Why Trump Is Our Best Option, Part II
As I've said elsewhere, Donald Trump is hardly my first choice for president of the United States. Here are the choices I listed there that I would have preferred to the choice I'm actually faced with:
1) Bring Dwight Eisenhower back to life and allow him to serve for a third term.
2) Don't even bother with resurrection: just put Dwight Eisenhower's corpse in the oval office.
3) Suspend the constitution, and allow Barack Obama to serve for a third term.
4) Maybe you friggin Democrats could've voted for Jim Webb when you had the chance, hey?
5) Maybe you friggin Republicans could've voted for Rand Paul when you had the chance, hey?
6) I've been available this whole time, and I'm waiting for the call to step in and stop the madness.
So it's not like I'm a yuuuge Trump fan! But none of 1-6 is going to happen. Nor is Gary Johnson conceivably going to win the presidency. So our options are that either Clinton or Trump will be our next president.
Furthermore, let me say that, if I thought a Trump presidency and a Clinton presidency were going to be equally bad, I could certainly see voting for a protest candidate, such as Johnson, as a way of registering disapproval of our two real choices.
But I have strong evidence that their presidencies would not be equally bad, at least in terms of the main criterion I'm am looking at, namely, foreign policy:
Bill Kristol is backing a third-party effort in order to deny Trump the presidency.
There you have it folks: Bill Kristol cares about more war, and only more war. If he is willing to break with the GOP to try to get Clinton elected, that means Kristol, a Trump opponent, is convinced that Trump won't give him the amount of belligerence he wants.
Having already come out for Trump as our best option, I realize I might have a cognitive bias, and I might be trying to interpret Trump's myriad of positions in the most non-interventionist light. But when Kristol, a die-hard Trump opponent, also sees Trump as a "non-intervensionist" threat, that tells me I am correct in my judgment.*
* Of course, both Kristol and I could be wrong: life is uncertain. When I supported Bush in 2000, it was mostly because he promised us a more humble foreign policy. Boy, was I mistaken! But we have to place our bets despite that uncertainty.
1) Bring Dwight Eisenhower back to life and allow him to serve for a third term.
2) Don't even bother with resurrection: just put Dwight Eisenhower's corpse in the oval office.
3) Suspend the constitution, and allow Barack Obama to serve for a third term.
4) Maybe you friggin Democrats could've voted for Jim Webb when you had the chance, hey?
5) Maybe you friggin Republicans could've voted for Rand Paul when you had the chance, hey?
6) I've been available this whole time, and I'm waiting for the call to step in and stop the madness.
So it's not like I'm a yuuuge Trump fan! But none of 1-6 is going to happen. Nor is Gary Johnson conceivably going to win the presidency. So our options are that either Clinton or Trump will be our next president.
Furthermore, let me say that, if I thought a Trump presidency and a Clinton presidency were going to be equally bad, I could certainly see voting for a protest candidate, such as Johnson, as a way of registering disapproval of our two real choices.
But I have strong evidence that their presidencies would not be equally bad, at least in terms of the main criterion I'm am looking at, namely, foreign policy:
Bill Kristol is backing a third-party effort in order to deny Trump the presidency.
There you have it folks: Bill Kristol cares about more war, and only more war. If he is willing to break with the GOP to try to get Clinton elected, that means Kristol, a Trump opponent, is convinced that Trump won't give him the amount of belligerence he wants.
Having already come out for Trump as our best option, I realize I might have a cognitive bias, and I might be trying to interpret Trump's myriad of positions in the most non-interventionist light. But when Kristol, a die-hard Trump opponent, also sees Trump as a "non-intervensionist" threat, that tells me I am correct in my judgment.*
* Of course, both Kristol and I could be wrong: life is uncertain. When I supported Bush in 2000, it was mostly because he promised us a more humble foreign policy. Boy, was I mistaken! But we have to place our bets despite that uncertainty.
I don't know what Kristol is up to, but even he can't possibly believe that running David French as a third party candidate is a way to keep Trump from getting elected.
ReplyDeleteIt won't be, since the election is going to be a landslide. But it's not impossible: a few hundred votes in Florida would have tipped the 2000 election the other way. And surely French could draw a few hundred votes, right?
DeleteBy the way, Scott Adams just posted this exact point. I'd say, in fact, that the point is very, very obvious: Bill Kristol is against Trump, therefore Clinton is more hawkish.
DeleteI do agree that Clinton is more hawkish than Trump.
DeleteGene, have you put your money where your mouth is on your prediction that it will be a Trump landslide? You should be able to get really good odds on a bet like that.
ReplyDeleteFor my part I'm confident that Hillary will win. There just aren't enough persuadable white men to win over to overcome the demographic advantages of the Democrats.
Yes.
DeleteHappy to take more bets: you offering?
By the way, the very first enthusiastic Trump supporter I met, when I was firmly against him, was a Ghanian cab driver. The idea he can only attract white men is nonsense.
DeleteIt would seem Clinton would fall close to 3 just from experience. What makes you think Kristol is more interested in country than party?
ReplyDeleteNo, she is far worse than Obama.
Delete