It has been months since I had anything to say about politics or the presidential election, but it is now one week away. I claimed I was happy to see Joe Biden drub Bernie Sanders so thoroughly in the primary. I wanted Biden, the Democratic candidate, to win the presidency in November, I claimed; but I wanted the Republicans to retain control of the Senate. That would force compromise and a centrist policy on Washington D.C.
I still believe that.
But the Democratic Party has lurched noticeably to the left this summer on issues of “racial justice” and so-called “white supremacy.” The cultural left has indulged in national self-flagellation about race in America while in the throes of this novel SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus pandemic, akin to the Flagellants in Medieval Europe whipping themselves in repentance of their sins during the darkest days of the Black Plague. Perhaps it is a coping mechanism, fueled by guilt and fear. Regardless, I will sit this one out. The Democrats so preoccupied, I am tempted to vote against them.
Nancy Pelosi and Democrats kneel in penitence for the sins of the nation in June 2020.
I am registered as an independent, and I have been ready to vote Democratic or Republican depending on the candidate and exigencies of the moment. But I have tended Democratic for some time. I happily voted in 2008 and 2012 for Barack Obama, and in 2016 for Hillary Clinton. But the Democratic Party of today is further to the left than it was then. A moment where I stopped to examine just how much seems to have changed is when Stanford University administrator Mona Hicks emailed her students an Assata Shakur quote last June when that school ordered students and faculty not to come to campus but instead to stay home and reflect on racism in America. Assata Shakur? Really? Shakur was a Black radical serving a life sentence for murder but who escaped and has been hiding out in Fidel Castro’s Cuba since 1979.
I have seen similar paeans to Angela Davis — also a Communist Party member and a Black nationalist like Shakur, as well as a UC Santa Cruz professor emeritus — who also seems to have gone mainstream. In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd campus radical chic seems to have gained a greater cultural acceptance in some circles. But if you are hanging with Assata Shakur and Angela Davis, you are not hanging with me. Identity politics, “ethnic studies,” and the polarization of a tribal America — the United States, the racist and disunited, or so they seem to see it –
“We Are All On Campus Now”
by Andrew Sullivan
— Sullivan’s article, written back in February of 2018, was prescient. But here we are today.
As a consequence, I am moving to the right. Or it is more like this: I remained in the same place, but a good part of the Democratic Party moved to the left. I will part ways with them, at least for now. The Democratic Party of President Barack Obama is dead. It is now the Democratic Party of Kamala Harris. The trendy liberal university multiculti view of a United States built on its founding principle of “systemic racism” seems to have become mainstream orthodoxy for many Democrats.
As for me, I would throw places like UC Santa Cruz, Stanford University, and much of the Bay Area into the trash. I can’t remember when I thought otherwise. Hence my antipathy to the arch-opportunist Kamala Harris, who is from there.
So I am left with a difficult quandary. Should I vote for Donald Trump? Vote for him as a protest against the progressive lurch of the Democratic Party? In such a case I would vote for Republicans John McCain or Mitt Romney, both honorable men, in a second (although I voted for neither of them when they ran against Obama). But Donald Trump?
Sigh.
For months I have struggled with the decision of who to vote for in next week’s election. Donald Trump or Joe Biden? It has been painful, and either way a decision would be hard. I could not decide. I was stuck. Just thinking about it caused me pain somewhere in my chest. But I knew I would have to make a choice soon; the election was near. The time to vote was approaching.
Alas.
What to do?
I wrote six years ago in horror at Donald Trump and have not changed my mind since then. In fact, I decided what his shtick was and I have mostly blocked Trump out. He was a blowhard and an asshole, but the world is full of many such. I would put a strict limit on how much emotional energy I would dedicate to Donald Trump. I would not let him live rent free in my brain for four years. At the end of his first term how many Americans will fail to say as much?
I always thought Trump was all about furthering his own brand as a politician. Early on I concluded he was a con-man: the celebrity real-estate developer, the reality-TV star, and then the maverick politician. Trump’s “brand” was “Trump,” not “America”; he was a self-promoter, a narcissist. He was not really interested in leading the whole country, as best he could, like any responsible leader would. Trump was interested in finding an enemy and then leading a movement to “make America great again.” He was a Nixon-figure on steroids, playing to the divide, and hoping to benefit personally thereby. Trump is a demagogue. I thought so since he entered national politics, and I have not changed my mind in the least since.
I think Donald Trump is fundamentally unhealthy for our democracy — a toxic figure, both personally and politically.
I cannot vote for him.
Sorry, Republicans. I don’t care if his policies provided for economic growth and greater material prosperity for many. (And I’m hardly alone.)
I have lately seen caravans of Trump supporters driving around honking their car horns with “Trump-Pence 2020” flags flying from their vehicles, and normally I would be reachable to them and a Republican candidate. But not this time. Not this candidate. Sorry.
I suspect Trump’s bungling of the Coronavirus pandemic will be the final nail in the coffin of his dyspeptic, amateurish presidency. Good riddance!
But I am not going to vote for Joe Biden or for a Democratic Party of “social justice” woke-think. “Mostly peaceful” racial justice protests and straight-up violent riots all summer long. Defunding the police and “de-platforming” unpopular views. Their motto is “silence is violence” — the “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” language of military alliances, and calls for “racists” to be “cancelled.” (Assata Shakur, looking across from Cuba, would be thrilled.) A spirit of anger and illiberalism is in the air, and the Democratic Party has milked it and so moved away from me.
But so has the Republican Party. Equally so. Maybe more so.
Alas.
Where to go then?
This much is for sure: I am not going to move towards a Republican Party with Donald Trump at its head. The GOP deserves better. I deserve better. We all deserve better.
I will hope for Nikki Haley in 2024, or someone like her. We shall see.
Or maybe the Democrats will tack back towards the center? Regain their senses? Disavow their progressive wing? Who knows?
Or maybe there is no longer much of a political center. Just Angela Davis and Ann Coulter types? The firebrand radicals and the bomb-throwers. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Donald Trump? The attention-getters in the social media age. Angry people who complain. Will the next four years in the Unites States be like the last four years?
And how will America be in the next four weeks? There is a segment of the population which hates the man and will be angry (maybe violent?) if Trump wins next week’s election. Another segment loves Trump and will be angry (maybe violent?) if he loses. So here we are: angry assholes aplenty. We shall see how our democratic institutions deal with this seemingly no-win scenario.
For this 2020 presidential election, I will vote my conscience. So I won’t vote for Joe Biden or Donald Trump. I will choose someone decent whose solid judgement I know and trust. I will write-in my friend’s name —
Dan FitzPatrick for President of the United States!
And good luck to the United States of America on November 3, 2020. We’re going to need it.
P.S. I live in California which is going to go for Biden for sure, and therefore it really does not matter who I vote for; hence my tongue-in-cheek write-in choice. But hypothetically, if my vote were to make the difference — if it was the deciding one — I would vote for Joe Biden over Donald Trump.
Good luck to Joe Biden, who if elected has promised to govern from the center and bring the country back together. He will need it. But I’m still voting for Dan FitzPatrick.
AMERICA IN 2020
Yes, the collision of course takes place in Berkeley, CA in the Bay Area.
5 Comments
Kevin Barrett
Sorry, Richard. I have to disagree with you. This election is about more than defeating Trump. It is about defeating “Trumpism” and the only way to do that is by an overwhelming vote for Biden and an almost straight Democratic ticket. There may be some local or state issues you wish to vote more conservative (gun, tax increase or education), but Trump and his enablers must be driven from public office to re-establish we are a nation of laws and not just power, wealth and position.
There is no “loyal” opposition under the name of the Republican Party anymore. (Although there are still a few individuals.) They are now the equivalent of the American Taliban and if they were to remain in control of the Senate, they will never “submit” to compromise because it has become a dirty word for them – a sign of weakness and lack of purity of faith – basically, a “sin”. This is precisely what Sen. Goldwater warned the R. Party about. The Party “faithful” failed to heed his advice. In any case, the collapse of “conservatism” is greatly over-stated (particularly by the left): see the elections of 2008 and 2010.
Government is not the problem. Government serving the interests of the powerful / wealthy minority over the interests of the majority is the problem. To say “Government” is the problem is to say “We The People” is the problem. The same bug-a-boo socialist arguments were used against the creation of Social Security and Medicare. Go ask your local experts (your parents and grandparents) how these programs have worked out for them.
You are, of course, free to vote (or not vote) your conscience. But I firmly believe you are incorrect to say because you are in California (I am as well), that your vote will not matter. Among the Republican controlled states, over 250,000 voters were disenfranchised in 2016, primarily via “voter registration cleansing”. We don’t know how many of these might have voted D, R, Green or Other, but the States felt they knew. Trump won by a total of fewer than 80,000 votes across three states. Every vote will matter!
Regards,
Kevin
rjgeib
Dear Kevin,
We will have to agree to disagree.
You claim the Republicans are an existential threat to decency, democracy, and “America.” Republicans say the same about Democrats. Because these are “true believer” standpoints that are ideologically fixed. Your side is “good” and the other is “bad” in the struggle between good and evil in the political arena. One side will lead us to gain Heaven, the other to remain in Hell.
In contrast, I look at political parties not as vehicles for moral redemption. Politics is not a moralistic passion play for a broken humanity; it does not offer the aspect of religion for me. Rather I look at political parties merely as choices — like tools in a toolbox for a specific job. At times the Democratic Party is the right tool in a certain time and place. Other times the Republican Party is the better choice, as I see it. I am a centrist and an independent.
Some say go left or go right, as those in the middle of the road get run over. I say the middle is where you want to be if you have to deal with all sorts of people. Maybe there are fewer centrists in a polarized time when many claim they can’t date or be friends with those from the other side of the red/blue political divide. I say that is a shame. A liberal friend confided to me that she couldn’t really be friends with a person who voted for Trump. She could be “friendly” with them but couldn’t be friends. It is sad. It perhaps says more about her than about any Trump supporter out there.
You mention the Republicans in the Senate behind Mitch McConnell will never “submit.” Is that really any different than the Democrats in the House of Representatives under Nancy Pelosi? Remember Pelosi leading the impeachment of Trump last year? Democrats and Republicans seem to act similarly in the dysfunction which is the contemporary Congress. Or maybe that is the hard-driving, bare-knuckle job of tough-negotiating which legislation requires? Are McConnell and Pelosi merely doing what the job requires of them? I don’t know.
Again, Kevin, the parties can look pretty similar to those who are not “true believers” in one side or the other.
Or maybe it is that, in a “winner take all” system like ours, each of the two main political parties is more a coalition of three or four smaller factions cobbled together in pursuit of a 50% plus one majority?
As such, you will find your “Taliban” Republicans, as you label them. I think you are referring to this: a fundamentalist Christian “straight white male” out of Duck Dynasty rural America with a bunch of tattoos who shows up to protests in his truck carrying an AR-15 and strident conservative views, sympathetic to militias and Ammon Bundy anti-government views. But there is also the fringe “progressive” Democratic counterpart to that: a lesbian trans activist from Bryn Mawr with a bunch of tattoos proudly trumpeting her mental illness and strident liberal politics on her Twitter handle sporting the communist hammer and sickle, with a soft spot in her heart for the aforementioned Assata Shankar and Angela Davis and anti-government views.
These two types — the “American Taliban” and the campus lesbian — might not agree on much, but they are much the same in practice: both hate the government and are looking for a fight, and few people take either seriously when it comes time to legislate. The extreme right and the extreme left say they live to confront and vanquish the other, but these “enemies” need each other.
It is like Antifa and Alt Right groups at protests this summer. Where would the one be without the other? The fringe left and right are so extreme they barely belong to any recognizable political party. But they feed off and further radicalize each other. It has gotten to the point where they shoot one another.
It is one of the unfortunate aspects of the Trump era that such fringe groups are more populous and heeded than before, in my opinion. They used to be all but virtually ignored. Nothing but curses, fisticuffs, or worse happens when these radical groups meet. One need not look far to witness that this past unhappy summer. Trump has helped to destabilize the American political world and given energy and focus to the radical groups.
In contrast, center-left and center-right types can work together. There is a group of centrists in Congress who meet in the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus. That is the kind of group I felt most comfortable with politically. And there are many like us.
Finally, you seem to say that the GOP is the party of Trump— period. Democrats who hate Trump and the GOP certainly would like it to be that simple. As President, Trump has certainly seemed to lead his party, as every president does. But I wonder what would happen if the electorate evicts Trump from the White House in next Tuesday’s election. Without power and patronage, after having lost the 2020 election, Trump might find himself without many friends.
Loyalty is a slick and fickle thing in political alliances, and Trump never was much of a movement leader. Instead he led a cult of personality. Trump was the man, and I don’t see any lieutenants or followers in the wings. He fired almost all his closest aides in his administration who challenged him or didn’t toe the line. There is no coherent Trump ideology; Trumpism is a mishmash of anti-immigration populism, and whatever else Trump was making up as he pretended to be a serious and knowledgeable politician.
Certainly the Rush Limbaugh talk-radio populist enthusiasm on the right which helped produce Donald Trump will not go away after Trump leaves office. But “Trumpism” without the galvanizing, idiosyncratic person of Donald Trump to lead might very well lose its potency. Huey Long was a feared force in Louisiana and national politics in 1933, but his searing demagoguery did not survive his death. The same might very well happen with the similar figure of Donald Trump. Watch the Ted Cruzes, Nikki Haleys, Marco Rubios, and others yet to be seen come out of the background in GOP-intra party squabbles with their knives sharpened.
Such is the rise and decline of party leaders over time — such are the vicissitudes of power, and the grab for power, in multi party democracies. Winston Churchill was the Conservative Party leader guiding Great Britain to victory in WWII one day, and then deposed by a resurgent Labor Party and the UK electorate the next. So goes electoral politics. Again, I suspect Trump was always his own man more than he was a man of any political party. If his was a hostile takeover of the GOP establishment, will the Party stand by him when his star starts to fall?
We shall see. Maybe starting next Tuesday.
You might claim that all Republican politicians — Bush, Cruz, Rubio, Haley, whoever — are the same “American Taliban.” They are cut from the same cloth. It is nowhere near so simple.
Did you not see the three links I had in my article? They are from the premiere conservative magazine — “National Review” — and they are all Republicans explaining to other Republicans why they cannot vote for Trump.
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2020/11/02/trump-no/
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/vote-your-conscience/
And especially Kevin Williamson’s emphatic “Hell No!” here —
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-tuesday/hell-no/
There is also another article urging Republicans to vote for Trump, and another very ambivalent. So different solidly conservative National Review writers come down No, Hell No!, Yes, and Maybe on Trump. Even with so much at stake in the presidential election, the debate on whether to support the Republican candidate rages among convinced Republicans. The idea that the Republican Party moves lockstep with Our Great Leader Trump is untrue.
So certainly, Keith, if the Republicans put another candidate up for election like Trump who likes to coddle and cozy up to dictators overseas, and play footsie with far right groups domestically, I will continue to vote against him and the Republican Party.
But if not, maybe not.
Things can change quickly in politics, especially after electoral defeats. In search of public support and 50% plus one majorities, political parties like the GOP can be remarkably nimble and malleable. They are by necessity made up of practical persons dedicated to winning elections. Many political operatives and lobbyists move from Democrat to Republican without missing a stride. Many independent voters like me are open to either party depending on the merits of the time, place, and candidate. It is why the American people often places one party in charge of the White House and the other in control of Congress. Divided government — a good thing, as I see it. Nobody gets nothing, everyone gets something — compromise. Democrats sometimes, Republicans other times — just to keep both sides relatively honest. To keep them from getting too big for their britches.
Or maybe you would prefer a country where the Democratic Party wins all elections? The USA as a one-party state? Like communist Cuba, where Assata Shakur hides out?
So we will agree to disagree on this one, Kevin.
I apologize for the length of this response to your comment. But your missive covered much ground and I tried to give the response it deserved.
Very Truly Yours,
Richard
Liam
I’m not voting for Biden either, but for the opposite reason – I don’t think he’s left enough! But either way, I’m not sure your fears about Biden bowing before an identity politics driven left are well-founded, since he has been one of the most vocal democrats speaking against such slogans as “defund the police” (both he and Bernie are in record saying that police reform will require more funding, not less), and he has readily condemned rioting and other forms of property damage when they occur. We can probably expect some modest reforms to the cash-bail system and an end to certain forms of legal immunity for police misconduct from a Democratic administration, but hardly some kind of descent into anarchy.
In any case, the best piece I’ve read about where we’re at as a country is a Pankaj Mishra’s essay from the July in the London Review of Books. I’m sure you’ll agree with none of it, so all the more reason to send it! I don’t believe it’s behind a paywall: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n14/pankaj-mishra/flailing-states
Also, happy Halloween!
Best wishes,
Liam
rjgeib
Dear Liam,
I would love to see a Joe Biden as a centrist and a healer for the country. And to his credit, this is what he has promised — “I beat the socialist,” Biden said in an interview on September 21st, 2020 in an interview in Wisconsin. “That’s how I got elected. That’s how I got the nomination. Do I look like a socialist? Look at my career — my whole career. I am not a socialist.” And Biden beat the socialist Bernie Sanders like a drum in the Democratic primaries, even in states in which he hardly campaigned — this is all good news that the political center is still healthy and vital.
Then there is the other side of the Biden center-left and far-left alliance. The angry “progressive” side which demands the Democratic Party try to pack the Supreme Court, add two more liberal states to the Union, get rid of the Electoral College, demand reparations and purity tests for “racial justice,” provide free health care and housing as a “human right,” etc etc. The problem I see Liam, is that the anger behind both Democrats and Republicans is such that they want to vanquish the other side. The anger which says the other side is an existential threat to all that is true and decent and must be defeated. The “enemy” must be driven from the field. The world must be healed and made pure, supposedly, by getting rid of those who disagree with you. It has been our Jacobin moment, fueled perhaps by the outbreak of a deadly virus.
This is obviously not a good sign for the real world which will always be imperfect and require compromise. Whether Trump or Biden is president, the spirit of anger is abroad. It is easier loosed than it is quieted.
Cheers, Liam
Jay Canini
Hi, Rich! I have some thoughts:
1. This election has demonstrated that the center-left and the far-left have successfully formed a political alliance and compromised, which is what politics is supposed to be about. The far left is likely to get workers protections and reforms they need while the more far out proposals like abolishing ICE won’t happen.
In Germany in the 1932 elections the German Communist Party (KPD) snubbed the center left Social Democrats (SPD) partly because Stalin asked them to and partly because they saw them as a worse enemy than the Nazis, to the point where the KPD actively worked with Nazis. When the Nazis took the levers of power the first thing they did was arrest the KPD, and leader Ernst Thalmann was imprisoned and then murdered a decade later. Thalmann’s refusal to work with moderates cost him his life.
Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders saw the light and backed Joe Biden wholeheartedly, begging their far left supporters to help Biden. This seems to have paid off handsomely and the art of compromise, something you’ve championed in your writings, finally came out. People have turned out to vote, making their democratic voices known, and that has warmed my heart!
2. The bad news is that Republicans in Texas are suing to force the throwing out of 100,000 votes cast in good faith in drive-through elections. The election commissioner of Harris County, Texas (where Houston is located) got permission from the Texas Secretary of State to do this, did tests in August, and got the drive in vote done smoothly. However the opponents waited until October to file the first suits. When the Texas Supreme Court dismissed the suit the opponents are now trying to get a federal judge to dismiss 100K votes just like that. It’s antidemocratic and antiAmerican.
I hope you are doing well and I’m keeping my fingers crossed.