Commenter “Bauxite” quotes me from the “lesser of two evils” post I wrote on Saturday:

I have never been able to understand the thought processes that would lead someone to stay home to punish those who are generally on that person’s side and enable those who want to destroy whatever policy that person is advocating.

Actually, “understand” is a misleading word there (I probably should have searched for a better one), because I think I do understand those processes – I just think they’re misguided and destructive. I understand them because I’ve been hearing them for decades from what I used to call the “Burn it down!” contingent of the right. For years I’ve written many posts on the subject, and I guess this is one more.

For example, back in 2020 in this post I didn’t pull my punches:

The most useful idiots of all to the left are the useful idiots on the right, such as the ones saying to Republicans in Georgia: “Don’t vote for the GOP candidates for the Senate. That’ll show the lousy good-for-nothing GOP!”

Sure. It makes a lot of sense. Because you have your quarrels with the GOP – who doesn’t? – and because you’re angry at the GOP’s failure to stop election fraud in any effective way in certain states, punish the GOP by giving the left everything it needs to destroy the country. …

I’m angry too. But when I’m angry, I don’t think it makes a whole lot of sense to disembowel myself and hand my entrails to my enemies.

Yes, I know that the “logic” is that the election is rigged anyway, but there’s no logic whatsoever in handing US Senate over to the Democrats without fighting with every ounce of effort. That will just further the entrenchment of leftist tyranny, and extend it deeper and deeper into the judicial system as well. I don’t care what your beefs are with the GOP. I share many of those complaints but they pale and fade almost to nothingness in comparison to the perniciousness of the plans of the left. Give them the power and I don’t think they will ever relinquish it.

What happened back then? Let’s see. The Republicans lost the two Senate seats in Georgia, the Senate flipped to Democrat control, and the only thing that stopped the Democrat plan to take permanent power (entrenching insecure voting practices cross-country, DC and Puerto Rico as states, and packing the Court, for example) were Sinema and Manchin. Those two are gone; we only have Fetterman (sort of) and he no longer matters because now the Democrats have a bigger majority.

For the next two years, the only thing to stop the Democrats will be Trump’s veto and the current SCOTUS. If a Democrat wins in 2028 and the Democrats hold Congress (two things that could very easily happen), all bets are off.

Bauxite went on to add:

[Trump and the GOP have] made the “generally on that person’s side” piece smaller and smaller while making the corruption, sleaze, incompetence, and leftist policy side bigger and bigger.

This isn’t rocket science.

No, it’s not rocket science. And yet nevertheless voters on the right who sat home last Tuesday have failed the exam in whatever subject you want to call it.

Trump and the GOP haven’t given them enough of what they want? Well, I noticed that they gave me a great deal of what I wanted although they have disappointed me in several ways. Trump and company are corrupt, sleazy, and incompetent? Like all politicians seem to be? We ain’t seen nothing yet in terms of corruption, sleaze, and incompetence – so let’s put Democrats in power and really get those things plus leftism, open borders, an increase in fraud and crime, DES, and on and on and on.

Although I’m not actually sure that “incompetence” describes the left. Since their goal is to take power, I think they’ve been pretty darn competent. The Gramscian march has been wildly successful.

For decades I’ve heard reasoning from many people on the right much like that of Bauxite in that comment. It hasn’t improved with age. What dream world do they live in where good comes of this? Does some dream party with a slate of dream candidates swoop in and save us all?

That seems incredibly naive, which is a kind word for it. I think it ignores the very real possibility of the Democrats taking power and making sure no one on the right is ever again elected, as well as prosecuting some prominent people on the right (as well as some regular folks) to frighten others into silence.