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Pining for Pence

The New Neo Posted on by

I didn’t listen to the debate, although I did turn it on thinking I’d catch the end. But when I turned on the TV, I saw the two candidates get up and shake hands, and I figured: hey, what perfect timing!

But I did read about it, of course, and the consensus was the Kaine may have won the prize for unpleasant personalities in a campaign year that has featured the most obnoxious and off-putting characters ever; and that Pence appealed much more, not just to partisans but to those who were previously undecided (such as the Luntz focus groups).

So I was curious to see how the media would spin it. Here’s today’s page at Memeorandum, which compiles a sampler of media and blog reaction. Just glancing at the headlines, they don’t look too terribly biased compared to most media coverage of the election lately, although of course there is bias. Perhaps the relative lack is because the vice presidential debates ordinarily don’t matter much, if at all. Will this one? I doubt it. Despite the somewhat advanced age of both presidential contenders, and the possible ill health of one, Trump and Hillary are still the main attractions (?) by far.

If you study that Memeorandum list, you’ll see that one of the spins is that Pence did so well that he outclassed Trump. That’s not really spin, though, is it? It’s the truth.

The bar is very low for outclassing Trump, but Pence cleared it very easily, and what’s more he outclassed Kaine by a mile as well. And yes, a headline like “Republicans pine for Pence at the top of the ticket” doesn’t sound like spin either. I pine for almost anyone but Trump at the top of the ticket, although I realize that pining is not an especially productive activity.

Come to think of it, though, “I Pine for Pence” might make a nice bumper sticker.

Comments

Pining for Pence — 104 Comments

  1. I wanted Pence to run forPresident, both in 2012 and 2016. His excellent performance last night reinforced why.

  2. Of the 8 headlines that memeorandum highlights, 6 are pro dem. One is non-commital and one is factual in its negative implications for the dems. In my book that hardly qualifies as not looking “too terribly biased”. Especially when what actually happened is considered.

    Kaine constantly lied, obfuscated and rudely interrupted 72 times. Kaine was literally incapable of keeping his mouth shut when Pence was speaking. In a 90 minute ‘debate’ with each nominee having less that 40 minutes to speak, Kaine averaged an interruption almost every 30 seconds.

    The ‘moderator’ was demonstrably biased, frequently reprimanding Pence, while nearly giving Kaine carte blanche. Even going so far as to verbally agree with Kaine… while Pence was speaking.

    Yet only one headline on memeorandum even alluded to the actual truth.

  3. Geoffrey Britain:

    The word “terribly” was the operative one.

    It’s all relative.

  4. I watched portions of the debate this morning and was not surprised Pence kept his cool and stayed on message. From my pov Kaine came across as more rude and asinine than djt at his worst.

  5. neo,

    Might I suggest that a ratio of 7 to 1 is not ‘relative’ but rather conclusive as to bias? I take it that memeorandum is just an aggregator of stories in the MSM? If so, would it not be more accurate for memeorandum to change its name to… propagandum?

  6. parker,

    After Hillary abdicates*, won’t it be fun seeing Kaine’s smug

    Marxist** face on the news… nearly ever night?

    *she had another ‘attack’ today

    ** google “Tim Kaine’s radical roots”

  7. GB,

    I researched Kaine after he was choosen for VP. A real running dog lackey..

    I do agree that POTUS hrc is unlikely to serve a full term.

  8. I’m outraged that during the debate Governor Pence avoided the real issues that face this country: Rosie O’Donnell and the weight gain of a Miss Universe from the mid-1990s.

    Proves that Pence is GOPe all the way.

  9. Contrast Pence’s performance to Trump’s, then tell me that a “respectable” candidate like Cruz or Rand Paul couldn’t have won.
    It’s a sick joke.

  10. Give it up. Vote Trump, unless you want that yappy SOB as president after Hillary dies in office or whatever.

  12. Time to look at the inner truth of what they used to say to whining children at my step-son’s kindergarten:

    “You git what you git and you don’t throw a fit.”

  13. I understand the feeling of people who don’t want to vote for Trump: I don’t want to either, and there is not a chance in a million I would vote for Hillary. But as reluctant as I am to vote for Trump, I will do so. I do so in full hope that neither candidate will win 270 electoral votes and the House of Representatives will select our next president. Second hope is that Trump wins but does not survive the full four years, so Pence will succeed him before 2020. There, I said it. Not PC, but that’s my gut feeling right now.

  14. I live in Virginia and always considered Kaine a smarmy, dishonest, obnoxious, bunghole, and last night just confirmed my opinion. Obviously, Hillary was trying to find a VP who makes her look good. To do that you have to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
    .

  16. Ray, wasn’t Kaine the one whose campaign pushed the Macaca garbage? When I was working up there in NOVA, Kaine struck me as oily

  17. From Ann Althouse (@ 10:21 AM today):

    But if you are one of the many people who are admiring Pence’s style over Trump’s, realize what you are saying: You like the manner of the career politician. That is what you want. A man with a style honed outside of politics will seem too rough, too unfinished, too strange. For all the complaints about politicians – their ungenuineness, their smarminess, their embedment in dishonesty, their guile – a politician is exactly what you want.

    The link:

    althouse.blogspot.com

  18. Kaine wasn’t the one that pushed the macaca garbage. That was the Webb campaign and the media. Over 100 macaca stories.

  20. Ray: Thanks for the word ‘smarmy’. Just like that jerk who is the head of the IRS. Perfect.!

  21. Ray Says:
    October 5th, 2016 at 8:57 pm
    I live in Virginia and always considered Kaine a smarmy, dishonest, obnoxious, bunghole, and last night just confirmed my opinion. Obviously, Hillary was trying to find a VP who makes her look good. To do that you have to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
    * * *
    Indeed.

  22. KBK:

    Give it up yourself.

    I’m heartily sick of this “shut up” business from the pro-Trump crowd.

    I’ve noticed it for a long time; the standard meme.

    This is a blog comments thread. We talk about stuff. Many many times, Trump supporters have said that no one else would have won against Hillary and that Trump was her best opponent. They used that argument to try to help nominate him. It was manifestly untrue then and there was no evidence whatsoever for it, although Trump supporters tried to pretend there was (I analyzed the polls back then, and there was no evidence for it).

    So now Trump is doing poorly against a very weak candidate, Hillary. And now Matt_SE notes that Pence is such a breath of fresh air that it reminds people that almost any of those other candidates could have probably beaten Hillary.

    But he’s not supposed to notice? Or is he just not supposed to say it? Why not? It’s a very valid point, and what’s more a lot of people are angry at Trump’s nomination—not just because he’s a terrible person, but because he’s a weak candidate and his nomination was probably the best way to guarantee the election of Hillary Cliton.

  23. vanderleun:

    Read my comment right above this one. And one more thing: your condescension is misplaced. No one here is the equivalent of a whiny child, and no one is in kindergarten.

    Except perhaps one Donald Trump.

  24. T and J.J.:

    I think that Althouse quote is one of the many times she tries to say something controversial to stir up conversation.

    It’s not really true, though. It’s not “a politician” people are looking for. It’s someone articulate, mature, logical, smart, even-tempered, who makes proposals for policy with which they agree. These are traits some politicians have. They are not traits Trump has, but it’s not because he’s not a politician that the people who don’t like him don’t like him. It’s because he’s a lying, impulsive, insulting, etc. etc….

    The distinction is not “politician vs. non-politician.” It’s a person with admirable traits that you’re looking for versus one who lacks them and has bad traits you’re not looking for. As an example, Carly Fiorina is not a politician. But she has all the good traits Trump lacked. I think she would have been a great candidate. I’m not looking for a politician, and I don’t like Pence because he’s a politician, and the traits I admire in him (and in Fiorina) are not typical political traits.

  25. But if you are one of the many people who are admiring Pence’s style over Trump’s, realize what you are saying: You like the manner of the career politician. That is what you want. A man with a style honed outside of politics will seem too rough, too unfinished, too strange. For all the complaints about politicians – their ungenuineness, their smarminess, their embedment in dishonesty, their guile – a politician is exactly what you want.

    It isn’t the dishonesty of career politicians that I find appealing, it’s the willingness of some of them to spend a large amount of time learning the details of public policy.

    I am not opposed to someone being president simply because they are a current or former Governor or US Senator.

    I am opposed to someone being president simply because they were a successful game show host, casino and strip club owner.

  26. Here is Heather Wilhelm writing about the The GOP’s Trumpian Escape Fantasies.

    Once a shy creature, this plucky digital mutation now boasts several colorful variations. There’s the “Mike Pence will be Trump’s shadow president” e-mail; the “Come on, Trump just wants to play president on TV, so he won’t make any trouble” e-mail; or, occasionally, the very dark, quietly terrible “Trump’s 70! He’s old! He might die in office, and then we get Mike Pence as president!” e-mail. (No, really, I’ve gotten this. Please do not write this e-mail.)

    These missives represent a morphing of sorts, revealing a larger phenomenon: the sixth and perhaps final stage of the GOP’s evolving Trumpian grief. Let’s call it the Trumpian escape-hatch fantasy. It’s a mindset, alas, that can only lead to heartache.

    In 2016, it’s become a bit of a cliché to map, Ké¼bler-Ross-style, the stages of Republicans’ coping with their ramshackle and occasionally terrifying presidential nominee: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. But in the age of Trump, for many good-hearted Republicans, acceptance – supposedly the final stage of grief – is simply not acceptable.

    No, no: This is all too bizarre, this presidential fiasco. It was also preventable! The old model of grief will not do. Instead, like a pack of crazed Venice Beach roller-bladers, certain GOPers have blown right past the Acceptance Popsicle Stand — which, since it’s 2016, may or may not secretly sell meth, various state secrets, and new gender identities – and plowed off the sidewalk. They have toppled over, scattering various indignant seagulls, and finally settled into a new, more exciting stage, deep in the toasty, comforting sand. “We can vote for Trump for president,” they seem to say, dreamily, “but Trump won’t really be president.”

    http://www.nationalreview.com/node/440761/print

  27. a politician is exactly what you want.

    There are politicians and then there are Politicians. Althouse is wrong to imply that they’re all the same.
    Haley Barbour is not Jeff Sessions.

  28. Neo, Matt_SE, Big Maq, et.al.

    Throughout our comments on this site we have agreed on much. Not, however, on the importance of voting for Donald Trump.

    One of the reasons that the left has been able to marbleize itself into so many aspects of daily life is that (IMO) conservatives refuse to fight with the same fervor of the left. The left brings a shotgun while conservative/traditionalists insist on being above the fray with the Marquess of Queensberry rules governing conflict; this is what I interpreted, yet again, in the response to the Althouse citation above.

    McCain’s campaign in 2008 was, perhaps, the nadir of this thinking. Even if unconsciously, he was willing to lose the election rather than “look bad” or be called a “racist” in his competition with Obama; Romney fought only slightly better than this. And therein, IMO, is the difference: The right has seen this as an ongoing competition, the left sees it as a brawl, as a fight, and more succinctly, as a fight to the death.

    Now Trump appears and fights, and how does a noticeable portion of the right respond? “Oh, we want a fighter, but not someone who fights like that!” Whether written to provoke or to elucidate, IMO the Althouse quote is spot on. People tend to forget that one cannot promote a better moral, social or economic position from the political grave.

    For me, the greatest disappointment in this election is the recent spate of indirect Bush announcements coming out in support of Hillary. IMO one of the important results of Trump’s candidacy is to have revealed that so many so-called conservatives are not really that at all. The Bush family, Charles Krauthammer, Jonah Goldberg, many authors of The National Review (Wm. F. Buckley, Jr. is rolling over in his grave) that I have admired, seem more concerned about supporting one of their own who “belongs in their crowd” rather that someone who provides even a smidgen of opportunity to break the Gramscian march. Why? Again IMO, most likely because “Trump ain’t one of us.”

    Now, it is not even arguable that, while having an excellent message, Trump is a very, very faulty messenger. That is something we can all agree on. Yet, as I have written many times on this blog, one goes to war with the army one has, and, for better or worse, Trump is the army we have been given in this election cycle. It doesn’t matter “why,” it doesn’t matter “by whom,’ and it doesn’t matter if any other candidate would have been better. These are all moot theoretical points at this stage of the political battle. That the choice my not be binary, but that the outcome will is all but a certainty; those are the realities. And if Trump is so faulty, we need to hope that we can muster the influence, as Milton Friedman noted, to make the wrong people do the right things. Does one even hold that out as a slim possibility in a second Clinton administration?

    I just read today (forgot source, sorry) that the alternative to Trump is, under Hillary, a continuation of a 16 year plan to turn this country into something that the founding fathers would not have recognized and that would have repulsed them. I agree with this assessment—you may not.

    Addendum: Sitting here proofreading this entry, I had to ask myself why am I even bothering? I see much reflexive defensiveness on both the highly partisan pro-Trump side and on the Never Trump side as well. I don’t write this with the expectation of changing one single opinion; nor do I offer this as a plea for someone to say something that will change mine. One of the results of this polarizing election seems to be that people, myself included, have had a tendency to dig in. I have pretty much put this election behind me, looking forward to November 9th regardless of the results because, like sitting on death row, at least it will be over. Like many celebrities who promise to leave the country if Trump wins, I too would make that promise if Hillary wins, not because I am so pro-Trump, but because I, indeed, am that anti-Hillary. But to what end? In fact, this country is the final redoubt; there is no place for a traditionalist/conservative to move to. I guess my only real justification is in Neo’s own comment above: “This is a blog comments thread. We talk about stuff,” so, for better or worse, I am talking.

  29. T:

    How many NeverTrump commenters do you think there are on this blog?

    Very very few. Very. Most of the people here who cannot stand Trump either are reluctant (VERY reluctant) Trump supporters or are undecided.

    So I’m often puzzled by references to NeverTrumpers here, although perhaps the references are meant to be to NeverTrumpers out there in the larger world?

    And yes, it’s good to talk about things in a thoughtful manner, which you are definitely doing.

    However, it’s not the least bit irrelevant to talk about how we got to this point and what the alternatives might have been. Unless you think there literally is no future without a Trump victory, there’s a future to be planned for, and understanding the past is part of the key to planning actions in the future. Those who fail to understand the past are condemned to repeat it (and of course even those who understand it can be condemned to repeat it, and it’s also impossible to understand completely).

  30. T:

    “Now Trump appears and fights, and how does a noticeable portion of the right respond? “Oh, we want a fighter, but not someone who fights like that!””

    I won’t say you know what I think, but the problems with Trump for me go beyond his style of fighting, to the core of what he is fighting for. IMO he is fighting for Trump no more no less. Sometimes that is against Hillary and her policies and politics and sometimes it is not. But his fight is only for Trump.

  31. T-I commiserate with you. Once Trump won the nomination, I determined that I will vote for Trump (despite the fact that I live in California), with the belief that even if there is a tiny chance that the “progressive” path might be challenged, I will take it. Just this Tuesday, I was dealt another low-blow by our Democrat run state. A pregnancy counseling center that with private monies (and we have personally supported this foundation to the tune of thousands of dollars), provides free ultrasounds to any woman coming into the clinic and offers support should they decide to keep the baby, was threatened with closure by way of AB775 (a bill introduced by 2 Democrats, signed in to law by Democrat Jerry Brown and used by Democrat L.A. City Attorney Michael Feuer, in a case of “lawfare”). The full measure of the legal structure was utilized against this small (only 4% of clinics for crisis pregancies are pro-life) entity, complete with an undercover investigator to make sure they were complying with this new law. They ultimately folded and now must refer for abortions in 13 languages to anyone entering their clinic. For me, personally, this represents the kind of challenge I have always wondered about myself. Would I go along with the Nazis when they required that the German Church refuse to allow anyone of Jewish heritage to worship in the church? Or would I join Bonhoeffer and a few others in the Confessing Church? This new law in my view is immoral and violates the dictates of “nature’s law”. Democrats, like Soros, brought this about and intend to keep mowing down every capacity to exercise our liberty to believe differently–climate change, “gender” issues, and on and on. At this point I am in a place of praying about what kind of action this new assault may require of me.

  32. Neo,

    Yes, my references to both #NeverTrump and pro-Trump above are meant to be global, not restricted to this site or its commenters.

    As to your claim about discussing what might have been in this cycle, I have reached the point where I sincerely believe that the conservative/traditionalist right has learned very little from it own past. In the same way that the left grasps with cold dead fingers onto the concept of socialism (“It works. We just haven’t implemented it properly that last thousand times.”), the right seems to grasp onto the notion of the noble struggle with its own cold, dead fingers; the “Les Miz” references to Clinton’s deplorables are exactly that (as much as I like them). The problem is the left is winning and I see them now at a critical mass.

    As for understanding the past, I sincerely ask: Just what did the political right learn from the abject failure of the McCain campaign when Romney ran, when the right disavowed the Tea Party, now again when Trump runs and many on the right disavow him? IMO, not one damned thing. Had they done so, they would have unified behind a strong acceptable non-Trump candidate to preclude a Trump nomination (Walker, Fiorina and Cruz, in that order would have been my choices), but the fact is that Trump overwhelmed them in the primaries with a successful message (“Make America Great Again!”) that establishment Republicans simply could not fathom before Trump brought it to the podium. And, IMO, the reason they could not fathom it is because so many of them are NOT conservatives or traditionalists, but Dem-Lites whose goal is to see the Republican party govern the progressive state. (Again, IMO) such a message does not and can not exist in their “more of the same but under our control” mindset.

    It’s not that I think there is no future without a Trump victory (although that may be true), it’s that I think there is only one single future when the choice is between leftist Democrats and Republicans who are Democrat-Lites. And that is a future I truly despise, whileI readily admitting that, given the criticisms of Trump as a closet liberal, it could be inevitable regardless of the Nov. 8th outcome.

    Now I, personally, am reasonably adept at broken field running in the social, economic and financial realms. I am a survivor and like to think that if need be I could survive even under a communist/socialist regime, (I am a conservative doing more than surviving in a deeply blue Democrat machine) but I don’t want to live my remaining life in that world. More importantly, to the extent that I have any influence to do so, I don’t want to leave that kind of a crummy world to my grandchildren; I prefer a different kind of crummy.

    Finally, I’ve been debating while writing this whether I should or should not . . . . but you’ve prompted the response. I suspect you knew you would, so I will oblige:

    “. . . it’s not the least bit irrelevant to talk about how we got to this point and what the alternatives might have been.” [Neo]

    “For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: “It might have been”. [J.G.Whittier]

  33. OM,

    I understand what you are saying, but I must rhetorically ask, after the last of the first generation presidents (Washington, Jefferson, Adams, etc.) has there been any president who has not had his own personal interest at heart at least to some degree? Everyone has some agenda. Lincoln is the only possible exception that springs readily to mind and I say that because his writings. They spring from altruism and national concern that, lacking, could not have produced such moving oratory.

  35. T:

    Why single out Republicans or conservatives? Do human beings in general ever learn much?

    Does that mean we shouldn’t try to figure it out as best we can?

    Also, on “what might have been” and Whittier: see this.

    I’m WAY ahead of you 🙂 .

  37. T:

    The left brings a shotgun while conservative/traditionalists insist on being above the fray with the Marquess of Queensberry rules governing conflict; this is what I interpreted, yet again, in the response to the Althouse citation above.

    I’ve heard this talking point so many times, down to the “Marquess of Queensberry” hyperbole.

    You’re right – the left is amoral for the most part (but that doesn’t mean, by a LONG stretch, that people who vote for Democrats are. I know a lot more now than I used to).

    All that being said, Trump doesn’t “fight”, unless talking loud, waving your hands, and engaging in shameless demagoguery and dishonesty is considered fighting. He let Hillary de-pants him on national TV (figuratively) in the debate. The Trump as “big, tough guy” has never resonated with me. Yes, he’s brash, he’s loud, he’s a bully, etc. but none of that is all that respectable.

    The idea that we need to just resign ourselves to guys like Trump if we ever want to win another election is wrong. Just because the left’s tactics have been working over the last few elections doesn’t mean that they’ve reached the golden mean of election excellence and we need to sit at their Alinskian feet and learn from them.

    How about the conservative movement re-grow its spine, re-learn its core principles, and search (we have at last 150MM people in this country to pick from) for an excellent set of communicators to cast the conservative vision? Unless we’re now ashamed of it.

    “People tend to forget that one cannot promote a better moral, social or economic position from the political grave.”

    Where do I start? In what universe is Trump promoting a better moral (three wives, serial adulterer, dishonest as h_ll (while his supporters cheer, heartless, cruel, etc), social (let’s deport muslims and instruct the army to commit war crimes), or economic (Isolationist/punitive trade policies! If it worked for Smoot-Hawley, it can work for us! Print money! etc. etc.) position?

    “IMO one of the important results of Trump’s candidacy is to have revealed that so many so-called conservatives are not really that at all.”

    I agree 100%. But I have a distinct feeling I’m thinking about a whole different set of people.

    Look, I oppose Trump and want him to lose because I’m a conservative.

    It’s been sad to see how many “principled conservatives” in this election cycle have jettisoned all their principles at the altar of Trumpism.

    Wm. F. Buckley, Jr. is rolling over in his grave

    I’m sure he is. But – again – for different reasons than you think.

    I’m really thankful for National Review – they’ve taken a difficult stand in a contentious year and have taken a whole lot of cr@p for it.

    I think Buckley would be proud of his organization. But neither you nor I can speak for them.

    #neverTrump

  38. Also, I wrote above: “I know a lot more now than I used to” – referring to people who vote for Democrats.

    I’m not going to go anywhere near voting for Hillary, but I know people who have been mostly reliable GOP voters who, at this point, will never vote for the GOP again. Because of Trump.

  39. “Why single out Republicans or conservatives?”

    Actually I didn’t. My comment about the left clinging with cold, dead fingers to utopian socialism makes the same point. They haven’t learned anything either, but I don’t care about the left because they don’t claim to desire a right-of-center world.

    But to your point. . . I, quite some time ago, came to the conclusion that in one respect, Santayana was wrong. Each of us is required to repeat the future. Each of us is required to learn the same things from birth onward to allow us to function in this world. Each of us is condemned to repeat the past in many ways. The same information cycles over and over again with each new birth, each of us re-learning the same things and eventually diverging on our own personal path. If our individual paths are unique, it’s not because of the individual learning (Einstein learned the sam math as his colleagues) but because of the accumulation of various re-learned circumstances which create a unique whole greater than the sum of its repetitive parts. This, in fact, is the basis of a long discussion that Kolnai and I shared some years ago.

    So, to suggest an answer to your question: ” Do human beings in general ever learn much?” Generally, my answer is: “No.” It’s how we put those parts together that makes all the difference in the world, and to date, I’m giving the Republican party and many so-called conservatives some seriously failing grades.

  40. Bill,

    ” Just because the left’s tactics have been working over the last few elections doesn’t mean that they’ve reached the golden mean of election excellence and we need to sit at their Alinskian feet and learn from them.”

    What a great sentence. I disagree with you, but you are a wordsmith. Well written.

    “How about the conservative movement re-grow its spine, re-learn its core principles, and search . . . for an excellent set of communicators to cast the conservative vision?”

    You lay out a plan of how to get that done and I will be the first signature on the petition or membership role. Nothing would please me more.

    ” . . . the political grave.”

    First off, I was speaking generically there, I wasn’t intending to allude to Trump. Second, while Trump may be few, or none, of those things, the first step is getting one’s foot int h door. Again Friedman, influence the wrong people to do the right thing. Can anyone seriously argue that such can be done with ideologically based Hillary with the mainstream media wind at her back?

    From this point on in your response, you and I simply disagree.

  41. Correction at 2:02 above:

    “. . . in one respect, Santayana was wrong. Each of us is required to repeat the future past.”

    Sorry.

  42. Bill: “The idea that we need to just resign ourselves to guys like Trump if we ever want to win another election is wrong.”

    I have seen no one on this blog who has said they are voting for Trump because Trump is their model for winning elections. What they have said is that Trump is not afraid to be politically incorrect, which distinguishes him from all the GOP candidates of the last six elections. Everyone of those GOP candidates were kept in line by an aggressive media that seized on any words they spoke that could be interpreted as racist, sexist, homophobic, overly religious, chauvinistic, nationalistic, militaristic, etc. They are doing the same to Trump, but instead of bowing to the pressure, he fights back. His style is boorish and off putting to people who prefer a polished politician like Mike Pence. What we would all like to see is a polished speaker like Pence, who also has the bulldog fighting spirit and willingness to be politically incorrect of someone like Trump.

    I have seen no comment that claims Trump is the ideal conservative candidate. His ideology is not conservative. In fact his ideology is mostly pragmatic and made up as he goes along. For me, and possibly many others who are going to vote for Trump, it is not because he is conservative or a great candidate. It is because we are voting AGAINST Hillary.

    When you have made up your mind to vote for someone, you then look for any redeeming qualities he/she might have to help you feel better about that choice. I’m doing that and so are others who have decided to vote for Trump.

    On the other hand, when you have firmly decided you will not vote for a candidate no matter what, it’s also true that you will seize on and magnify any qualities that verify your choice.

    So the discussion goes on with commenters and our hostess all working on their inner issues. No minds changed, but we all get to vent and relieve to some extent the angst we all feel about this election.

  44. “What a great sentence. I disagree with you, but you are a wordsmith. Well written.”

    T – thanks for the kind words!

    And thanks for your thoughtful responses in general and “agree-to-disagree” good nature.

    J.J. – I don’t disagree completely, but I think that many people don’t realize that there is a spectrum between straitjacketed PC and being a complete and utter jerk.

    We need more who can “speak the truth in love”, so to speak. To fight against PC with truth.

    I don’t want us to lose the discernment between speaking truth and just being classless. Trump too often passes from truth-telling (although usually his facts are pretty shaky, imo) into boorish jerkhood. That’s not being anti-pc. It’s just being a nasty human being.

    There are worse – have you seen the governor of Maine? He is a piece of work, a Republican who substantiates all the left-wing’s worst stereotypes of Republicans. Racist, boorish, bullying, violent (or promising violence) to his opponents, ignorant, profane, etc. Worse than Trump, but on the same side of the spectrum that Trump usually places himself, just further down toward the tail-end.

  45. “I think that many people don’t realize that there is a spectrum between straitjacketed PC and being a complete and utter jerk.” [Bill @ 3:29 pm]

    I don’t disagree with this. Most definitely there is a difference. For my take, I put Trump in the category of unliked attorney. You know the one that everyone says is a real jerk and a real a$$hole because he’ll do anything to win a case. Well, if I am indicted on a felony charge, that’s exactly the attorney I want. No nice fighting, no genteel arguments, no going out after depositions and having a beer with the prosecutor. I want a rabid pit bull who will take no prisoners and whose only goal is to see that I don’t go to jail. As such, although distasteful and certainly not to my liking, I can tolerate Trump’s being a jerk for now.

    The problem I have is that there seem to be no clear indications that this is being successful. One might say: “Look at how far it got him. For all the garbage being thrown at him and for all the bias against him in the media, he’s still tied in the polls with Clinton.” That’s true, but first, that doesn’t mean it will get him across the finish line. Second, I’m not convinced we can rely on the polls this cycle whether they say Trump leads or Clinton leads. If Trump wins: “He’s the town jerk, but you gotta give him credit…he wins.” If he loses, even if by a nose: “He’s the town jerk. Period.”

    Thus, I suffer J.J.’s angst.

  46. @ T:
    Now Trump appears and fights, and how does a noticeable portion of the right respond? “Oh, we want a fighter, but not someone who fights like that!”

    Well, if by “that” you mean standing there for an hour, getting his ass kicked by Hillary because he’s too undisciplined to control himself, then I agree.

  47. During this election cycle you could occasionally hear or read a conservative saying, “I like candidate X, but he might be too conservative to win. So, I’ll support candidate Y, who is less conservative, but more electable.”

    At this point, you might hear someone say, “But Reagan was a conservative and he was more electable than the moderates he ran against. The moderate Ford lost to Carter in 1976. The conservative Reagan defeated Carter in 1980.”

    This is where it gets complicated because not all election years are identical to each other. Politics isn’t conducted under controlled conditions. There are some election cycles which favor the Republicans and others which favor the Democrats.

    Also, some candidates can be appealing and charismatic regardless of whether they are conservative, moderate or leftist. Other candidates lack the ability to connect with voters, regardless of their ideological core.

    Still, by nominating Trump the Republicans selected someone who is the least conservative nominee of the Republican party in at least a half century.

    Question: How many Republican presidential nominees praised single payer socialized medicine and donated money to Democrat candidates for president and US Senate within 10 years of seeking the Republican nomination?

    But in addition to being less conservative than any other GOP presidential nominee, Trump is also less electable than any other presidential nominee.

    There is no way that Bob Dole or George W Bush or John McCain would have picked a verbal fight with the parents of a fallen US Soldier the way that Donald Trump did. None of those candidates would say, “I am the king of debt,” and hope to get a positive reaction from voters. It’s hard to imagine Mitt Romney taking time during a presidential debate to call a former Miss Universe fat.

    But the Trump supporters view every mistake Trump makes, including Trump’s ability to lose nearly a billion dollars in a single year, as “Genius.”

  48. Bill: “There are worse — have you seen the governor of Maine?”

    No, I haven’t. And from your description, I’m glad that I haven’t.

    We never realized what a miracle Reagan was. A polished wordsmith, a man of principles well studied, and a man with a stainless steel backbone. Not a mean bone in his body, but also not a weak bone either. He could smile at his opponent while taking him to the woodshed. Yet, with all his great qualities, he was only able to slow, not reverse, the march to the left. Unless another such man comes along things are going to continue spinning leftward.

    Trump, IMO, is so inferior to what we need on our side, (another Reagan) that it is tragic. So, I repeat, my vote is against Hillary. With prayers that somehow, his surrounding team (Pence, Giuliani, Carson, Gingrich, and others) can steer him toward doing some good things. A slim reed of hope, I admit.

    On t’other hand, if I knew for sure that the economy would tank disastrously shortly after Hillary’s ascension to the Oval Office and that progressive policies would be outed for the disaster that they are, then I might be persuaded to vote for Hillary. If such an economic failure could result in a turn to conservative policies, it would be a no brainer. However, that is also a slim reed on which to base one’s vote. The angst remains.

  49. I love reading the descriptions and predictions of NeverTrumpers – they become more desperate and fantastical every day.

    Be that as it may, for those (few, Neo!) who believe that Hillary Clinton is survivable and that conservatism can recover after a Hillary term of four or eight years, let me point you to California.

    California is the future of the United States under leftism. A few examples:

    The state’s government is under the control of public employees’ unions and trial attorneys. Whatever they want, goes.

    Illegal immigrants furnish much of the labor. The American flag is banned from many schools, while the Mexican flag is permitted and encouraged.

    Businesses are leaving California by the truckload, including former mainstays such as aerospace, garments, and movie and TV production. An agricultural powerhouse, California farm production declined by 17% from 2014-2015, and will decline further in 2016, because leftists have caused water to be routed from agricultural uses to preservation of salmon runs and the snail darter and the lawns of San Francis-area silicon moguls.

    It is no longer legal to “bear arms” in California — open carry is no longer permitted, and concealed carry permits are “may issue,” which means no issue (unless you are politically connected) in urban counties. The state banned the purchase, but not ownership, of “high-capacity” (more than 10-round) magazines years ago. This year there is a ballot proposition calling for confiscation of those magazines and registration and background checks on ammunition purchasers. It will probably pass.

    The California Supreme Court overruled a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman!

    The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted not to appeal a federal judge’s order to remove from the county seal the very small cross representing the historical fact that Los Angeles was founded by the Spanish missionary-explorers. (Doubtless this will be followed by a lawsuit demanding the name of the city and county be changed — the full name, after all, is, in English, the City of the Angels, and originally was “El Pueblo de Nuestra Seé±ora la Reina de los éngeles de Porciéºncula;” in English, “The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of Porciéºncula.”)

    Conservative speakers are banned from many of the campuses of the state’s public university system.

    I could go on and on, but to save me time, just go to Victor Davis Hanson’s website.

    This is what the entire country will become under Hillary Clinton. And it will never come back. Her “open borders,” “path to citizenship” for illegals, and free college tuition will insure that.

    California state-level elections, including for US Congress and for the governorship, are between the two candidates of all parties who received the most votes in the open primary. There will never be a Republican governor or senator in this state again. If you want that across the whole country, fine — allow the Evil Empress to win.

  50. Richard Saunders Says:

    I love reading the descriptions and predictions of NeverTrumpers — they become more desperate and fantastical every day.

    Latest RCP averages: Hillary +4.1%
    In other words, her lead is widening. But you probably think the polls are phony, so you won’t believe them until Trump loses in November.

    You backed a clown, and this is the result.

  51. Richard Saunders Says:

    Be that as it may, for those (few, Neo!) who believe that Hillary Clinton is survivable and that conservatism can recover after a Hillary term of four or eight years, let me point you to California.

    California is the future of the United States under leftism. A few examples:

    If you thought the consequences were dire, you probably shouldn’t have backed a clown who large parts of the base said was unacceptable.

    That’s all on you.

  52. Richard Saunders Says:

    The state’s government is under the control of public employees’ unions and trial attorneys. Whatever they want, goes.

    Etc., etc., etc.
    Yes, Democrats are bad. They will ruin us all.
    If you wanted to fight them, you shouldn’t have nominated a clown to do so.

  53. You know Matt_SE, there are those on both sides of this issue who see this as a civil discussion with meaningful commentary. Clearly you do not. Your vituperative comments are really little more than regurgitation through your keyboard. They neither contribute to the discussion nor establish your credibility.

    So Trump supporters have backed a clown? Well we are in good company with the likes of William Jacobson, Victor Davis Hanson, Chuck Yeager, James Woods, Ted Cruz and a host of others. Perhaps, just perhaps, there are larger issues at play here than you have been able to wrap your mind around.

  54. @ T:

    If Trump loses, that means more than half of all voters disagreed with you. The larger the loss, the more wrong you will be. I’m not sure you want to go down the ad populum road.

    I do admire the way you’ve co-opted Cruz though, as if his endorsement wasn’t extracted under threat. The puffery of the Trump camp seems to be a constant.
    I wouldn’t count on your numbers holding up in the event of a loss, since IMO there are many, many supporters whose advocacy is conditional or tepid.
    “Why sell your soul if you’re not going to get anything for it?” they’ll ask.

    The point of my hectoring is to set the record straight beforehand, since there will be immense pressure for Trump’s supporters to deny what they’ve done. To revise history.

    I don’t mind losing as long as we learn a lesson from it.

  55. Richard Saunders:

    When citing the horribles of California that preceded Trump and that Trump has tacitly supported by his funding of Democrat party politicians, please keep some details straight.

    The Snail Darter is a fish from the east coast, specifically the Little Tennessee River, not California, and has nothing to do with water issues in the central valley of California. Cite the correct fish next time or loose more credibility in your hyperbole

    California has it’s own special type of environmental zealot with the surrounding states are quite wary of. Other states see what California has done to itself and while happy to take the industries that are fleeing, want little of the insanity that rules in Sacramento. IMO

  56. Well isn’t this interesting. Slap Matt_SE around a little and he responds by trying to show he’s reasonable after all.

    You know, Richard Saunders wrote a serious post. You may disagree with it, you may not even like it, but you jumped all over that post with condescension and name calling as though insulting the candidate he supports is some way of shaming the author himself. If you have any decency, you will tender him an apology for your being out of line, if not, it’s an indication that whatever your problem is it’s no small thing.

    As to your hectoring, this has nothing to do with setting anything straight. It’s an attempt to set up a justification for a monumental “I told you so” if Trump doesn’t win. First, you’re still waging war with the primary as though there is still some other possible Republican nominee. Second, and this may come as a shock to you, no one cares about your opinion anymore than they care about mine.

    I also like the way you singled out Ted Cruz from my short list. No smarmy comments about William Jacobson. Victor Davis Hanson? Okay, I’ll play along with this one but remember, you asked for it.

    Let’s write off Ted Cruz.

    How about an excerpted list: the Fraternal Order of Police; the National Boder Patrol Council; the National Black Republican Assn; Stacey Dash; Jesse James; Jeanine Pirro; Richard Petty; Jack Niklaus; Mike Ditka; Terrell Owens; Fran Tarkenton; Herschel Walker; Don King; Tito Ortiz; Johnny Bench; George Brett; Curt Schilling; David Berg (Tonight Show producer); Kirstie Alley; James Caan; Jeff Foxworthy; Kelsey Grammar; Jerry Lewis; Dennis Miller; Michael Moriarity; Joe Piscopo; John Ratzenberger; Ben Stein; John Voigt; James Woods; Malik Obama; Carol Swain (Vanderbilt Prof); Paul Rubin (Emory Univ Prof); Walid Phares (Glbl Policy Inst); Robet Oscar Lopez (Cal State Northridge Prof); Thomas DiLorenzo (Loyola Univ Prof); Alveda King (Niece of MLK, Jr); Elizabeth Emkin (frome Pres Autism Speaks); Shmuley Botech (Orthodox Rabbi); Laura Ingraham; Hugh Hewitt; Sheldon Adelson (Las Vegas Sands); Herman Cain; Carl Icahn; Nancy Mace (businesswoman and author); Bernard Marcus (founder Home Depot); Linda McMahon (fomer Pres WWE); Carl Paladino (real estate mogul); T. Boone Pickens; Jack Welch (former CEO GE); Steve Wynn (Wynn Resorts); Lionel Chtwynd; Lou Dobbs; Matt Drudge; Alexsandr Dugin (author); Pamela Geller; Katie Hopkins (columnist); Michelle Malkin; Piers Morgan; Melanie Philips (columnist); Diana West (columnist); Milo Yiannopolis; Nigel Farage; Jean-Marie LePen; Marine LePen; Geert Wilders; Pauline Hanson; Sheriff David A Clarke Jr; Michelle Park Steel (Orange Cty Brd of Supervisors); Rudy Giuliani, and the list goes on.

    Do you think that all of these notable people decided to put their reputations on the line (in some cases) and back, as you call him, a clown? Is it remotely possible that they understand something that you don’t? Is it possible?

  57. Richard Saunders:

    “I love reading the descriptions and predictions of NeverTrumpers — they become more desperate and fantastical every day.”

    “NeverTrumpers” are more desperate and fantastical?

    How so, we aren’t hitched to the Donald. It looks like he is loosing today, but the election is not tomorrow.

    Trumpers on the other hand appear to be fearful of immanent personal death and destruction if “Stalin in the pants suit” is elected. Re-education camps, dogs and cats living together (well maybe not that bad).

  58. Oh, and Matt_SE, one last thing.

    You write: “The larger the loss, the more wrong you will be.” This is an example of specious logic. If Trump does not win the election it means that Trump did not win the election. Only in a twisted Progressive-like perspective does consensus imply rightness or wrongness. It entirely possible that the majority (or plurality) that elects Clinton is wrong. Just like the majorities in the past that believed that the sun moved around a stationary earth, consensus doesn’t make it so.

  59. Trump may be a liberal New York democrat but he’s OUR liberal New York democrat, and he’s not Hillary! SO SHUT UP! 🙂

  60. T,

    I think both Trump supporters and Trump opponents have, on occasion, used Argumentum Ad Populum. Trump supporters point to the number of votes received during the Republican presidential primary as evidence that either [a] Trump really is a true conservative, otherwise Trump could not have secured so many votes or [b] conservatism needs to be replaced by populism, since populism has more adherents than conservatism.

    In the general, Trump opponents, including me, have used Argumentum Ad Populum saying, essentially, that since Trump is behind in the polls against a very unpopular Hillary Clinton, this proves that Trump is a bad candidate.

    I think the argument made by Trump opponents is prudential and pragmatic. Regardless of what one thinks of Donald Trump or a possible Trump presidency, the argument is that nominating Trump results in millions of voters reluctantly accepting Hillary Clinton.

    I personally think that the reluctance of voters (outside Trump’s hardcore supporters) to support Trump is perfectly reasonable. All one has to do is watch and listen to Trump and it’s clear that Trump is not qualified to be president of the United States.

    Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh should have told their listeners from the very beginning of this election cycle: If Donald Trump, a long time supporter of Left wing candidates (Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid) and Left wing causes (socialized medicine, the assault weapons ban, partial birth abortion) wants to run for office as a Republican, let him run for city council first.

    Richard Saunders:

    Be that as it may, for those (few, Neo!) who believe that Hillary Clinton is survivable and that conservatism can recover after a Hillary term of four or eight years, let me point you to California.

    If the United States could survive 5 consecutive presidential terms of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, if Great Britain could survive being “the sick man of Europe” during the 1960s and 1970s and recover under Margaret Thatcher, certainly the United States can survive 4 years of Hillary Clinton.

    Also, Donald Trump is capable and likely to do as much or more damage to the United States as is Hillary Clinton.

  61. Spiral,

    ” All one has to do is watch and listen to Trump and it’s clear that Trump is not qualified to be president of the United States.”

    You speak of “qualifications” to be president as if you are citing an objective fact. In reality, there are only three criteria for president; to be a natural born citizen, a resident fro 14 years and at least 35 years of age.

    So, much to your chagrin, Donald Trump is indeed qualified to be president of the U.S. This points to the bias underlying what you attempt to pass of as objective argument.

    “I think the argument made by Trump opponents is prudential and pragmatic;” “I personally think that the reluctance of voters (outside Trump’s hardcore supporters) to support Trump is perfectly reasonable.” Both of these statements apply equally well to arguments that support Trump. Now Trump supporters would use different criteria than you would, but exactly what law of physics said that the benchmark from which candidates must be judged is to be set by Trump opponents?

    You, of course, are entitled to your own opinion, but realize itt is nothing more than your opinion based upon your own subjective choice of criteria.

  65. Not to worry, T! My motto is, “So many yutzes, so little time.”

    Just to bring a few facts to the discussion: Matt_SE: I am not now, nor have I ever been, a backer or supporter of Trump. As I have posted here before, I am a #NoseholderforTrump, or, if you prefer, a #NeverHillary voter.

    Spiral: you are sadly mistaken about comparing the Roosevelt and Truman presidencies and Hillary Clinton and the left of today. Whatever you want to say about them, Roosevelt and Truman were unabashedly Americans, with American values. Hillary is not, and what’s more she and her cronies are determined to see, with the policies I mentioned, that Americanism and American values are permanently crushed. You think the Donald is likely to do as much damage to America as the Evil Empress? I don’t think you’ve been listening to her, have you? Do you follow what’s going on in the schools and colleges? Pay attention, man! (You, too, OM!)

    They don’t need re-education camps, they own the education system, and when the last of us old farts die out (helped along, of course, by rationed healthcare), their hold will be permanent.

    Oh, gee, OM, I wrote snail darter instead of delta smelt. That crushes my credibility! I am mortified, mortified!

    Look, you want to believe a criminal is better for the country than an asshole, go ahead, that’s your business. Trying to justify that by making up horribles about what the Donald might do, rather than paying attention to what Hillary will do, is yes, indeed, desperate and fantastical.

  66. Richard Saunders:

    Bloviate on and rant some more about how everyone else is fantastical, and then look in a mirror, rage against the storm.

  67. Richard Saunders:

    Spiral: you are sadly mistaken about comparing the Roosevelt and Truman presidencies and Hillary Clinton and the left of today. Whatever you want to say about them, Roosevelt and Truman were unabashedly Americans, with American values.

    People forget that Franklin Roosevelt’s advisors admired the Italian Fascists. Roosevelt’s administration persecuted businessmen and demonized anyone who wanted to allow the free market to recover from the Great Depression.

    Minimum wage. Social Security. Farm Subsidies. Forced Unionization.

    Truman was horrible too.

    Yet, despite 20 years of Roosevelt and Truman, the nation survived. We only need to survive 4 years of Hillary Clinton. And while Roosevelt was widely admired by Americans when he took office, Hillary Clinton will, if elected, arrive in office very unpopular.

    The 2016 election could turn out to much like the 1976 election and the 2020 election could turn out to be much like the 1980 election.

    The difference is, admittedly, that are challenges in 2016-2020 are heavier than the challenges we faced in 1976-1980: Heavier because are entitlement programs have metastasized significantly since 1980. (Remember, Donald Trump says the he won’t reform entitlements, but would expand Medicaid.) Our financial challenges are much tougher than they were when Reagan assumed office.

    Donald “I am the King of Debt” Trump isn’t the person to guide the United States out of the Entitlement swamp that Franklin Roosevelt created (or started constructing).

    I should add that in some sense, things don’t appear as difficult today as they did in 1980. The crime rate, though rising in the last 2 years, is significantly lower than it was in 1980. Americans are not waiting in lines to purchase gasoline. Americans are not faced with 13 percent inflation and even higher interest rates.

  68. Richard

    For what it’s worth, I feel desperate regardless of who wins.

    But I’m not hopeless. I know this thead is running out, but question for you and T: suppose Trump loses. What will you do then? Do you truly not see survviability in that case? Or will work continue to press on against the leftist march?

    I’m not giving up, personally. But we need some viable, articulate conservative leadership. (You already know how I feel about the guy you’re going to hold your nose and vote for…. not him)

    There’s a lot of doomsaying these days. I’m interested in what comes next if your candidate loses. Would love to hear your thoughts.

  69. Btw, new audio is surfacing of a disgusting interview Trump gave in 2005 talking about how, because he’s a star, he gets his way with the ladies.

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/10/07/trump-i-grab-them-by-the-p-y.html?via=mobile&source=copyurl

    Trump told Bush that his stardom allows him to “just start kissing” women. “I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the p_ssy. You can do anything.”
    Trump also talked about trying to sleep with a woman other than his wife, who he said was also married.
    “I did try and f__k her. She was married,” Trump said of a woman he failed to seduce. “And I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping … I moved on her like a b_tch, but I couldn’t get there.” He went on to describe the woman as having “big phony t_ts and everything.”

    In a statement released by his campaign, Trump likened the conversation to “locker room banter” and apologized for offending anyone. “Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course–not even close,” he added.

    None of this is surprising to me. Also, we never Trumpers have been saying since primary season that if he was nominated all this stuff would be held for right before the election.

    When does this start to matter to the “reluctants”

  71. Bill,

    “When does this start to matter to the ‘reluctants'”

    For me it doesn’t. Not because I like it, I don’t, and not because I excuse it, I don’t do that either, but because to me there is no other choice. Not one of the four candidates is my cup of tea, but IMO, and I’ve written this before, to not vote for Trump is to aid and abet Hillary. Trump may disappoint me; Trump may likely disappoint me, but Hillary has already labeled me her enemy and has made it clear that she has no interest in representing me as president (Les deplorables).

    You also asked: “. . . suppose Trump loses. What will you do then? Do you truly not see survviability in that case?” While I don’t expect the government to come crashing down in one fell swoop, I see a continuing march toward a more totalitarian and invasive federal govt than we ever thought possible. My greater fear is that with Hillary on the heels of Obama, and the MSM at her back overlooking any and all faults, the leftism of the Dems will become increasingly marbleized in the government.

    Spiral above, makes it clear that s/he does not share these concerns, the we survived FDR and Truman. IMO that is a shortsighted approach because 80 years ago we did not have the preponderance of invasive regulations that we have today and the Gramscian march is now 80 years further along than it was then. Yes we did weather FDR and Truman, and even Wilson and Carter and Clinton, but there is such a thing as critical mass and I fear we have reached that point or will do so under a second Clinton administration.

  72. Bill -I survived Barry Goldwater’s loss, so I will survive if Trump loses. But I’m old, so it doesn’t matter so much to me. My kids, on the other hand, will be royally screwed. But you’ll feel uplifted, because the Asshole wasn’t elected. Of course, the Criminal WAS elected, but that won’t impinge on your sense of moral superiority.

    Reminds me of something that happened when I was in college, back in the Bronze Age. David Shoenbrun, the old CBS newsman, spoke at my school. He started his speech by saying “After my last speech, a man came up to me and said, ‘Mr. Schoenbrun, I heard you speak in 1964, and you said that if I voted for Goldwater, we’d have a much bigger war in Vietnam, inflation would be rampant, and there’d be riots in the streets. Well, I voted for Goldwater, and you were 100% right!'”

    The question is not how I’ll feel if Trump loses, (been there, done that) the question is, how will you feel when Clinton wins? Will you take the slightest bit of responsibility for her continued destruction of the Constitution and the Republic?

  73. Richard Saunders:

    And if Trump is elected:

    “Will you take the slightest bit of responsibility for” his ” continued destruction of the Constitution and the Republic?”

    Because Trump is by past actions and by many current statements a New York liberal. Things aren’t as cut and dried as you propose. An awful election.

    l

  74. Richard Saunders:

    The dichotomy of “asshole vs. criminal” are your terms for the prospects the two candidates represent, not terms used by the people you’re addressing. Did it ever occur to you—and I’m sure it did, because we’ve discussed this many times on this very blog, not to mention all the times it’s been discussed elsewhere—that many of the people who aren’t voting for Trump would not characterize him as a mere asshole? That they may even think he’s more dangerous than Hillary? Disagree with them as you wish, but don’t pretend that their objections are limited to “Trump is an asshole.”

    You also write:

    The question is not how I’ll feel if Trump loses, (been there, done that) the question is, how will you feel when Clinton wins? Will you take the slightest bit of responsibility for her continued destruction of the Constitution and the Republic?

    It just so happens that that has been discussed quite a bit on this blog, too. My fairly lengthy post on the subject appeared only about two months ago. In fact, if you look at discussion in the comments section there between you and Bill, and you and me, you’ll find we’ve covered some of this same ground.

    Perhaps your question can be answered if you look at this except from that post:

    And about that “responsibility for the election of Hillary and everything she does” part–if she is indeed elected, the responsibility for that would lie in:

    –the voters who chose the execrable Hillary Clinton in the primaries.
    –Donald Trump himself, who is what he is and says what he says, and mounted a losing campaign.
    –Hillary Clinton herself, who is what she is and says what she says, and mounted a winning campaign.
    –The people who voted for Hillary Clinton in the general.

    And what would I be responsible for if I don’t vote for Trump? I would be responsible for failing to help to elect Donald Trump. By not helping to elect Donald Trump, I would be part of preventing his presidency, and whether you think that’s a good or bad thing depends on the very question we’ve been debating here so mightily and for so long: who would be the worse president of the two, and why, and how?

    In that endeavor, Hillary is the more known quantity–and thus in recent months I’ve devoted less attention to her–and Trump the unknown quantity. Some people say that argues in his favor, but I don’t see that as necessarily so. But that’s an issue on which reasonable men and women can disagree.

    I wish I had the proverbial crystal ball to see the two alternative futures, President Hillary Clinton versus President Donald Trump. Short of that, though, we have to puzzle it out ourselves, and that requires honesty. And even after the election comes and the winner is inaugurated and begins the task of being president, and the potential becomes reality and then history, we’ll never know the alternative history of what might have been.

    If Hillary is president, we’ll know what she does as president, but we don’t know what Trump would have done. Would he have been much better, as his supporters will no doubt argue as they blame those who didn’t vote for him? We’ll never never know (unless he were to be elected in 2020, and even then it would be at a different point in history). Would he have been worse, as others will say? We’ll also never know. And the opposite is true, of course, for speculation about a Hillary presidency if Trump were to be elected. And although I think we’d be on much firmer ground if we are trying to guess what she would have done, because she has much more of political track record, we still would never know for sure–although if a President Trump does good things, I think we could be pretty certain he’s better than she.

    In mid-May I wrote a post on this very issue of alternative history, with a quote from the great Czech writer Milan Kundera. I urge you to go there and read the quote, and I’ll add another:

    Kundera describes his vacillating hero, Tomas, in the throes of making a decision about whether or not he is in love with a certain woman:

    “He remained annoyed with himself [for not knowing what he should do] until he realized that not knowing what he wanted was actually quite natural.

    “We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come…There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live our lives without warning, like an actor going on cold.”

    In making both in our personal and in our political decisions, we can weigh things. We can look at the facts. We an make lists of pros and cons. We can bring all our forces of logic, knowledge, experience, and intuition to the solution of our dilemma. But we can never know what the alternative would have brought. We can only do our best.

    That was my answer then, and it’s my answer now.

  76. Richard Saunders Says:

    But you’ll feel uplifted, because the Asshole wasn’t elected. Of course, the Criminal WAS elected, but that won’t impinge on your sense of moral superiority.

    There’s the smug judgmentalism we’ve come to expect from Trumpkins. The emotional bullying and straw man arguments.

    The question is not how I’ll feel if Trump loses, (been there, done that) the question is, how will you feel when Clinton wins? Will you take the slightest bit of responsibility for her continued destruction of the Constitution and the Republic?

    WE didn’t nominate a retarded chimp to run against her. WE don’t bear the responsibility, YOU do.
    Trumpkins, like Communists, try to sell you a shit sandwich and then complain when you’re insufficiently enthusiastic about it.
    I’ve decided that voting for the lesser of two evils is still evil, and I won’t do it any longer. Throw your tantrum as loudly as you like; once Trump loses, his influence will be diminished and so will yours.

  78. It looks like a lot of people are now more than just Pining for Pence given the hot microphone video of Trump.

    But then again he still isn’t her, so it is a simple binary choice. Who could have thought that Trump’s past could catch up with him? Inconceivable, I know. /jk

    Well at lest it hasn’t been boring, predictable, but not boring.

  79. Om,

    What you wrote is, of course, correct, but don’t forget, any non-Democrat is excused any failing, any Republican is on the gallows for any flaw, even if it’s decades old.

    Clearly Trump is an enabler, but don’t forget they did the same thing with Mitt Romney and the dog on the car and the haircut incident. Obama and Clinton, OTH, can do no wrong even if it was done yesterday. The MSM playbook hasn’t changed.

  80. For a while I thought he couldn’t win – not even the primaries. Then he got the nomination and I figured he would lose. Then I got to the point where I believed he would win and I began bracing myself for Trump presidency.

    I’m all out of predictions.

    A few things to add onto this very old thread….

    1. I’m not “pining” for Pence. He chose to take part in the dumpster fire. I’m not voting for any of these Trump people (at least I don’t think I am – if a miracle happens and Trump drops out and somehow Pence is running in his place, I want to hear something that sounds like “we’ve learned our lesson” from the GOP leaders and especially from Pence).

    2. There are a lot of principled conservatives who predicted for the past year that if Trump was nominated what’s happening now would happen, here in October. It was completely predictable. Trumpists didn’t listen

    3. The fact that Trump supporters now have the audacity to blame people like me for what’s happening – well, it’s more fuel to my fire that he has to lose, and lose big. They need the power taken from them. They need to become insignificant.

    4. Holy cow, the Republican party is the stupid party. They’ve earned that moniker, with an oak-leaf cluster, this year.

    5. None of this is surprising to me. Trump is not a good person, not fit to lead, not even a little bit. The fact that some Republicans are acting “shocked” about what he said would be funny if it wasn’t so depressing. He has always treated people like cr@p. Why we would want a President who’s like that is beyond me. Trump’s cruelty, his mindset, the way he thinks, is not just bad because it’s “distasteful” or whatever. It’s bad because it has very real, very tangible policy implications.

    6. Pleased to hear Evan McMullin and Mindy Finn are on the ballot in TX. I’m going to do a little research but strongly considering voting for them. [Cue Kang and Kodos voices: “Go ahead, throw your vote away! Ha Ha Ha!”]

    7. I apologize if this is offensive, but if you are a Trump supporter who thinks his bragging about sexual assault (along with about a thousand other Trump outrages of the past year) doesn’t matter because “we have to stop Hillary at all costs” – I literally don’t know what to say to you. This has to matter some, right?

    8. I’m disgusted by evangelical leaders who are still defending him. The so-called Christian right is covering itself in dishonor right now, and destroying our witness going forward. If we truly believe we belong to a higher kingdom, we need to quit acting like short-term political gains in this nation are all that matters.

    9. I’m looking forward to (hopefully) Neo posting on the latest developments.

  81. “Richard Saunders Says:
    October 7th, 2016 at 8:06 pm

    … I survived Barry Goldwater’s loss, so I will survive if Trump loses. But I’m old, so it doesn’t matter so much to me. My kids, on the other hand, will be royally screwed. But you’ll feel uplifted, because the Asshole wasn’t elected. Of course, the Criminal WAS elected, but that won’t impinge on your sense of moral superiority.”

    So Trump gets elected and fails to complete his term due to scandal, health problems, death, or impeachment, it’s Pence.

    Hillary gets elected and does not complete her term due only to death or complete disability, [as no Demonicrat Senate Pol would ever vote to remove her from office] we get the Marxist twerp Kaine.

    A decade ago, the egotistical Trump bombastically prattles on about trying to leverage his big man status in order “score” with women without regard to his marriage vows. And then self-deprecatingly recounts that in this one instance he caught nothing in his net.

    Clinton he, uses the Oval Office in order to sexually relieve himself in the face of an intern, and settles a sexual assault case for cash, while Clinton she, attributes it to a vast right-wing conspiracy. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/jones111498.htm

    But you know, better to vote for Hillary. It will be good for freedom in the long run. If not in 4 years, then in 8. If not in 8 then in 12. One day though, the sun gonna shine again.

  82. any Republican is on the gallows for any flaw, even if it’s decades old.

    T – Trump put himself on these gallows himself. Yeah, the quote is 11 years old (he was a 59 year old man back then – not a teenager). This is who Trump is. This is who he is now. “Character matters” is a quaint belief Conservatives used to hold to, before this awful election.

    What could he say or do that would disqualify him, in your view?

    P.S. – If Mitt Romney were running this year, dogs on the rooftop and binders full of women and 47% and all, I believe (can’t prove it, but definitely believe it) he would be demolishing Hillary. She is nowhere near the politician Obama is.

  83. A decade ago, the egotistical Trump bombastically prattles on about trying to leverage his big man status in order “score” with women without regard to his marriage vows. And then self-deprecatingly recounts that in this one instance he caught nothing in his net.

    He didn’t talk just about using his big man status to score with women. He said his big man status already gave him the power he needed to kiss them or grab them by the p_ssy with no repercussions (ironies abound).

    Bill Clinton isn’t running this cycle

    Hillary Clinton is awful. Trump is worse.

  84. Hmm … I meant to redo the term Demonic-rat as Democrat, because although it gave me a laugh as I typed it, I thought it a little too explicitly contemptuous for a comment box..

    Just for the record, I am unconvinced that the morally alien Stalinist-leaning and deconstructed appetite entities currently populating the Democrat party, are conscious disciples of any supernatural power.

    Although the anti-logocentric, entropy-embracing, inter-personally exploitative hedonic nihilism of the left, has all of the signs and qualities which would constitute such an alliance, if such a realm existed and such an alliance were possible; the dynamic plays out in a much shallower darwinistic materialism interpretable reality just as well.

  85. “Hillary Clinton is awful. Trump is worse.”

    Hillary Clinton lied for and defended Bill’s crimes.

    That makes her and those who would knowingly vote for her, worse.

  86. Bill’s complicit “Pretty in Pink” enabler, a crook and a liar in her own right, is running this cycle.

    Voting for her is endorsing her actual malfeasance and moral crimes against the citizenry.

  87. Voting for her is endorsing her actual malfeasance and moral crimes against the citizenry.

    I agree. We’re faced with a choice of two unacceptable candidates. That’s why I’m not voting for either.

  89. Bill Says:
    October 8th, 2016 at 11:32 am

    Voting for her is endorsing her actual malfeasance and moral crimes against the citizenry.

    I agree. We’re faced with a choice of two unacceptable candidates. That’s why I’m not voting for either.”

    That seems to be a change in your position. You earlier implied that you actively preferred and were prepared to vote for Hillary.

  90. DNW:

    That seems to be a change in your position. You earlier implied that you actively preferred and were prepared to vote for Hillary.

    Not at all. From the start I’ve been neverTrump and neverHillary. You once asked me to state my preference – as Goldberg says it’s like asking to pick if I want my cr@p sandwich on wheat or rye. But who will I feel worse about on November 9? Trump, because (I’ve written on this a lot here) we own him and I think if the conservative movement has a future he can’t be the standard-bearer.

    As P.J. O’Rourke stated recently – Hillary and Trump are both wrong, but she’s wrong within normal parameters.

    I know we disagree on that.

    From the moment he got the nomination I knew I’d be pulling the lever for a write-in/third party. I’ve never entertained the idea of voting for her.

    Had an interesting conversation last night with one of my daughters. Millennials are particularly freaked-out about a Trump victory (he does best with older white dudes – dudes, ironically, like me) and asked me if I would consider voting for HRC just to keep him out of the white house. I told her there’s no way I’d ever vote for Hillary.

  91. “Trump, because (I’ve written on this a lot here) we own him and I think if the conservative movement has a future he can’t be the standard-bearer. “

    The last thing I am concerned about is the conservative movement whatever that is. What it has managed to conserve of classical liberalism, is quite the mystery to me.

    The more I talk with people about this in person, the more alarmed and disgusted I become with about two-thirds of them who seem to have no knowledge of government or politics or history, and even less interest in personal autonomy; unless it can be defined in terms of consequence free orgasms and a smorgasbord of grazing opportunities provided by producing others … whom they somehow imagine as yoked to their service by a magical moral umbilical called “we”.

    The “conservatives” seem to think that they can be educated out of their desire to offload their dysfunctions onto innocent others.

    I don’t believe that this is possible: since they cannot even conceive of there being an imposition problem in the first place.

    This cannot go on. Because if they are allowed to win within, they will collapse, from pressure without, anyway.

    Hard to pity such people.

  92. “The last thing I am concerned about is the conservative movement whatever that is. What it has managed to conserve of classical liberalism, is quite the mystery to me.”

    It’s hard to compare to what might have been, but if you can’t see how things might have been different and much worse without the conservative movement in the last 60 years, I won’t be able to change your mind on this.

    “The “conservatives” seem to think that they can be educated out of their desire to offload their dysfunctions onto innocent others.

    I don’t believe that this is possible: since they cannot even conceive of there being an imposition problem in the first place.”

    Well, you are obviously not a conservative. I’m assuming a libertarian?

    No part of classical liberalism or modern conservatism has as a major tenant the dissolution of some form of social safety net.

    It’s easy to assume that everyone getting any kind of assistance from the Government is a “taker” who doesn’t deserve it and is a lifelong appendage on the governmental teet.

    Our entitlement system needs major reform. But it doesn’t need to be done away with. I don’t know if that’s what you’re saying – want to expand?

  95. Bill,

    “Trump put himself on these gallows himself.”

    I’m neither arguing for or excusing it. I’m just pointing out the uphill battle that any Republican has against the Democrat Praetorian guard known as the MSM.

  96. “I don’t know if that’s what you’re saying — want to expand?”

    Sure, in more general terms which cover most cases.

    As we have already discovered, your version of conservatism – conserving the rule of law in this instance – cannot even act to preserve itself once given the option of (ex hypothesi) proceeding on what are previously stipulated as in-principle legal, moral, and ethically neutral principles.

    What this version of “principled” conservatism amounts to then, is hard to figure, since it neither preserves the law nor the citizen’s civic welfare.

    The principle that the law of a self-governing people must be up-held, the border defended, and the political security of the citizens within polity maintained, is instead jettisoned for altruistic emotional commitments which could easily be satisfied in ways apart from condoning the subversion of the polity itself.

    What purpose this kind of degraded polity is consequently assumed to serve, or what validity or residual claim to the citizen’s allegiance it is presumed to have by the “principled” conservative – whose personal principles balk at so much as enforcing the law – remains remarkably obscure.

    I note at this point that the terrier has been yelping about some “state of nature” as if it knows what that means. Anyone who has observed the collapse of the rule of law up close, as I have, or as Victor Davis Hansen is in the process of observing in California now, will have some real idea of the relationship between the subversion of the rule of law you are willing to tolerate, and the emergence of a “state of nature” so-called.

    As for the term social safety net, it is so vague as to be almost meaningless: as one man’s appetite for socially transferred wealth may be easily satisfied while another’s remains insatiable. This is what has brought us to Obama Care; as the public provisions for providing medical treatment for welfare cases, the indigent, and illegal aliens was overwhelmed ( the emergency room crisis) by the unlimited demand for these services by the most behaviorally uninhibited of persons inhabiting the polity.

    Thus a new tax and transfer scheme had to be constructed by progressives seeking to hide the magnitude of the problem created by their previous efforts to subvert the integrity of the polity: they had to make everybody’s medical insurance a form of slightly disguised social rather than actuarial insurance.

    Here is part of what indulging your sensibilities on the government’s tab, has bought for the rest of us.

    “The national spotlight is on Arizona for doing what the Federal government and previous Governor Napolitano refused to do: rein in an invasion of illegal aliens bankrupting our state (Arizona). At an August 2009 healthcare Town Hall in Phoenix, legislators said that more than half of Arizona’s 4 billion dollar budget deficit was the result of paying for three areas of services to illegal immigrants: education, healthcare, and incarceration. “

    Association of American Physicians and Surgeons article Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D.

    And,

    http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/10-states-with-the-most-illegal-immigrants-impact-on-healthcare-spending.html

  97. I understand T

    You could also argue that in the past 25 years or so the conservative side has created some pretty heavy hitters in the media market. Fox News, Hannity and Rush, for example.

    The MSM is no longer a monolith – I think it’s more of an excuse than it should be.

    On a side note – creating this big conservative media presence has – it can be argued – done almost nothing for Republicans at the Presidential level, at least. Local and state, sure, but since Rush and co. ascended Republicans have one exactly 2 election and exactly 1 popular vote.

    I’m hoping Trump’s inevitable fall (I think it’s inevitable now – I could be wrong) might bring a re-assessment.

  98. DNW – that’s why I said reality is complex.

    You and I would agree on a strong border with the goal being to only let in the immigrants we’ve decided should be let in based upon our current laws.

    But most things aren’t that cut and dried. Dropping off all illegal immigrants at the border, regardless of the social disruption or the fact that many of them have American Citizen children – one example.

    Letting people die in the street who don’t have insurance is another.

    Having no services for drug addicts, the mentally insane, etc, unless they can pay for them themselves? One of the big issues in our cities is we’ve discharged a lot of people onto the streets who end up homeless because they have severe mental problems

    Removing the social safety net (the examples above are what I was referring to) may sound like necessary steps to restore the rule of law to you. Even putting aside the obvious moral issues (I have a hard time doing so) the societal chaos some of these actions might cause could be horrific.

    I think that’s the “state of nature” OM was referring to.

  99. Here is an amusing little link …

    http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc_23_1/tsc_23_1_rubenstein.shtml

    Really, for anyone with the stomach for an historical review, it is quite easily accomplished. Just Google “emergency room crisis” and a date. And you will come up with all the information you can stand to look at.

    ” ERs for All

    The mission statement of U.S. emergency rooms was written in Washington more then a quarter century ago. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) requires ERs to screen, treat, and stabilize patients whether or not they are insured, “documented,” or able to pay. Hospital ERs must have doctors available to them at all times from every department and specialty covered by the hospital. They must have translators.

    Signed by Ronald Reagan in 1986, EMTALA defines an “emergency” as any complaint brought to the ER, from hangovers to hangnails, from gunshot wounds to AIDS. Any patient requesting “emergency” care must be treated until ready for discharge, or stabilized for transfer. A woman in labor must remain to deliver her child.

    Lack of insurance leads many immigrants to use hospital emergency departments – the most expensive source of health care – as their primary care provider. This leads to overcrowded conditions for citizens who seek emergency care. Nationwide, half of hospital admissions came through emergency departments in 2006, up from 36 percent in 1996.3

    The hottest ER diagnosis, according to the late medical lawyer Madeleine Cosman, is “permanent disability” – a vaguely defined condition that covers mental, social, and personality disorders. Drug addiction and alcoholism are among the most common “disabilities.”4
    A disability diagnosis makes patients eligible for Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a federally funded cash transfer payment. Once an individual qualifies for SSI, they automatically become eligible for Medicaid, Food Stamps, and housing vouchers. So when some illegals enter the ER, they receive medical care plus what amounts to a long-term financial annuity.

  100. Bill,

    The hyperventilating flight from the “state of nature” you suggest the terrier refers to, brings us to the real state of nature in collapsed cities such as Detroit.

    It is no mystery how this happens. The record of the decline, and the laws that made it so are all before us. The Vandals, (or the La Raza “Re-conquistadors”) have not destroyed the libraries quite yet.

  101. “But most things aren’t that cut and dried. Dropping off all illegal immigrants at the border, regardless of the social disruption or the fact that many of them have American Citizen children — one example.”

    I guess Mom and Dad would not want to keep their children?

    And certainly you must recognize the irony implicit in your use of the term, “social disruption”; as the collapse of the rule of law visible all around us, is traceable directly to the sensibility you evince.

    You are I assume familiar with the history of the deinstitutionalization movement?

    Another great idea as to how all of our lives will be improved by mainstreaming the dysfunctional and hoping that society is big enough to withstand the incessant impact of the crazy on civil life … if only they could be persuaded or compelled to take their medications; which they legally cannot. So they piss in the street, and sleep in the doorways, and threaten and intimidate and spread disease and isn’t it a much nicer and more dynamic and distributively liveable civilization for it.

    Almost worth it, if you think about it.

  102. “I guess Mom and Dad would not want to keep their children?”

    Of course they would. But if you can’t see the major disruption this would have and the moral crisis it would eventuate . . . well, I guess I know how you feel when you and GB and others tell me I’m blind to the dangers of Hillary…

    Look – we won’t agree. The issue I have is the lack of perspective. I’m as idealistic as the next guy (perhaps more so) but I realize our government has to make laws and policies that work in the real world. Laws and policies have real moral consequences.

    And – again, talking about perspective – there’s a distinct thread running amongst most of the “anyone but Hillary” crowd that we’re on the verge of societal collapse. I feel it to, at times, but mainly when I think about the out of control debt situation we have.

    But, that aside, our system works. Compared to most places on earth and certainly compared to all times in past history we live in the best, most prosperous, safest, most connected, most entertained, most well-fed, etc. place there is. I say that even for our poor. We have the leisure to sit around and argue about these things over the internet.

    Of course it could be better. But we’re not in an Either-Or world here (I know you will disagree with me on this). I said in an earlier thread that I feel very free. I have lots of freedoms. Of course I know that they can be taken away.

    But living in a country where we let people die on the streets for lack of medical care (I’m not speaking about socialized medicine here – I’m talking about the ER crisis you refer to) is not somewhere that’s going to work for most of the people in this country, myself included.

  103. “But, that aside, our system works. Compared to most places on earth and certainly compared to all times in past history we live in the best, most prosperous, safest, most connected, most entertained, most well-fed, etc. place there is. I say that even for our poor. We have the leisure to sit around and argue about these things over the internet.”

    Any system can work if you are willing to put up with enough. Your sons are abducted by tax collectors and raped? Well, you have to take the good with the bad; and doesn’t Rome offer you wine and communications that you never had before in return for mere obedience?

    See, you didn’t mention freedom, or personal autonomy, or honest government as a nonnegotiable principle, or anything but physical comfort.

    That’s perspective Bill. You are grateful to … something … for being allowed to enjoy what you have left. This, as the premise of our political association changes from the assumption that you are a free man in a constitutional polity, to that of a social element permitted certain liberties, but in essence governed without any inherently lawful limits.

    Your sense of morality is not based on virtue, but on altruism, and social feeling, which conditions your idea of how much of the personal liberty and autonomy your ancestors won by “their strong right arms” and their blood, you are allowed by neurotic schoolgirls to retain, given the pleasantness you so appreciate.

    Certainly you do recognize that we are in a classical sense less free than we once were from the constraints, directives, and claims of the central government against our lives at every moment.

    This, it seems is a price you are willing to pay, because you have somehow concluded that it is a necessary price in submission that is due in return for the services provided and the psychological security afforded.

    But this assumption is not valid. The managerial state, and the resulting statist assumptions and constitutional subversions it produces, is a result of picking one solution – the administrative – over another; i.e., the legal.

    In other words it is not a choice between taking a road to the benefit or not, but rather in which road was chosen to in order to get there; which was the road of psychological convenience and feel-goodism: Christian works of mercy performed via bureaucratic proxy.

    And all it costs you is your freedom.

  104. After reading through the back and forth here, it appears that DNW wants a “freedom” that is “enforced”, because any democratic process that requires any compromise is deficient by definition of having a compromise – freedom is given up.

    So what does one choose? Well it has to be a perpetual state of “social chaos and disruption” as without enforcers who have the right to enforce freedom, there are no rules to abide by.

    But, then, who gets to be the enforcer?

    Sounds very much like another version of “Animal Farm”.

    Or, we all “self-enforce” to protect our own rights. Of course, we’d all voluntarily collaborate to have mutual protection. But, by what rules? Ah, but are we not then getting into some kind of compromise? Especially as we scale it up and the complexities that involves?

    Not sure what world DNW wants to live in, but backing a strongman as a means to stop another bad hardly seems like a means to preserve any “freedom” he is thinking of whatsoever.

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