about. Evil is the right word, but it should not be thrown around lightly. If I thought that I could chose either evil, without being touched or changed by it, I might be inclined to take this advise. Since the convention I’ve seen far too many friends and figures that I admired, people who are significantly smarter than I am, who began as purely strategic Trump supporters and wound up attacking trade, apologizing for Putin and excusing Trump’s vile character. If they can be corrupted, I would be a fool to think that I could not.
Regardless of who becomes President, how exactly are you going to limit the CinC’s authority in a manner not already available via the Constitution (in which the limits are quite limited)?
That’s not the analogy. If both are over the limit there is a chance the crash could be equally bad regardless of who is driving.
Here’s mine, younger than today, with an idea who he wanted to be. Who on God’s green earth would want to serve that disgusting nasty putrid woman.
From the polls I am seeing, very, very few wish to serve under HRC.
Everyone “cares” about the troops. They don’t care the military’s choice for their own leader, but they “care”.
Yeah, right …
Professor Rahe, you are asking us to overlook a first-degree risk, electing a rogue and a madman to the most powerful position on earth, in order to better manage second or third-degree risks, or what may happen if this or that scenario evolves. To me at least, this makes no sense. The proximate is a higher danger than the ultimate. The ultimate is more important long-term, but only if you survive the proximate.
Trump is worse than you describe. He fabricates lies and then believes his own lies, as with the birther issue.
NeverTrump from day one and to the end.
I disagree. We can regroup in 2018 and in 2020. We have done it before and we can do it again. Will it be difficult? Sure.
But the alternative is a Republican party led by Donald Trump, which means two political parties committed to liquidating the 1st amendment to the Constitution, two political parties committed to the expansion of Medicaid, two political parties committed to “no fly, no buy” restrictions on 2nd Amendment rights.
In addition, we will have at the head of government someone who has an R next to his name, but who will drive the country into a ditch. Hillary Clinton will also drive the country into a ditch. So, it comes back to the Hamilton principle: if we must have an enemy at the seat of government, let it be one whom we are not responsible for.
Based on their record so far, I have to say he may undersestimate it.
Two Options:
Trump Loss, Clinton Win.
Clinton Win, Trump Loss.
If you Never want Trump to win, which option are you for? You have no choice but to choose, regardless of what you tell yourself. If you want Trump to lose, you want the second option. I know people will deny it. Denial is an amazing thing.
I am not saying you are supporting Clinton, or you are excited she win, or you want her to win. I am saying that the outcome you want, a Trump loss, means a Clinton win.
I accept reluctantly and I am resigned to a Clinton win. Don’t fault us but those who nominated Trump despite admonitions from a LARGE percentage of Republicans.
Trump is not about fixing anything, Trump is about destroying the GOP so it can never again act as the mildest hindrance to the Democrats complete control of government. For destroying things, a hammer is remarkably effective.
As someone who despises the GOP only slightly less than I despise the Democrats, I freely acknowledge they have it coming.
But, a Democrat in the White House and Democratic control of both houses of Congress is the consequence of reaching for the hammer. That was obvious to everyone who reached for the hammer in the primaries, I daresay it was the explicit desire of a material percentage of those who reached for this particular hammer.
Voting for Trump means you want the hammer to have the power to destroy the GOP as quickly as possible. That may turn out to be a positive since the only good thing that can come out of this election is the creation of a new party that actually believes in freedom, capitalism, and smaller government. I don’t think there is a sizeable constituency for such a party (or least I no longer think so), but the country badly needs at least one party making the argument for freedom, capitalism, and smaller government.
That is where my efforts will be directed starting next Wednesday.
I was a bit addled when I finished it, and apparently I punched the wrong button. Mea culpa, mea culpa.
Wrong, I think. One will be President, and it is our duty to avoid the greater evil. I understand, however, your disgust. I share it. I actually considered voting for Hillary (her foreign policy is apt to be less insane than his). But the First Amendment and election integrity matter. Without them, we can never claw our way back.
By then, I fear, the fix will be in but good. The left means business.
No, I do not really distinguish the two. This is a prudential call. I do not consider Trump evil. He is weak, self-indulgent, given to what Aristotle calls akrasia — a lack of self-control. Hillary Clinton is malice personified, and the party she leads really does hate decent people. I made my mind up about how I should vote when she termed those who disagree “deplorable and irredeemable.” Last week she doubled down.
It’s precisely the correct analogy. Your chances improve with the less-drunk person behind the wheel.
She didn’t – she called racists, sexists, homophobes, etc. deplorable. I agree with that much, but she was dead wrong when she said they were half the party. However she did not say “everyone who votes for Trump is deplorable.” And now I’ve just defended Hillary, and I hate this election.
I do not agree with the premise that Hillary is worse, first and foremost for foreign policy, and then afterwards on trade and immigration, and finally on what Trump does remaking the Republican party into something that will never again even skirt the edges of conservatism and never again win a national election. With Trump, we lose on every front; with Clinton, just on some of them. So, I do hope Hillary wins, but I’m not voting for either of them and I’m not celebrating either outcome.
I’ve voted Republican all my life and given them a lot of money (well, proportionate to my income, which has not always been high), but the “base” in its infinite wisdom has always defined me out, first as a “RINO” and then as a “NeverTrumper.” I took the hint and became an independent. But we need the GOP to fight the left, and so I want it to live past next week in a form I can support.
This distinguishes him from Hillary Clinton? You cannot possibly believe that.
Exactly. The political question before us is not which of two choices is best but whether we’ll have a car to drive tomorrow. The latter is almost never addressed.
I second this. It’s cheap.
There is nothing that I wrote then — about Trump being a narcissist — that is incompatible with what I wrote here. Let me add that Trump is no Republican and that I can understand why Republicans who like their “home” and never left it find it exceedingly hard to vote for the man. I will vote for him only because of the alternative (the only viable alternative, let me add). Our choice is between a narcissist with little or no impulse control and a malicious crook backed by a party intent on doing in the irredeemable deplorables.
Wrong.
I do not think that Trump is evil, as I said above. I think him weak and self-indulgent. Malice is Mrs. Clinton’s prime quality (and that of her supporters).
The argument you made in the first paragraph has greater weight. It caused me to hesitate for a considerable period of time. I am betting, however, that in foreign affairs Trump will not in practice be as bad as he is when he is sounding off. His choice of John Bolton as his chief adviser is reassuring.
I would reverse what you say. Hillary is a first-degree risk. I doubt that, if she is elected, we will have genuinely free elections thereafter. Trump is a rogue, but he is not a madman (though, as an entertainer, he often talks like one). He will do harm, I do not doubt. But there is very little, if any, malice in the man. Hillary considers you deplorable and irredeemable. Think a bit about what she and her party intend to do with you and with your offspring.
You underestimate, in my opinion, just how late the hour is. Think a bit about the limits that will be put on those Republicans by the prohibition of “hate speech,” and consider their propensity to surrender in the face of attacks from the left.
In just the opening paragraph of this pretzel-twisting essay, this is how Professor Rahe describes the man we are supposed to get over our “pride” and vote for: “a swine,” “revels in adultery,” “never really grew up,” “almost no impulse control,” “If you attack him for anything, you will set him off,” and “desperately insecure.”
Want more? Ok…
Trump is “no conservative,” “has no understanding of the road we are on fiscally,” “has no knowledge of foreign affairs,” “has instincts, not ideas,” “if unrestrained, could do great damage,” “could take us back to the isolationism of the 1920s and the 1930s,” and is a “slimeball.”
Ah, but the most important question: Is he unfit to be President? “I fear so.”
So vote for him. Because Hillary and the Democratic Party are worse.
Do the ReluctantTrumpers not realize how ridiculous their argument sounds? He spent the first 340 words of this essay outlining Trump’s manifold unfitness, the next 1,500 explaining why Hillary is more unfit (levels of unfitness are in these days), and then topping it off by telling people like me to swallow my “pride” and vote for the man he just said is unfit for the presidency.
Hillary is unfit, no doubt about it. Her unfitness, however, does not impugn fitness upon Deplorable Donald. If only more people could grasp that basic concept.
You left out the First Amendment. This election is not ultimately about foreign policy, trade, and immigration (though it touches on all three). It is about the fix being put in permanently, and you underestimate Hillary’s malice and that of her party. If you deviate from their doctrine — on, say, same-sex marriage or the status of Islam — you are deplorable and irredeemable. She did not exaggerate the number of racists, sexists, homophobes, and Islamophobes. It was not a mere overstatement. She considers you to be one of them because you deviate from the now-established doctrine.
I twisted no pretzels. I tried to describe both options in accurate terms. Then, I said that, when you have to choose between bad and worse, you should choose bad. My argument is consistent and coherent.
If I am wrong, it would be in underestimating what a disaster he would be in foreign policy. I might be engaging in wishful thinking there. I hope not, however.
You might want to give some thought to the First Amendment. If the courts gut that, as they are being pressed to do, then we will never again have free elections. Things are bad enough — given the concentration of media power and the lack of integrity on the part of the surviving press — as things stand.