Don’t discount
Wait a second.
I’m reading an article about heterodoxy and how goony both the left and the right can be and yadda yadda but then I stumble to a stop.
Until recently, within the heterodox slice of the cultural spectrum, opposition to Trump was the obvious response to his singularly reckless and destabilizing political presence. The number of self-described centrist “Never Trumpers”—starting with Trump’s current running mate, who once compared him in this magazine to “cultural heroin”—were legion. But as the race tightened in recent months, I’ve been struck by a palpable shift in attitude among many liberal and centrist voices—a slackening of vigilance, and a softening on Trump.
This is not to be confused with the 180-degree pivot of prominent MAGA converts such as Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Bill Ackman, as well as writers and journalists such as Naomi Wolf—erstwhile Democrats who’ve become outright Trump fans. What I observed this past summer, as Joe Biden’s campaign self-immolated and Kamala Harris seized the nomination, was a more general exhaustion among many heterodox thinkers, and a disinclination to support the alternative to Trump that was now on offer. Harris, many agree, is not an ideal candidate. But given the enormous stakes, I wanted to understand how anyone not already ensorcelled by the cult of MAGA could hesitate to support her.
I just can’t understand that – that disinclination. I can’t understand even if you think her policies are worse than whatever actual “policies” Trump favors.
The reason I can’t understand it is (as I keep saying, to the point of tedium) because he’s such a horrible human being in every way. I couldn’t vote for him even if he had better policies. Or at least I can’t imagine doing so – maybe if the reality were different I would change my mind, but here and now, I can’t imagine ever voting for him because he is such a pulsating tower of mindless sadistic cackling greedy self-dealing ruthless vengeful horror.
How do “heterodox” types manage to see him any other way?
Despite his fears of Trump’s fascist tendencies, [Coleman] Hughes found the reality of the Trump administration much less dramatic. “He governed a lot more like a normal Republican,” he said. “In fact, many of his policies would be seen as not right-wing enough.” He’s learned, he told me, to “discount” much of what Trump says: “It’s basically just his businessman instinct. He literally talks about this in The Art of the Deal. You start by saying something crazy, and then you walk your way back to a point of leverage in negotiations.”
No. Wrong. You can’t “discount” what he says, because what he says is what he says. I don’t care what he says in his ghostwritten book; the point is that people at the apex of government shouldn’t say horrible sadistic bullying dangerous crap. Nobody should ever “discount” a head of state who does that – especially one who does it every waking minute of every day. He’s a bad man. It’s a terrible mistake to install a bad person as head of state.
In 2020, Hughes voted for Biden, whom he viewed as a moderate liberal and a politician with a record of reaching across the aisle. This is not at all how he perceives Harris, whom he sees as aligned with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, and “deeply destructive to the long-term flourishing of the country.” When it comes to foreign policy, “I haven’t seen even a 10-second clip of her impressing me by analyzing anything going on in the world related to geopolitics, foreign conflicts and so forth,” he told me. “I have basically zero signals of her competency as a manager or executive.”
While Trump, on the other hand?
I give up.
Exactly. Show me a” ten second clip” of Trump analyzing anything. I don’t think he can go ten seconds without any one of any of the following happening:
-Self aggrandizement, wherein something he did was the biggest, best or the most. Only superlatives.
-Demonization of opponents, wherein they are bad, terrible, the worst, etc.
-Either of these dropped into a discussion by way of pointless digression or loss of focus.
-Using childish, stupid, or belittling nicknames or epithets for opponents.
-Using a “Sir” story.
-Focusing on someone’s appearance, as if they’ve come from “Central Casting.”
How anyone could give him a pass to put Trump in charge of anything is beyond me. The man is a wasteland in a moral vacuum, out for nobody but himself. It’s as plain as daylight and as constant as gravity. He has no hidden depth. The vastness of his shallowness is on full display at all times. Everyone else can see it; how can they pretend not to?
What too many take for a folksy, down-to-earth, no-nonsense frankness is just the constant display of his shallow thoughtlessness, lack of impulse control, and poverty of imagination. He’s not “weaving” anything; his mind is just running on a very small hamster wheel, where the same outlandish boasts and disproven petty grievances keep coming back again and again, to be repeated again and again. When he goes off the “official” script of what he’s supposed to be addressing at any given event, it’s to fall back on his own script, which he knows by heart, with no need to revise or change it, because it’s the same old list of shit. No study or research needed. That would be work. Why learn new songs when you can sing your greatest hits?
If she did analyze anything, they would say she was being too analytical. Elizabeth Warren analyzed; you knew what she thought on policies. Did that help? No. They said she wasn’t warm enough, and that she was too far above the common man.
There is nothing Harris can do that will make these people willing to vote for her. She will be ‘too radical’; she will be ‘a former prosecutor’; she will be ‘not African American’; she will be whatever they need to justify their unwillingness to vote for a woman. “Not a woman”, says they. “This particular woman.” They would vote for a woman, they say. She has to be the right woman, though, not just any woman.
I do agree, to some extent. I would not vote for Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Lauren Bohbert, or any of that ilk. Obviously they have to be the right woman…they have to be intelligent, educated, and capable of handling the running of a major state. Harris has shown us she is that.
The thing is, it will never be the ‘right woman’. Every woman will have a flaw that is deal-breaking, because every woman will be a woman. A lot of people I know said “Oh, I could so vote for Elizabeth Warren!” when Hillary was running. When Warren ran, they found every possible wrinkle they could use to excuse why they couldn’t vote for her. It will be that way until finally the day comes that a woman manages to sneak in through some means – hopefully the vote, and hopefully tomorrow – but even once the woman wins, she will be under scrutiny like no man ever endured.
Meanwhile, Trump is a giant, bullying toddler. But people are ‘softening’ toward him because the alternative is a woman.
What I don’t get is, why should anybody expect to like a presidential candidate? When has that happened in living memory? [Okay, many people probably genuinely wanted Obama to be president, but bear with me…] In fact we’d be fools to like a candidate — since we should all know that what we see is merely some kind of creation of spin doctors. We know this, it’s just the way things work. But we vote anyway — against the candidate we like even less. My vote was for Harris — and no, I gave no consideration to her economic or foreign policies, what she will do about Gaza or North Korea or the price of gas — all I know for sure is she’s not Donald eff-in’ Trump.
I’ve always found Hughes difficult to take seriously since he’s a babbie, but now, no problem at all. Clearly he isn’t any sort of serious intellectual if he gets Bernie Sanders out of Harris and has no idea what her foreign policy would be like. Trump “governed like a normal Republican” because he was fighting against the incredible inertia of Washington (there’ll probably still be at least some even if he wins) but he certainly didn’t want to govern like a normal Republican.
I might expect people to vote in favor of a Trump administration instead of a Harris administration, regardless of their personal feelings about either candidate. That is, they feel that things would be better with Republicans in charge of the Executive Branch, even if Trump dies during the inauguration. They like the kinds of things they hear from the people around Trump, and that people say about a Trump administration, and they dislike what they hear about a Harris administration. They can feel this way even if they are not sophisticated enough in their thinking to separate the candidate from the administration; they just like what’s being promised by the talking heads.
I’m certainly voting for a Harris administration, something I’d support even if the Republican candidate were different. I’m voting against having the Republicans in charge of the Executive Branch. That the candidate is Trump, and that he and the people around him are simply awful, just reinforces that view. It would take a lot to get me to vote for a Republican presidential administration.
But Trump and his cadre are so awful, that I imagine, if somehow the Democratic Party were so broken that a Trump could gain their nomination, that might be the “a lot”, and I’d vote Republican. After all, I could easily see die-hard Republicans deciding to vote for Harris on that basis, and indeed a bunch of high-profile Republicans have pledged their support.
Capital mistake. DJT didn’t “govern”; he can’t even govern himself. DJT “governs” like he’s a kid playing house. He loves attention, he loves bullying and controlling others. DJT sitting in the fire engine like a giant toddler demanding to play with the shiny toys is the level of sophistication at which he “governs.” The only reason his administration retained any semblance of a “normal Republican administration” is that there were some normal Republicans around him in key positions. And the professional civil service to carry on the day to day administration of the state, which they do with neutrality under both Republican and Democratic chief executives. DJT and his puppet masters won’t let that happen again. DJT will get his toddler dictator trappings, like the military parade he was denied last time, and endless golf, and rubbing elbows with murderous Saudi princes or Putin or Xi, while the Bannons and Millers and their ilk will strip the state of any ability to function in the national interest; the civil service will be gutted, and personal loyalists only will be installed to operate everything.
How Hughes — or anyone — can be blind to this is beyond comprehension.
If Harris wins, there will be another somewhat democratic election four years from now.
If Trump wins (and I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t), there will not.