I'm with Jo, Without the e

 

I did not watch all of the debate between Trump and Biden last week. I would watch as much as I felt like standing and then switch the channel for a while, (there was a good Star Trek episode on), but I saw enough to get the flavor of the thing. My overall impression was that it was sufficiently bad that if Strother Martin had walked to the stage and shouted that he nominated Liberty Valance,  people might have cheered, not knowing who the vicious outlaw was, but figuring anyone should be better than these two.

Trump was bombastic, arrogant, rude, unfocused, dishonest, deeply un-presidential, and generally personally repulsive. Biden was rude,  dishonest, and un-presidential, but at least in the segments I saw,  was not bombastic  or as pugnaciously misbehaved as Trump. He avoided showing signs of being demented – though some people are claiming his advisors were feeding him lines over a wire. Neither one came across as someone who could be trusted with a seat on  the local school board or hospital district.

Throughout the campaign I have thought that people should reluctantly re-elect Trump as the lesser evil, given the Democrats’ swerve to the left.  Now I am rethinking that – partially because of the debate but also because of some points writers have made about longer term strategy.  With the one exception of Reagan’s defeating Carter, being re-elected, and followed by Bush’s winning what was effectively his third term, the two parties have taken turns every eight years in holding the presidency  since Eisenhower was elected. So it is reasonable to expect that the country will have a Democrat president sometime soon, probably  in four years if not this year.  If Trump wins, we will have four more years of his ignorant populism, awful policies on trade, over reaching rule by executive order, and big government, big deficit policies, perhaps to be followed by a strongly leftist Democrat. If Biden wins, we will have a one term, fairly moderate Democrat whose administration will be bogged down for its first year or two in dealing with the epidemic and its economic consequences,  and who could be followed in four years by a Republican.  The country needs a major party that at least nominally favors smaller government, reduced deficits, freedom of expression,  international trade, and less regulation and rule by bureaucratic or executive decree. That is what Republicans have been, but it is not what Trump is, to put it mildly. With him gone the party might get back to that.

So I now think that while Trump may be the lesser evil in the very short term (though that is not certain), he likely is the greater evil for the middle and long term. So right now in this election, I am with  Jo. That’s without the “e”. I plan to vote for Jo Jorgensen.  I cannot support Biden and Harris, and no  longer care to support or put up with Trump.  It may be only a protest vote, but goodness knows the two characters in that debate deserve to be protested against.