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The Faster of Two Phoenixes
I have been a Republican since I was eight years old. Reagan was my gateway into the party, and I followed his presidency any way I could. When I was nine, I watched the nightly news and talked about media bias with my father who was a Reagan Democrat. I was not old enough to vote until the first Clinton election and I have voted Republican ever since. I even won $100 off of a liberal college professor because I bet that Newt Gingrich would take the House in 1994. I love the conservative movement and I have always worked to make the Republican party more conservative.
So that brings me to Trump. I supported Governor Scott Walker, Senator Marco Rubio, and then Senator Ted Cruz. I implored all my friends and family to vote against Trump and for whomever was most likely to win in a given state. But while I thought I was comfortable in the #NeverTrump camp, I’ve found that stance to be increasingly troubling. I can’t imagine not voting against Clinton and I feel that is my patriotic duty to oppose her at nearly any cost. And yet, Trump is also horrible.
A Trump presidency will be a crap shoot. Since Trump is in the race for himself and his only principles seem to be his own power and success, his presidency will be a mess. He will surely do some conservative things as president, but he will do liberal things as well, all based on what he calculates will benefit him most politically in the moment. We’ve already seen Trump “growing” and “changing” on some issues, and it’d be foolish for him not to court the Left where he can. Trump was built for triangulation between liberals and conservatives, and his goal will be to get people to believe they are “winning” through him.
The worst part of his presidency will no doubt be foreign policy, where Trump’s understanding of the world is narrow-to-non-existent, and his ability to understand non-American cultures is close to zero. He will likely make large, dangerous, and deadly foreign policy blunders. Which brings me to the last point Trump’s crimes: Trump will almost certainly commit crimes while in office. His sense of self-importance and the principle of his success trumping all other concerns will lead him as it did Nixon to commit crimes while in office.
In a way Trump will be like a third Nixon administration but with fewer principles. We will get a few conservative things, a lot of liberal things, and nothing will change for the better. Trump will never see limits to his own power and so will not tame the administrative state but will seek to increase presidential powers, thereby increasing his own power and do even more damage to the constitution.
Given these things, I’ve come to think that one of the more powerful arguments for a Trump presidency was that he could be impeached while Clinton will not: Clinton could murder Speaker Paul Ryan on 5th Avenue and still keep her job; Trump already has support problem. My bumper sticker for the campaign: “Vote Trump; he’s the one we can Impeach.” Not, admittedly, a very strong argument.
President Clinton, of course would be fearful, harridan of vengeance, hate-seeking her enemies through fair means and — more joyfully for her — foul. She would run the government as a criminal conspiracy to acquire power for herself and her cronies at the expense of all that is good and holy. The only upside to a Clinton presidency is that I think she might clear the very, very, very low bar of being better on foreign policy than either Obama has been or Trump would be. Considering all the down sides, that is very weak. So Hillary must not be president.
Given these two scenarios, I thought I had to stay in the #NeverTrump camp: I could not vote for a man whom I am certain will commit crimes and cost lives in foreign policy blunders just to win a few random conservative issues domestically, even the Supreme Court. It seemed the height of selfishness to do that to our country as whole for a few potential gains. So I was left with the fact that Trump could be impeached but that was not enough for me to vote for him.
But I have now found another reason to vote for Trump. A Trump win will likely destroy the Republican party much as Nixon did, but a Trump win will also destroy the Democrats. Just think about it. If Clinton loses to Trump, it will destroy the Obama/Clinton legacy and throw the Democrats directly into the arms of insane people. The Sandersnistas will go after the party leaders like a proverbial peasant mobs in the classic horror movies and the whole Democratic party infrastructure will burn down. The Democrats’ leaders are all in their 70s and they have no bench. The Republicans, however, have young governors, senators, and congressmen aplenty, and some of them will regain their credibility when we have to impeach Trump. So while Trump will wreck terrible havoc on the Republican party, it is actually placed better to recover than the Democrats are.
Contrast that with the situation if Clinton wins, leaving the Democrats in power for one or two more cycles while the Republicans recriminate each other.
In sum, with both parties destroyed — and the country suffering from terrible disasters — the Republican’s deeper leadership bench will help them recover faster than the Democrats. This is not what I would have wanted for the country. People are going to die and the disasters will be real and serious if either Clinton or Trump wins, but a Trump victory gives conservatives a better chance of picking up the pieces of the disaster than does a Clinton win. “So vote for Trump; after the disaster, we have a better chance of winning.”
So there you have it. Is that enough of a reason to vote for Trump or is my thinking completely flawed? Let me know what you think.
Published in General
Unless your State is tipped by one vote, your vote really doesn’t matter. Give it your best shot – vote , abstain , vote Trump, Hillary, or other. Take your best guess at the best course for our country, pursue it, and do not worry. It is up to God.
Not terrible advice because it is true. Yet, I am bothered by sitting out. It seems a failure on my part even though I know my vote does not really matter in the larger scheme of things. It has been hard for me.
There is always the possibility that there is no upside.
We all kid ourselves if we don’t think about that reality.
The election of either one destroys everything people like yourself, and myself, have worked, argued, and voted for, at least for our political lifetimes. Because the country has changed, both of these leaders have entrenched a new face and tone in our politics that will not go away soon. This tone will leave the country more “fundamentally” transformed than anyone wishes. Aside from whatever little pieces of domestic good Trump does, or better management of some foreign policy Hillary might do; they are both so flipping awful it is almost beyond the realm of satire.
Increasingly, it seems Bush and Obama were just setting the chess pieces up for these next set of moves, perhaps even Clinton and Reagan in a strange way. Ultimately, I blame Roosevelt, Teddy.
Eric Cook
It’s really up to Trump to prove he’s not the unprincipled buffoon he has appeared to be throughout his campaign.
Intriguing.
I love that. I hope you’re right.
The Democrats (and many gullible consumers of mass media) are very susceptible to anti-GOP narratives. Would an effective Trump-ruined-the-world narrative not unite the Democrat party and help it rebuild?
(What a great bumper-sticker.)
Well in a country as complex and populous as ours there will be an upside of some kind. But we have to be able to seize it. There was nothing really to cheer in the Carter years we think now but there was serious deregulation domestically, the Democratic party split into two parts and Reagan was there to seize the opportunity. So while I would not have wanted Carter to ever be President there was an upside to his disastrous one term. That is the kind of upside we have to find in this election.
True and if he doesn’t do that I suppose I have to remain NeverTrump but I am trying to see if there is an upside even to the buffoon.
Here’s what you do: find a Bernie supporter friend. Check Facebook if you can’t think of any off the top of your head. The day Bernie concedes, ask them to agree to enter into a “third-party pact” with you, where you both agree to vote 3rd party if the other does. You announce this on social media.
The problem with not voting or voting 3rd party is that it reduces Trump’s margin in your state by 1. Convincing a Dem-leaning voter to do the same removes this problem. Announcing the agreement on social media helps to hold you both accountable, and ensures both of you don’t make the agreement with other people.
Sure that narrative would help the Democrats to rebuild but into what? That is the key question. The Democrats will eat the entire party establishment that gave them the “loser” Hillary. The Bernie narrative that he was stab in the back will be like gospel to them. Purity will rule the roost in the Democratic party. They have no well no leader that can unite the Bernie supports so they will turn to minor national figures that are pure but untested and untrusted by most Americans. The Democrats will believe that “Trump ruined the world narrative” will be enough. But if the Republicans have impeached Trump or beaten him in the primaries or if Trump’s health fails we might very well have a clean Republican running against a hard left wing economic socialist and SJW of incredible and horrifying intensity. That is beatable. It will also expose so many fractures in the party that Clinton is right now covering up. African Americans are not on board with the Bathroom wars or even same sex marriage. The Hispanics are not wedded to the culture war aspect of the Democrats either. The intraparty fighting among the Democrats will be awesome to behold.
A Clinton win delays all that by at least 4 years if not 8. I don’t see who can or would unite the Democrat party after a Clinton loss…Biden, Schumer, Bernie in four more years. I just don’t see it.
I share just about everything you said. But there’ll be no impeachment in spite of lots of really bad decisions. It’s not about the person. We’re past that. It’s about the apparatus, the state, the party, the interests, budget, habit bureaucracy, momentum, the symbiotic relationships between big finance including the Fed, big media, big unions, big education, the debt overhang, and world drifting perilously toward we don’t really know, but drifting. We’ve seen that before. Which of the two knows how to use that apparatus for their personal and ideological gain and will expand it, use it against enemies, and which will stumble about with gestures photo ops, but doesn’t care about the apparatus or parties, but may purposely or accidentally weaken it, doesn’t have ideological enemies to be crushed. Won’t value spreading hate a sowing divisions. Vote for that person.
Clever. I could see doing that. I have Bernie supporting friends. One woman that is big on Bernie did not know about Clinton the rapist nor of Hillary the rapist defender. When she found out she was very shocked and her dislike of Hillary hardened. She is well poised for such a deal. That could solve my problem…and would make feel like I did some good. Like voting against Hillary would make me feel better even though my one vote is not decisive in any way.
That is a fairly compelling argument. I will have to think on this one for a bit. Again though I think Trump will be better domestically then Hillary with little doubt but I am afraid that Trump blundering around will get people killed. That still makes hard to vote for him.
Well answered.
Good luck with that. First of all, if you look up “Trump” in the dictionary, “unprincipled buffoon” is one of the first definitions you’ll find.
Second, unprincipled buffoonery has got him where he is today. If he had ever actually stopped his act (assuming that it is one) long enough to deliver himself of some substantive, informed, and interesting musings on policy, or on how he is actually going to accomplish any of the bold goals he has set himself, the media, and his fans, would have lost interest, and he’d be on the scrap heap with the rest of the deepest bench in decades.
(BTW, I don’t consider “Mexico will pay for the wall,” “we’ll tax Chinese goods out of existence,” and “eliminate wastefraudenabuse and there will be sooo much money” to be substantive, deep, or particularly compelling policy formulations. So let’s not talk about how those are his ‘policies’ and I’m just being unreasonably picky. Sean Hannity, I’m looking at you.)
What would go a long way to convincing potential voters like the writer of the OP to vote for Trump, I think, would be to see Trump stand up among a group of other candidates (yes, even Hillary Clinton), see him sound informed and intelligent on the issues, and see him score actual points without resorting to entertaining verbal diarrhea, and personal demagoguery and insults. Hillary may be a target-rich environment for now, but should Trump be elected, she’s not the one he’ll be dealing with either at home or abroad.
Margaret Thatcher once said, “I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.”
Not only does Trump not have any political arguments left, he never really had any in the first place. What he has in spades is shamelessness, ego, empty slogans, and legions of acolytes. He’s probably not exaggerating by much, if at all, when he says he could shoot someone on a crowded street and not lose their votes.
Thoughts about how to secure the votes of his opponents, or how to lead those who are skeptical of him, or who didn’t vote for him, will have to come much, much later.
If they ever do.
I stand by my advice to undecideds or conflicted: wait. You have 5 months to make up your mind. Unless you plan to volunteer or take a job with the campaign, there is no good reason to decide today rather than at the moment you pull the lever.
That being said, you should not be looking for reasons to vote for Trump. You should be looking to do the right thing. If you believe that voting for Trump is the right thing, then vote for him. If you don’t, then vote for him. Ultimately, you’re the one who has to sleep at night with your decision.
And at any rate, Trump is the candidate. It’s his job to give you a reason to vote for him.
True and good advice…
Brian, I have to say that I have been NeverTrump but also struggling with the reality of not voting. I live in a purple state that has gone for Obama the past two elections. I have to say that your “destroying both parties argument” is the closest I have come to being persuaded to pull the level for Trump.
thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Sorry, I think it is terrible advice, and decided to so reply to Golding before I saw your reply. That you are bothered is entirely natural, because any statement that “it’s only one vote” completely dismisses the impact of your choice on friends, family, and peers. And on the general public, since you are discussing it in public. Single votes add up to many, or we wouldn’t bother having elections at all.
In fact, there’s quite a correlation in my mind between advice roughly meaning “moral permission to not vote for so-and-so” and the advisor’s preference for so-and-so’s opponent.
The largest knock on Trump seems to be that he will only act in his own personal best interests (and perhaps do that well). On the other hand we strongly believe in the free market economic model with overall society best served by individual people acting in their own personal best interests. If we believe this then why not Trump? Does the free market model only work for a large group? Any president will bring along a large cloud of advisers, appointees and such. Should he have these also driven by their own self interest or should they have strong principles? How would this work, and how could anyone push it into the right direction?
Some enemies will be cautious with Trump in the White House, they’ll see him as unpredictable and dangerous and if he builds up our military, and stops the social experiments increasingly powerful. That gives rise to cooperation or at least avoidance of challenge. Hillary? She is totally predictable, will continue the social experiments with our military, won’t be seen as dangerous, as all know she can be bought with short term gestures, photo ops. Her husband was all photo ops, no substance and we’ve seen what that got us. The world is even more dangerous now. Who knows what deals she made that the Chinese may know about. I find her horrifying. Trump scary, because we know so little about him. I have hope that he’ll pick some adults for his cabinet, especially foreign policy and military adults because he must know he knows nothing.
Two of the three things that have turned me from #NeverTrump
As for the third, well, that will have to wait until I finish my post for the main feed.
Thanks for the sympathy. This is the hardest election I have faced in my life time. I want to go with my gut but even my gut doesn’t know what to do. The thought of either Hillary or Trump churns my stomach so I have tried to just factor in both outcomes would be horrid but which horrid term might give us a better chance in the future…
I get that. Guns are in important aspect of domestic policy that Trump would probably be better on then Hillary. But if Trump were to mainstream some gun-control back into the Republican party? Sure Trump can be waaay better than Hillary on guns but still move the party closer to some bad gun control measures. That is long term damage. Trump is certainly not a long time gun rights advocate. Gun control seems to me to be one of the areas ripe for him to triangulate on.
I am sympathetic to the case that Trump may be an megalomaniacal buffoon but sometimes it takes a megalomaniacal buffoon to fight an army of megalomaniacal buffoons (i.e. the current political establishment). The idea that Trump is a much-needed wrecking ball against the edifice of the Washington bi-party is an appealing argument.
Where it falls apart for me is I don’t believe Trump really is a wrecking ball, I think he has cloaked himself in that image, but I think his presidency would be more bluster than rampage.
Actually this is one of the reasons I am bothered by not participating in the Election. People in my life do often look to me for political advice and motivation. Sitting out the election just seems to me to be a terrible choice. But at the same time how can I tell people affirmatively to vote for Hillary or Trump? That is what makes this election so hard on me. I just don’t see any evidence that Trump will be any good, over all on single issue he may well be fine, and Hillary is very close to being evil. Vote Trump it will drag everyone down seems at least honest to me. I am not completely sure it is true though.
Well, let me take a crack at that. In the 1980s inflation was out of control and had to be driven out of the economy. Reagan could support that move or he could campaign against it. Reagan’s principles told him he had to support the move and he allowed the country to go into recession even though that cost the Republican enormously in the mid-terms and caused Reagan’s popularity to tank. In the last two years of his term things turned around and he won in a landslide. Reagan had no way of knowing if things would turn around in time to save him but his principles told him to do the right thing. Trump would always act in his short term interests. Keep my popularity up by campaigning against the Fed or do the right thing and look like loser unless events turn my way in time. Trump will act to keep his numbers up. He has no principles to guide him so he won’t follow them. He is all calculation and therefore has a flawed long term outlook.
Ok this is great. This is heart of my question. In the OP the results I outline work whether Trump is all buffoonish bluster or not. Just by winning in November Trump destroys the Democratic party and they will start eating their own and destroying the Clinton machine. Even Obama will take a real knock because after all the “Hope and Change” the country could take in 8 years it turns out the result of that is Trump. Trump simply winning will cause the Democrats to tear themselves apart. No matter how Trump conducts himself afterwards. Am I crazy to think that or is it a realistic assessment?
Mr. Wolf,
This is worthy of the Main Feed promotion I think it just got.
The new title is pretty cool, once you get it.
This is a novel and, I think, very serious argument.
My overarching criticism of it is that you’re too optimistic about the chances of impeachment. It absolutely could happen — and I think it’d be likelier than normal — but it seems unlikely to me that representatives who are signing up now will repudiate Trump later; they’ll be too many good reasons “not to hand the Democrats a victory,” etc., etc.
Basically, no one ever went broke underestimating people’s ability to rationalize and avoid short-term pain; fortunes, however, are often lost on expecting people to be brave and do the right thing.
The title is awesome and the changes are great. Sandernistas I wish I had actually thought of that word. Thank you editors!