You don’t have to read BoWilliams.com long to know that I’m not shy about discussing politics. Sometimes I don’t for a while, but mostly if I’m talking about politics at length anywhere, it’s here. (I weaken on Facebook once in a while, but mostly keep it light there.)
We’re halfway through the second convention in a presidential election year. Running mates are named. Debates are on deck. In past presidential election years, I’d be humming here by now. I have a high school friend and longtime reader who once called the presidential election my “Super Bowl” in terms of writing. I took that as a great compliment.
I’m not bringing a lot of passion to the election this time. Have you noticed?
It’s because I don’t like either one of the candidates. I mean, I really don’t like either one of the candidates. I don’t believe either one of them will make a remotely serviceable president. My only comfort is that as big a mess as President Charlie X has made, the country still stands. And I doubt the next president, whether Trump or Clinton, will go in feeling as gleefully destructive and contemptuous.
Given that Trump will carry Alabama by 15 points no matter what I do, and also given that Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson is dopey on foreign policy in that typically libertarian way, odds are good that 2016 is the first presidential election since I became eligible to vote that I won’t. Then I can say I didn’t help make the mess (and suffer the bizarre wrath of tongue-cluckers who claim that people who don’t vote jettison their right to complain, which has already happened once).
(I only thought my support for Romney in 2012 was tepid. I think back now and it feels like massive cheerleading compared to 2016’s apathy.)
I have been amused, both last week and this, by the number of my Facebook friends who have lamented the poor state of discourse in this country. I posted recently on what I think the biggest problem there is. But what especially amuses me is that these are often the same people who have expressed displeasure similar to mine with our choice this time.
I ask, sincerely: what’s worth getting worked up about?
If you really can’t stand up and support either one of these candidates, then why are you burning any polemical oil on either one of them? If you think both Trump and Clinton supporters are wrong, then why engage either one of them? Why watch the conventions? I’m going to get out this time not having consumed a single minute of either one of them. I didn’t even go back and watch the end of Cruz’s speech.
(Now I may have to watch the debates, as significant political theater seems likely. But even that will be firmly in the realm of superficial entertainment for me.)
Keep it real, dudes and dolls. Recognize this election for what it is. Do you want syphilis, or gonorrhea? Do you want to jump out of the 60th floor, or the 80th? Would you like to be torn to pieces and devoured by tigers, or great white sharks?
In a typical election year, “troublemakers” (ha ha) find people waving the other candidate’s flag and pick on them. But this time anyone with either flag is off.
Make trouble with everyone? Or make trouble with no one?
You might also like:
- Hillary has the ball and the lead…but it’s only the middle of the third quarter
As I type, it is eleven weeks from Election Day. The conventional wisdom for the 2016 presidential e… - A swirling vortex of methane and sadness
My younger son coined that phrase last night. He wasn’t talking about the election, but he certainly… - The #Trump2016 threat: significant, if not yet compelling. What will you do?
So National Review has its first bona fide this-could-happen piece on Donald Trump out today. Longti… - Finding unity on November 9
It wasn’t long after our esteemed president was reelected that I began imagining the candidate for w… - Trump. Now what?
Gotten up and dusted yourself off yet? Donald Trump may have essentially clinched the Republican nom…
Bo,
While I acknowledge the Presidential choices before us are not highly exciting, I remain steadfast in my conviction that a Hillary regime will undoubtedly erode the fabric of our country. As a veteran, taxpayer, and Federal employee, I have witnessed first hand the erosion of liberty domestically and internationally under the oppressive edicts of the current President. Hillary has promised more of the same, and I believe this one and only statement from is indeed the truth. Comparatively, I am unsure of what a Trump administration will do, but I do believe he will lower our tax burdens, stand by the solemn vow that American will take care of its uniform and veteran treasure, and leverage his business acumen (with the help of strong advisors) to generate wealth within the Continental United States. Moreover, I believe his short list of judicial nominees has the potential to mitigate Constitutional exposure. You are much more cerebral than I will ever hope to be, and I appreciate your convictions, but I believe the contrast between the two “real” candidates is stark.
Scott E. Thovson
Scott, I’ve had moments of intellectual inventory very much as you describe during the course of this slow-motion train wreck. Hoping for the very best of Trump should he win is exactly what I do.
I think Hillary Clinton is a detestable human being, and I think incredible moral and ethical contortions are required for anyone to tell himself/herself a good story about her. Yeah, at the end of the day, though I dislike him, I prefer that Trump win. But, as I said in the post, he’s going to carry my state no matter what I do. So if I don’t vote, and then he gets in and sucks, I can look over my glasses at all of the rest of you, talk about how I had nothing to do with it, and get a lot of good posts out of it. 🙂
I can still get just as sad as I want to considering what a ridiculously deep and talented field the Republicans had a year ago. It is politically and socioculturally fascinating how the obliteration of that field happened, but it’s not something I’m going to get into now. I do think it’s an incredible piece of political science that will receive a lot of sustained academic attention in the years to come.
Your endorsement is some comfort to me. The endorsement of my longtime and very highly respected friend Frances Taylor is some comfort to me. We’ll see.
I knew the Republican candidate could do very well with a fairly simple, but very patriotic, message. I’ve thought that since shortly after our esteemed president was reelected. But I heard it coming out of Scott Walker’s or Carly Fiorina’s mouth, with considerably more civility and decorum.
It’s kind of exciting, in a grindhouse theater sort of way. Not sure that’s something we ought to be seeking for federal politics though.
That’s why I’m voting for either Calvin and Hobbes or Picard and Riker. And not voting for any incumbent. After that, I just really don’t care outside of Triana politics that happen on August 23.
The psychotic disgustingness of our esteemed governor has me taking much more interest in state and local politics than I ever have before. That’s a good thing, as unpleasant as it is.
I wouldn’t want to be in the same room with either one of them. I’d never invite either one of them to my house for dinner. I don’t LIKE either one of them. That being said, I do have SOME confidence that Trump will AT LEAST put experts in whatever field in the right positions, not political cronies. I also think that he will listen to the subject matter experts regarding issues and challenges. Unlike the last POTUS, who would appoint someone to a position to make a statement (the first Latin American lesbian Muslim woman appointed to blah, blah, blah) and unlike Clinton, who would appoint cronies.
Marianne, I hear you. As I said to Scott above, of all of the ways it could go, that’s probably what I’m hoping for.
For me it isn’t that I “don’t like either candidate,” it’s that I am terrified of what they will do. Obama has already set precedents that despots will take advantage of, now.
Supreme Court seat?
There’s that. But how reliable is even that concern, after our good buddy John Roberts singlehandedly delivered Obamacare?
Why on earth would we think trump would nominate constitutionalists anyway?
He did put out a list with some promising names on it.
And there’s the argument by exclusion: we know Hillary won’t, so trading that for uncertainty seems reasonable.