Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. Binary Choice for Me but Not for Thee

 

I blew off some steam a few months back stating I didn’t want to read thought-pieces about “The Conservative Case for Joe Biden” from our commentariat and thought leaders. I need to release a little more steam.

Let me get my biases out of the way: I loathe Joe Biden. I have since my early teens in the late ’80s. The guy who will tell you he’s always smarter than you are, like talking to you is a favor, and yet all of his ideas are dumb, but to him they’re brilliant thinking. I saw a person on the message board I moderate tout Biden’s time on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as a plus and when asked for one good idea he had, even with googling, he couldn’t come up with one.

The man who will casually slime opposition with accusations of racism or sexism. False modesty only comes out when he wants a vote, then he tells the person in front of him what he or she wants to hear with a personal anecdote of questionable truth to give you that “I’m one of you” feeling. If the next person asks the opposite question, Biden will do the same thing. In fact, 2020 Joe Biden is running against 1993 Biden and because we have the historical recall of a gnat, no one in our media seems to realize it.

We’ve seen the editorials by now: Certain columnists with National Review, Commentary, Dispatch, Bulwark, if you still think they have any morality, the Lincoln Project, Peggy Noonan, George Will, et al., telling you it’s not a binary choice. Vote Biden because he has…something that’s not Trump, which, seems like a binary choice. There’s the occasional “you don’t owe your vote to anyone” contrarian who is voting for someone who can’t win just to posture that he or she is an individual. Oh, that’s cute, you wrote in someone that’s getting as many Electoral Votes as I am, and I’m just as impressed with the person who doesn’t vote because they don’t really have a voice. If I vote for Mickey Mouse, is that a powerful statement or a waste of my responsibility? Why is it different if I write in Mitch Daniels who will probably get fewer votes?

I don’t find the arguments bad, I find them to exist in a cocoon of sorts. Yes, four years isn’t a long time, and we will have another election, and Flight 93 is a tad histrionic for my tastes. But Democrats are saying “we want to change the system so Republicans can’t win elections” and the reaction seems to be “pish posh, Joe Biden isn’t as prone to bluster and will show them the better angels of their nature.” The entire argument of the anti-Trump Republican is that Trump lies, but don’t believe what the Democrats say, especially because Joe Biden, who has never sniffed the hair of the truth, seems reasonable.

40 percent of what you want is better than zero. But I’m a transactional voter, not one involved in hero worship.

But here is where I start to get angry. Four years also isn’t a short amount of time. If Biden wins, no one in the commentariat loses anything. milquetoast conservatives will still put out their columns, and those who overrate themselves uniquely contrarian will still be paid by the publications that employ them. I left my job in 2019 for a career change in a growing economy. In 2008, the department heads where I worked were corralled into a meeting the day after election day in anticipation of higher taxes where they could cut “overhead.” Overhead where I worked was support staff. If you’ve never had to sit through people being marched out by building security with a Human Resources professional giving false comfort with “don’t worry, we’ll box your stuff up and ship it to your home,” I envy you.

It’s easy to be the “party of ideas” when all you have to generate are ideas. Republicans in 2016 were scared to use political capital to get those ideas done. That’s why Paul Ryan had to get out, that’s why Republicans were voted out. Ideas people will say “suburban women don’t like that Trump’s a poopy head” but your rank and file voter was like “where’s that healthcare plan you had been planning since day one after ACA was passed” which ironically is what the ideas shop is bagging on Trump for, and last I checked, domestic policy mostly resides in Congress. We found the experts hired to do jobs of cleaning out agencies of excess were prone to the same excess and eventually the administration started hiring better.

But the ideas people weren’t being asked for their ideas, and Donald Trump would leverage his political capital far more than he should have on Free Trade, on Justice Reform, on other issues that were not the pillars of conservatism. Experts were upset that their expertise wasn’t expertly being experted by the hoi polloi who had started to take positions after consultant class failure. Normal people are coming into my country club? Use the old china and make sure they only get 15 minutes in the pool and have it scrubbed.

People paid for what they think don’t have to face a market where what you can do matters. They’re paid for supposed brilliance. Some consultant who stumbles on an election he’s not supposed to win 35 years ago is elevated to a Svengali who can tell you how to repeat that magic and buys bigger houses for the next three decades because of it. People like me have to think of a way to fudge qualifications on a resume to make middle age seem appealing to an employer in one of our “approved” industries if one party gets to regulate industry instead of allowing business to operate.

I’m still low man on the totem pole at the new job. I can’t afford to not work for four years if the recovery stagnates underneath taxes and regulation and a great reset and “more fair” hiring which as a white old man means I’m picked last for kickball.

I already have one party that doesn’t care if I live or die, I don’t need two.

That, in essence, makes it a binary choice for me. I don’t like Trump all that much save for attacking the garbage media, but I have more disdain for people who I thought agreed with me on most things that also think the most vacuous politician for the past 40 years will be a good lesson for all us in moral character. Especially those who will blame the voter for the laziness of a party that coasted on being loyal opposition, merely stating the case for their ideas versus actually trying to put them in action, and finding out all along no plans were made.

You can tell me the Republican Party will be better if Trump loses. I have my doubts. I will tell you that I was told Tom Price had a health care plan that would be ready on day one and saw a bunch of House Republicans scared by a media class with no interest in their success.

But then again, we might not have to worry about it. We’ll conserve all these new rules put upon us.

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  1. Suspira Member

    Jeff Hawkins (View Comment):

    Suspira (View Comment):

    Jeff Hawkins: Certain columnists with National Review, Commentary, Dispatch, Bulwark, if you still think they have any morality, the Lincoln Project, Peggy Noonan, George Will,

    I do think many of these columnists “still have any morality.” Their arguments are legitimate. Why sneer at their concerns? The fracturing of the right is the worst aspect of the Trump era, hands down. Whether the president prevails or Biden toddles past the finish line first, we need all our troops aiming in the same direction.

    Let’s emulate Lincoln and put malice aside.

    This was poor grammar on my part, the morality part was only about the Lincoln Project

    I see. Well, I can’t disagree about them. 

    • #31
    • November 2, 2020, at 1:58 PM PST
    • 1 like
  2. Mark Camp Member

    Hang On (View Comment):
    Joe Biden will finally enact Medicare for all.

    To us non-populists, it seems apparent that if, as all populists believe, Medicare for some is good, then Medicare for all is even better. To populists, though, Medicare for all will only become good after we have it for a few years and it is the new status quo. Then they will believe that it was always good.

    • #32
    • November 2, 2020, at 2:21 PM PST
    • 1 like
  3. Jeff Hawkins Coolidge
    Jeff Hawkins

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Hang On (View Comment):
    Joe Biden will finally enact Medicare for all.

    To us non-populists, it seems apparent that if, as all populists believe, Medicare for some is good, then Medicare for all is even better. To populists, though, Medicare for all will only become good after we have it for a few years and it is the new status quo. Then they will believe that it was always good.

    Like lines at the DMV, you’ll learn to accept it as part of the process :)

    • #33
    • November 2, 2020, at 2:27 PM PST
    • 2 likes
  4. Stina Member

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Hang On (View Comment):
    Joe Biden will finally enact Medicare for all.

    To us non-populists, it seems apparent that if, as all populists believe, Medicare for some is good, then Medicare for all is even better. To populists, though, Medicare for all will only become good after we have it for a few years and it is the new status quo. Then they will believe that it was always good.

    How does this make sense.

    You can reasonably believe providing some provision for some without believing it need apply to all.

    I think you misapply populist here. Perhaps the populist left wishes Medicare for all, but I think most would rather a job that can provide them with health care, through wages and self-pay OR benefits.

    • #34
    • November 2, 2020, at 2:28 PM PST
    • 1 like
  5. kedavis Member

    Stina (View Comment):

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Hang On (View Comment):
    Joe Biden will finally enact Medicare for all.

    To us non-populists, it seems apparent that if, as all populists believe, Medicare for some is good, then Medicare for all is even better. To populists, though, Medicare for all will only become good after we have it for a few years and it is the new status quo. Then they will believe that it was always good.

    How does this make sense.

    You can reasonably believe providing some provision for some without believing it need apply to all.

    I think you misapply populist here. Perhaps the populist left wishes Medicare for all, but I think most would rather a job that can provide them with health care, through wages and self-pay OR benefits.

    That might qualify as second-level thinking, whereas the problem with the Left is they’re stuck at first-level thinking, if even that.

    • #35
    • November 2, 2020, at 2:35 PM PST
    • 1 like
  6. kedavis Member

    The only “complaint” I have about this post, is that it bears the same title as the original. So when I saw it in the “Trending” list, I thought the old one had risen up again somehow, not that it was new/an update.

    A “Part 2” or “Redux” or something would have been nice. Although I think if you change it now, it gets demoted back to the Member Feed.

    • #36
    • November 2, 2020, at 2:36 PM PST
    • Like
    • This comment has been edited.
  7. Mark Camp Member

    Stina (View Comment):
    You can reasonably believe providing some provision for some without believing it need apply to all.

    That’s perfectly true, and perfectly relevant.

    I’m off balance; to be honest, I was assuming no one would see that counter-argument, so I didn’t need to assemble my thoughts into an answer. (This is twice now that you’ve done this, Stina!)

    I hope I can articulate my thoughts and give you the answer you deserve.

    • #37
    • November 2, 2020, at 4:00 PM PST
    • Like
  8. kedavis Member

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Stina (View Comment):
    You can reasonably believe providing some provision for some without believing it need apply to all.

    That’s perfectly true, and perfectly relevant.

    I’m off balance; to be honest, I was assuming no one would see that counter-argument, so I didn’t need to assemble my thoughts into an answer. (This is twice now that you’ve done this, Stina!)

    I hope I can articulate my thoughts and give you the answer you deserve.

    But the people who favor making it one-size-fits-all don’t like to do a lot of thinking to start with. Having a system with OPTIONAL “single-payer” would be just one more decision they don’t want to have to make.

    • #38
    • November 2, 2020, at 4:02 PM PST
    • Like
  9. Stina Member

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Stina (View Comment):
    You can reasonably believe providing some provision for some without believing it need apply to all.

    That’s perfectly true, and perfectly relevant.

    I’m off balance; to be honest, I was assuming no one would see that counter-argument, so I didn’t need to assemble my thoughts into an answer. (This is twice now that you’ve done this, Stina!)

    I hope I can articulate my thoughts and give you the answer you deserve.

    But the people who favor making it one-size-fits-all don’t like to do a lot of thinking to start with. Having a system with OPTIONAL “single-payer” would be just one more decision they don’t want to have to make.

    I didn’t think that’s where this was going.

    I was referring more to what we have now. Not some “free choice” for medicare for all.

    We currently have a population that widely supports social safety nets. I’d go so far as to say it’s near universal, with some caveat.

    But while we may disagree on how much safety net to offer, I’m pretty sure Medicare for All is the last thing at least half the country wants.

    • #39
    • November 2, 2020, at 6:58 PM PST
    • Like
  10. kedavis Member

    Stina (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Stina (View Comment):
    You can reasonably believe providing some provision for some without believing it need apply to all.

    That’s perfectly true, and perfectly relevant.

    I’m off balance; to be honest, I was assuming no one would see that counter-argument, so I didn’t need to assemble my thoughts into an answer. (This is twice now that you’ve done this, Stina!)

    I hope I can articulate my thoughts and give you the answer you deserve.

    But the people who favor making it one-size-fits-all don’t like to do a lot of thinking to start with. Having a system with OPTIONAL “single-payer” would be just one more decision they don’t want to have to make.

    I didn’t think that’s where this was going.

    I was referring more to what we have now. Not some “free choice” for medicare for all.

    We currently have a population that widely supports social safety nets. I’d go so far as to say it’s near universal, with some caveat.

    But while we may disagree on how much safety net to offer, I’m pretty sure Medicare for All is the last thing at least half the country wants.

    Maybe. But a lot of people with Obamacare policies can’t afford to actually USE THEM, because the deductibles are ridiculous. There’s a good argument that Obamacare was just an intentional first step – or several steps – toward single-payer, for those exact reasons.

    • #40
    • November 2, 2020, at 7:07 PM PST
    • 1 like