There are reasons for that.
The first is because everybody else is doing nothing but, and following the crowd is boring; besides which, I'd be kidding myself if I thought I had anything new to say.
The second reason is related to the first: people are bored. Some of them, believe it or not, have been bored since before this interminable election started, because politics.
The thing is, though, American politics is getting more and more entertaining all the time, if you consider trashy reality television entertaining. Indeed, it's hard to tell the difference. One of the
It really is an impossible choice, you know. And I say that knowing just how batshit crazy Donald Trump is...how bigoted, how misogynistic, how spectacularly unsuited to the job of male human being, let alone President of the United States of America, that man proves himself to be with every lying word he speaks.
(Yes, all politicians lie. It's what they do. But Trump lies in a very special way. His lies are the lies of a man who really doesn't give a fart in a windstorm for the truth, not even the 'political' truth that can be manipulated. He just opens his mouth and says whatever he's thinking...if you can call what he does "thinking". )
Now, Hillary, on the other hand?
Okay, I admit it: I've never liked the woman. She has always struck me as power-hungry, conniving, inauthentic, and entirely too full of herself: all traits I dislike or despise. Scandal seems to plague her, and not all of her scandals are the products of Republican witch hunts. (Can we just shut up about Benghazi, already? What was that, eleven separate investigations?)
If you're going on qualifications, this contest is no contest at all. Hillary Clinton is probably the most qualified nominee ever. She knows the hallways and back alleys of power like nobody else anywhere near this race. And Donald Trump isn't qualified at all. Period.
One problem, though, and it's a doozy: For many if not most Americans outside what John Michael Greer calls the "bicoastal echo chamber of the affluent", the more qualified someone is at the game of politics just now, the more UNattractive she is. I'm going to quote Greer at length here, because the man really nails it when he enumerates what Clinton stands for:
the bipartisan consensus that’s been welded firmly in place in American politics since the election of George W. Bush...That consensus...supports massive giveaways to big corporations and the already affluent, punitive austerity for the poor, malign neglect for the nation’s infrastructure, the destruction of the American working class through federal subsidies for automation and offshoring and tacit acceptance of mass illegal immigration as a means of driving down wages, and a monomaniacally confrontational foreign policy obsessed with the domination of the Middle East by raw military force.
That can be summarized in three words: Business...as...usual.
Trump claims to actually represent the wage class, a class that no politician in the United States has so much as deigned to notice in forty-odd years. He hammers on immigration, for instance. There's no doubt in my mind that both he and many of his supporters are racist...but at the same time, the immediate hue and cry of shut up, you racist son of a bitch drowns any attempt to discuss immigration and its effect on the economy. (Yes, yes, of course illegals perform many jobs that Americans disdain. But note two things: one, more people chasing fewer jobs drives down wages; and two, the tacit acceptance of peanuts by illegals on the grounds that their former countries paid peanut...also drives down wages.)
Trump also plans to reverse the offshoring of jobs. This sounds wonderful, but the how of it is very, very murky. Still, it's kind of a pleasant surprise to hear somebody within sniffing distance of the Presidency even acknowledge that hey, you know, once upon a time, not all that long ago, one person could put in an honest day's labour at a blue-collar job and support a family doing it. That's such a taboo topic, anymore. Bring it up and you're just a poor, lazy (???) loser and it's all your fault.
Greer loses me when he covers Trump's "foreign policy"--he seems to assume Trump has one. Many Republicans would hate to hear me say this, but it does make a certain kind of economic sense to play nice with Russia (as distasteful as the thought of Trump and Putin cornholing each other truly is). America can't afford more wars. It can't afford the wars it's been embroiled in over my lifetime. So, okay, fine. But Trump is all over the map. In one breath he's isolationist, then in the next he's promising, with typical hyperbole, the best trade deals you ever saw. And no, I really don't like the thought of a man who simply can't take an insult having the power to launch a war. The nuclear concern is overblown--a President can't launch nukes on his own, no matter what you've been told--but Trump could, and probably would, act entirely too rashly at the first sign of insolence...which won't be long in coming.
You won't get that rashness with Hillary Clinton. On the positive side, with her, you'll get reproductive rights. You'll get Supreme Court appointees that aren't going to try to create a theocracy. You'll get a government that isn't interested in revoking civil rights. For these reasons and some others, had I a vote, it would be for her.
Reluctantly.
And not because I have this burning urge to vote for Donald Trump.
I am not discounting Trump's many, many character flaws in any way, shape or form. But I understand how people do. I really do. Quoting Greer again:
...supporters of both candidates are quite sensibly aware that this election is meant to choose a public official rather than a plaster saint, and recognize that a genuine scoundrel who will take the right stands on the issues that matter to them is a better choice than a squeaky-clean innocent who won’t, even if such an animal could actually be found in the grubby ecosystem of contemporary American politics.
Business as usual...which is to say, the continued decline and fall of America even as the economy is increasingly spin-doctored to look good...or radical change spearheaded by a blowhard know-nothing-and-proud-of-it pompous diseased ass-pimple.
Hmmm.
I seem to recall the Democrats had a candidate who was very similar to Trump on a number of issues affecting the poor--and they railroaded him out of town in the rush to acclaim Herself. The truth is I would have voted for Bernie Sanders without even blinking.
Elections are getting more and more polarizing with every cycle. It does NOT bode well for America as a whole. I have said before and I will repeat here that I firmly believe the United States of America is one to at most three electoral terms from a civil war. You can see glimmers of it even now, with Trump (and his supporters) musing about how they might not concede defeat if defeated. Let that thought take hold and the political system loses all legitimacy.
But then again, for many Trump supporters, the political system has been illegitimate for decades. So has the economy. Neither seems to give half a shit about them, at any rate. I should warn you that if Trump loses, there's a good chance the person running for the Republicans in 2020 -- if that party even exists in 2020 -- could be worse.
Stay tuned, folks. The winner will be announced right after these messages from our sponsors.
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