I Thought This Deserved a Post of Its Own

 

In the thread for our recent Harvard Lunch Club Podcast — the Rigged Podcast — we reverted again, with the inevitability of Groundhog Day, to the eternal Trump versus #NeverTrump argument. I thought it worthwhile to recapitulate the discussion. Apologies to those who have reached the stage of nausea in this issue. In the podcast my partner Todd Feinburg and I discuss the recent Victor Davis Hanson article advocating a vote for Trump for conservatives. We both think that it is a no-brainer and we both think that, even had we not been for Trump since long ago (say we had supported Rubio) we would have recognized that bruised egos aside there was really only one choice … which is essentially what VDH had to say (though he said it very well indeed).

In response, member rebark makes the following observation:

I always find it remarkable how foreign and mystifying the ideas of Never Trump people are to the HLC hosts. The utter bafflement with which they confront the fact that people looked at the same facts that they did and reached a different conclusion.

My first inclination is to blame my own side for failing to explain itself well, but there has been so much ink spilled on the subject that I can’t help but wonder whether there is a certain willful blindness to their approach. For the tired old argument of “just admit you’re for Hillary” to be trotted out requires an astonishing level of misunderstanding.

To put it simply: I do not see a lesser evil. I doubt that there is an iota of difference between us in terms of how negatively we perceive Hillary – she will be terrible for the country and terrible for conservatism. Trump might implement the occasional conservative policy, but he will destroy what little reputation conservatism has. I believe he would do at best a mediocre job as President that would be spun into such a disaster by the media that his election would pave the way for even worse Leftist ideologues down the road. I can’t tell you which is worse, and so I can only tell you that I don’t want to have supported either.

I hope they have some good conversations at tomorrow’s Ricochet debate watching event.

Member Eugene Kriegsmann weighs in with:

Michael, in response to your question to Rebark [what did he think of the VDH article?] I went over to NR and read Dr. Hanson’s post. There is little new in it. He had held this position since the majority of NR editors and writers put together their anti-Trump screed. Hanson’s argument really comes down to what I have read over and over on this site, that Trump is bad, but Hillary is worse. Hillary will do terrible damage to the country.

That well may be true. There is, however, another possibility, that Hillary will be essentially spayed politically by a Republican dominated congress, and that, given her apparently fragile health and the incredible demands of the office, that she will likely not even make it through one term, much less two.

On the other hand, we have Trump whose commitment to our country is so minimal that he would destroy not just his own chances of achieving office, but those of every other Republican running this year. How do we trust such a person with the most powerful office in the world and with the future of this country?

The problem for me is, I don’t see any difference between them. I could never vote for Hillary, nor could I give Trump a vote that would confirm all he wants to believe about himself, that he actually should be President of the United States. It is a choice that I simply refuse to make. I think I will write in Pence for President.

And, forgive me for taking the last word, I said this:

Rebark and Eugene, I have only this to say. Make a choice! Whatever you can say about how difficult it is to evaluate whether Hillary’s Presidency or Trump’s Presidency will be worse, it is blatantly obvious that they will be different. Very different! So forget the past. Forget the agony of what could have been. Think through the problem as it confronts you today. What are the odds from your perspective of different possible futures with Trump and with Hillary? Evaluate the distributions, apply risk analysis, do the algebra and reach a conclusion and vote. Don’t whine about how it’s hard to decide. Don’t withhold your vote because you are angry at what happened in February. The future lies ahead. You have only two options (eh?). Pick one.

Is this not, my Ricochetti friends, the bottom line?

See you in NYC tonight!

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  1. Frank Soto Member
    Frank Soto
    @FrankSoto

    Xennady:The United States presently appears prosperous because the present regime is able to send out reams of checks, enabling its supporters to live off their mailbox.

    This cannot continue.

    This is not why it is prosperous.  It is prosperous because we produce fantastic wealth from our private economy.  You cannot cut reams of checks without a robust private economy to fund it.

    America is not Detroit.  There is no hellscape.  Things are not fractionally as bad as you claim they are.

    • #121
  2. livingthehighlife Inactive
    livingthehighlife
    @livingthehighlife

    Frank Soto:

    Xennady:The United States presently appears prosperous because the present regime is able to send out reams of checks, enabling its supporters to live off their mailbox.

    This cannot continue.

    This is not why it is prosperous. It is prosperous because we produce fantastic wealth from our private economy. You cannot cut reams of checks without a robust private economy to fund it.

    America is not Detroit. There is no hellscape. Things are not fractionally as bad as you claim they are.

    If one listens to right wing talk radio long enough, one might be led to believe it’s all gone to hell and elections are rigged.

    • #122
  3. RyanM Inactive
    RyanM
    @RyanM

    Bryan G. Stephens:

    RyanM:

    Bryan G. Stephens: All I am saying is that if you want Trump to lose, you want Clinton to win. If you want Trump to win, you want Clinton to lose.

    That is simply false… that sort of argument would fail you out of a logic class, unless you were asked to display the fallacy of the false dichotomy.

    Setting aside the highly unlikely chance a coin will land on its edge and stay, it will come up heads or tails. Trump or Clinton will win. Period. There is no third option. That passes every test of logic I know about.

    [snip]

    Please explain to me how that defies logic, or is a false dichotomy.

    Nobody has said that one of them will not win. What you said is that if you want trump to lose, you want clinton to win. That is false. I want both to lose. The fact that this is impossible does not change that.  I might rationally choose to not participate in the same way that I don’t participate in many democrat open primaries. I have no dog in the fight. So to say that I want Clinton to win is a ludicrous assertion, and that is your false dichotomy. I can vote third party, I can choose not to vote. Both are the logical manifestation of my understanding that each candidate is equally bad.

    • #123
  4. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Frank Soto:

    Xennady:The United States presently appears prosperous because the present regime is able to send out reams of checks, enabling its supporters to live off their mailbox.

    This cannot continue.

    This is not why it is prosperous. It is prosperous because we produce fantastic wealth from our private economy. You cannot cut reams of checks without a robust private economy to fund it.

    America is not Detroit. There is no hellscape. Things are not fractionally as bad as you claim they are.

    Imagine if the regulatory state were reduced what it would be like?

    The problem is, the Democrats and Republicans in power like the Regulatory State. Trump will too, but he makes some noises that he won’t. Sad state of arriars.

    • #124
  5. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    RyanM:

    Bryan G. Stephens:

    RyanM:

    Bryan G. Stephens: All I am saying is that if you want Trump to lose, you want Clinton to win. If you want Trump to win, you want Clinton to lose.

    That is simply false… that sort of argument would fail you out of a logic class, unless you were asked to display the fallacy of the false dichotomy.

    Setting aside the highly unlikely chance a coin will land on its edge and stay, it will come up heads or tails. Trump or Clinton will win. Period. There is no third option. That passes every test of logic I know about.

    [snip]

    Please explain to me how that defies logic, or is a false dichotomy.

    Nobody has said that one of them will not win. What you said is that if you want trump to lose, you want clinton to win. That is false. I want both to lose. The fact that this is impossible does not change that. I might rationally choose to not participate in the same way that I don’t participate in many democrat open primaries. I have no dog in the fight. So to say that I want Clinton to win is a ludicrous assertion, and that is your false dichotomy. I can vote third party, I can choose not to vote. Both are the logical manifestation of my understanding that each candidate is equally bad.

    I don’t see how you showed anything other than your wants are in conflict with reality. That does not mean my logic is wrong. Any action that helps Trump to lose, helps Clinton to win.

    • #125
  6. Tyler Boliver Inactive
    Tyler Boliver
    @Marlowe

    EB:

    Bryan G. Stephens: How about you just admit you don’t know who is worse?

    Why is this so important to you?

    They need #NeverTrump’s validation. That’s ALL this is.

    • #126
  7. Xennady Member
    Xennady
    @

    livingthehighlife:If one listens to right wing talk radio long enough, one might be led to believe it’s all gone to hell and elections are rigged.

    I’m fairly old. I remember when the idea of vote fraud getting JFK the win in 1960 was a tinfoil-y idea not to be taken seriously. Lately, I have heard it simply assumed, with details open discussed as fact. Right now, Instapundit has a story about the motor voter bill enabling vote fraud, because non-citizens can vote simply by getting a drivers license. Leftist groups are fighting the few states that attempt to verify citizenship.

    I’ve seen this personally, because my mother was never a US citizen, but was registered to vote. I can also think of several elections that were are well-known to have been “won” by the left after vote fraud.

    I also know the national GOP has had nothing to say about this, has done nothing about it, and has not made an issue out of it.

    I see a problem, and you should too.

    • #127
  8. Xennady Member
    Xennady
    @

    Frank Soto:This is not why it is prosperous. It is prosperous because we produce fantastic wealth from our private economy. You cannot cut reams of checks without a robust private economy to fund it.

    America is not Detroit. There is no hellscape. Things are not fractionally as bad as you claim they are.

    It appears prosperous because it can use the global reserve currency to paper over the holes in our actual economy, thus allowing fancy pieces of paper to buy real things from foreigners to a vastly greater extent then would otherwise be possible.

    Absent this financial magic the country wouldn’t be to afford to pay tens of millions of indigents to not-work, merely voting democrat to live, and the political scene would be vastly different one way or another.

    It seems to me the US is- very roughly- equivalent to sixteenth century Spain, which was able to fund its empire with precious metals looted from South America. Eventually that gave it a ruling class vastly more interested in the empire it was in their actual country, which eventually resulted in the collapse of both.

    History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes…

    • #128
  9. RyanM Inactive
    RyanM
    @RyanM

    Bryan G. Stephens:

    RyanM:

     

    Please explain to me how that defies logic, or is a false dichotomy.

    Nobody has said that one of them will not win. What you said is that if you want trump to lose, you want clinton to win. That is false. I want both to lose. The fact that this is impossible does not change that. I might rationally choose to not participate in the same way that I don’t participate in many democrat open primaries. I have no dog in the fight. So to say that I want Clinton to win is a ludicrous assertion, and that is your false dichotomy. I can vote third party, I can choose not to vote. Both are the logical manifestation of my understanding that each candidate is equally bad.

    I don’t see how you showed anything other than your wants are in conflict with reality. That does not mean my logic is wrong. Any action that helps Trump to lose, helps Clinton to win.

    First, that is not necessarily correct.  If you don’t vote, you are not helping either candidate win – unless it is to be presumed that you would have voted for one particular candidate.  A no vote helps both candidates equally, because it is not a vote for either candidate’s opponent.

    But regardless, that’s not what you said.  You said if you don’t want Trump to win, you want Hillary to win.  That cannot be logically inferred.

    • #129
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