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The Case for Trump
From a friend, explaining in an email this morning why he intends to vote for Trump, not Hillary:
Published in GeneralIn our degraded empire, following upon the Republic, Caesar is preferable to the Vandals.
Agreed.
True enough, but the Vandals will eventually come regardless. There’s just some here that are hoping they accelerate their schedule.
Disagree.
This is a choice between Nero and Caligula, between shooting myself in the left temple or the right.
Yes exactly. The left is anti-American. Trump is not. That’s sufficient to know what to do.
Yup.
Bingo.
Wait, you mean Trump isn’t a Vandal?
That’s it?
I think that this is the most interesting debate, because reasonable, intelligent people can disagree about the lesser of these two evils. I can respect either position, and I think that good arguments can be made for both sides. I’ve yet to hear one that I found compelling, and Caesar/Vandals doesn’t have much to it.
I’ll open the bidding with: SCOTUS – Hillary would surely wreck it, and who knows what Trump would do. Point to those against Hillary.
Perfect! In a nutshell!
Isn’t it amazing that we actually have to sit around debating whether it’s wise to choose the lesser of two evils?
Why do we have to limit our choice to these two evils?
You’d have to start by convincing us that he is actually the lesser of the two. Utterly unconvinced of this.
The implications in that statement are ridiculous. (1) Trump is no dictator, nor can he be with our constitution. (2) We don’t have an empire nor control anything outside our nation, which is governed by Congress. (3) There are no Vandals at the gate, but I take that implication to be merely metaphor.
I don’t care for Trump, especially his uncouth manner, but he is an infinitely better choice than Hillary. I’m glad your friend, no matter how he reached his conclusions, is making the best choice.
And what if they are roughly comparable evils?
Trump is not Caesar. He is Caesar’s Palace.
Count me as #ProbablyNotTrump
I’m not ruling it out, but it’s highly unlikely. In the past, I’ve had to talk my libertarian husband out of voting libertarian and into voting for the republican candidate. This year, I can’t even convince myself.
If its close, I’ll sit down an consider it carefully. But if he’s likely to lose or win, I’d rather not have the smell of it lingering on me.
Spend the time I usually spend voting watching a Vine?
I just went on a job with a Trump supporter, and he has swayed me. I can vote for the man but only so he will be inflicted on his supporters.
I’m already planning on printing a bunch of bumper stickers:
“Don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for Trump.”
The historical allusion doesn’t work. Caesar and the Vandals were five hundred years apart. Julius Caesar’s death at the hands of patriotic republican romans produced a Civil War that lasted for 18 years.
Caesar was an accomplished General and Civic Leader not a drug dealing whoremonger’s grandson.
Historical allusions are more interesting when they are accurate and appropriate.
I am fortunate – I live and vote in California. Liberal Democrats occupy every elective office from County Supervisor up. My vote has been wasted since I moved to Sonoma County. I will have no guilt in writing in Cruz.
What a pithy yet stupid comment. Why is Trump Caesar and Hillary the Vandals? What he should say is I just hate Hillary more for some irrational reason so I will vote for Trump. My heart is very big and I can hate both equally.
But really what if we get Hillary? We will be under the rule of a technocratic Democrat from New York. So we will have to endure the policies of some leftist think tank. If Trump wins we will be under the rule of a man without any principles, who will run us like any other showboating corrupt big city Democrat. One will be a carefully planned ruin the other will be a wild and crazy binge to the bottom. Trump will be more entertaining, but ultimately he will leave us in the same ruined state.
So I ask. If Nero will burn down Rome and the Vandals will burn down Rome, why should we be more pleased with the crazed lunatic over the organized army? Rather it seems to me we should leave the city and go hide out on a mountain top somewhere with St. Benedict.
The smell clashes with the gin, right? :)
Why not a choice between Caesar and Pompey?
No, the gin won’t wash it away.
Arguable – I’d say they were less patriotic than my Latin primer (which followed Quintus as a devotee of Brutus at one point) likes to make out.
The Roman Republic seems to me to have clung to form after it was shattered by Marius and Sulla. Caesar merely tried to staunch the damage caused by third-rate politicians in the Roman elections. In Ancient Rome I’d have been pro-Caesar, certainly as opposed to Crassus or Pompey “the Great”.
Regardless we knew this would happen – all those principled conservative leaders, thinkers and voters are already lining up behind the anointed leader to plunge once more off the cliff like the lemmings of legend.
It happened in ’92, ’96, ’00 (yes, I know), ’08 and ’12. Why would ’16 be any different?
“Why not a choice between Caesar and Pompey?”
Don’t see a Pompey in this election.
You know what this is? It is the frog on the hot plate. It will stay on the plate and heat to death because it gets used to it gradually. I was neverTrump from day one and I will always be. Don’t be swayed by expedient arguments and irrelevant aphorisms. You don’t have to vote for Hillary either. Just stay home.
I’d choose Crassus for Trump, and not just because the name fits.