There is an argument to be made for supporting Trump to stop Hillary. ... Hillary will be a guaranteed horror show, but she’ll be a typical corrupt leftist Democrat we can fight from the outside, not a wild-eyed tyrant with whom we must be forced into alliance. As Alexander Hamilton – you know, the guy from the musical! – once said, “If we must have an enemy at the head of government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible.”
He goes on to make the case that by allying ourselves with Trump, we will be complicit in his distortions of the Conservative ethos and the hollowing out of the Conservative movement, which would do more damage than a Hillary presidency.
I don't know if Shapiro's right, or my instinct to oppose Hillary is right, or what. I'm hoping for a contested convention, but I question that as well. Shouldn't the guy with the most votes get the nomination? Do I support the kind of backroom deals I have strongly opposed in the past just to get my preferred result of someone besides Trump?
As the political season grows long, the one thing I am increasingly sure of is that this is possibly the most absurd position we could have found ourselves in.
Write-in campaign for Conan, anyone?
11 comments:
Hamilton is right. One cannot do wrong for a 'right' end.
Trump would be as bad or worse than Hillary. That is why I refuse to vote for Trump. For the first time in my adult voting life there may very well be no lesser evil to choose.
The only good thing to be said (which I've said before) is that Trump could be impeached and removed from office. Clinton will be completely immune so long as Democrats control even a third of the Senate, but Democrats will be happy to go along with Republicans in removing Trump.
Given a choice between them, then, I think Hamilton's dictum is inapplicable. You can oppose Clinton, but you can't do anything about her. Trump is one whom Republicans could destroy if they will, whereas Clinton will be enshrined and unstoppable in office.
"Trump would be as bad or worse than Hillary." We don't KNOW that.
We do KNOW that Hillary would compound all the evils and ills of the Obama presidency. And that the Dems would enable her and that the mainstream Congressional Repubs would not adamantly oppose her. (Unless spinal regeneration becomes a scientific reality.)
We could HOPE that a Trump ego might recognize that his ends (whatever they are) would be better served working WITH a Repub congress to achieve the politically possible. At the very least, the mere chance of preserving a non-liberal majority on the Supreme Court should warrant voting for a Republican president, whoever that nominee may be.
Yes, I recognize that hope is not a strategy. But to not vote at all, or to vote for the Dem / Libertarian in order to express one's distaste for Trump would fulfill one of my mother's favorite aphorisms: Don't cut off your nose to spite your face.
^^^ this.
Hillary would be like sawing your balls off with a chainsaw.
Trump is like standing in a field, shooting arrows straight up- we could get lucky.
Sanders of course is Full Venezuela all the way.
The fact any of these are being considered for the most important position in the world is disgusting and evidence of how corrupt our nation has become.
He goes on...by allying ourselves with Trump, we will be complicit in his distortions of the Conservative ethos and the hollowing out of the Conservative movement....
Sure. Because things must monotonic; any setback is permanent and unrecoverable. Pffft.
That's just preemptive surrender.
It's also an attitude that's not materially different from the spoiled generation's demand for what they want right d*mn now.
I'll vote for Don Corleone before I'll vote for the Progressive or the Socialist.
Eric Hines
"Shouldn't the guy with the most votes get the nomination? Do I support the kind of backroom deals I have strongly opposed in the past just to get my preferred result of someone besides Trump?"
Question 1: No. it's a majority of the delegates, which may or may not mean a majority of the votes because of the state by state differences in election process. 1,237 matters because it's like a hockey game- if at the end of regulation no one has scored a goal, you don't go to who took the most shots on goal as the winner, you go to overtime. The convention is overtime. And this all makes sense as a party wants to know it's fielding a candidate that at least a majority, preferably more than a simple majority, can support. A candidate who can't even pull a majority, and who also has a very significant portion of the party saying they may not be able to vote for him in the general, is profoundly weak, and would seem a poor representative of the party. 1,237, or convince people you're better than only being able to get a plurality would indicate.
Consider this also- from what I've been hearing from Trump supporters themselves, many of them are what you might consider old school blue collar democrats, or possibly 'Reagan Democrats', though I don't think there's full overlap there, and if that's the case and you allow a plurality to be 'good enough' to win the nomination, you're allowing the Democrats to co-opt the Republican party by chasing out their more moderate members by moving steadlily leftward, and forcing them to take up with the Republicans as a lesser evil, and then with a nominee who got a only a plurality, elect a nominee who decades ago would likely be a solid Democrat. IF you don't think Trump is that, fine, but it's still shifting the Overton window leftward. To the left, that's mission accomplished.
Question 2:Are these really backroom deals? Apparently Cruz and Kasich are now open about defeating Trump together, and for all the talk of how it's 'unfair' or 'undemocratic' I say that all the delegates were either elected or selected by people who were elected, either directly as delegates up for election, or as elected officials who are then given seats as delegates, and so forth. Party members and possibly non-party members, depending on state rules/laws made their decisions on this and people had every opportunity to become part of the process and participate. I know that as someone who has grumbled plenty about the party, I also haven't tried getting involved and changing it from the inside. Well, that's on no one but me. It's not back room deals, though I'm not saying there aren't 'back-room' meetings of people who are more intimately knowledgeable about all this and who can influence a lot of people, but it's that way in any human endeavor involving groups of any size. So, yeah, I'm pretty tired of Trumps pitiful cries of 'unfair!'. He sounds like a ten year old on the school yard.
One of my friends pointed out that Trump would be interested in making deals, and that he would pragmatic about what he could get. On that basis, he would prefer Trump to Cruz.
I hear some merit in that.
Valerie
I mean, I'm really not very worried about Trump. He is in some ways the least dangerous presidential candidate of all, just because he hasn't got any party backing. The minute he steps out of line, his own party will cut his throat and feel virtuous for having done it.
Voting for a candidate because he can be impeached ... I don't think I've ever heard that one before, but times are changing.
Douglas, thanks for the answers.
Valerie, I think both Cruz and Trump will make deals. That's just the nature of the job. However, Trump's will pull us toward amoral leftist statism, while Cruz's will pull us toward Constitutional Conservatism. I know which way I want the next president to push.
Vote your conscience, your vote, your choice.
Assuming you even have a choice... if you do not, then it's not really something to be worried about. People would be fighting over a dead Republic. Dead Democracy too.
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