A Time for Hobson's Choosing

 

I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. I had hoped Republican voters would come to their senses and nominate DeSantis or Haley. I had hoped Smith would get a conviction in one of his cases against Trump. I had hoped Biden would move toward the center, or the Democrats, fearing defeat, would replace him on their ticket with a moderate. None of it happened, and so here we are. Unless something very unusual happens, if they both stay alive for the next eight months, it will be Trump versus Biden in November.

Biden is a bad president. He is a dishonest, lying, unprincipled party hack and scoundrel, as his record over several decades makes obvious. He shows evidence of being in some stage of at least intermittent dementia. His administration has been mainly a leftist one. He and his administration are in bed with some really bad people on the green left and the bigoted DEI left, and recently have become more sympathetic toward the pro-Hamas left. If Biden is reelected and gets some of the things he wants, people’s lives would be worse. Electric power would become less reliable, and it would become harder or impossible to buy the car or appliances one would like. The problems coming from the immigration of too many poor and unskilled people into a welfare state would get worse. Higher taxes and more regulations would make the country poorer than it would be otherwise. Increased spending by the government would add more to the dangerously high federal debt. The nanny state would become more intrusive and obnoxious, and the IRS, the EPA, the FBI, and the rest of the gang more nearly unrestrained.

Then there is Donald Trump, a man who should never be considered for any public office in the United States. He is an arrogant, vulgar, bullying, graceless, power mad ignoramus, and he doesn’t hide the fact. From December 14^th 2000 to January 6^th ,2001, he functioned as an enemy of the republic, conspiring and attempting to overthrow the government and remain in power illegally and unconstitutionally. The rally and riot of January 6^th had no other purpose. His order to Pence to change the results of the election was by itself an attempted coup. In 2022 he called in writing for overturning the Constitution and returning him to power immediately. He has made it plain recently that the only thing he regrets about the coup is that if failed. He is erratic to the point of instability, and apparently incapable of strategic thought beyond superficial transactional considerations. His vice president has refused to support him for another term. Other serious and decent people who worked with him in his first administration have warned that he is dangerously unfit to serve. It is possible he would abandon Ukraine to Putin, effectively abandon NATO, and throw away much of our victory in the cold war. His vile demagoguery takes the country’s already low level of civility in politics lower. He has demanded full immunity from any crimes he might want to commit when back in office (including murdering political opponents according to his lawyers). He shows no sense of being or wanting to be bound by laws or the Constitution.

In 2016 P. J. O’Rourke argued for supporting Hillary Clinton on the grounds that, while she was wrong about almost everything, she was wrong within the ordinary boundaries of American politics, while Trump might do something really crazy and destructive. That summarizes the case for supporting Biden for those of us not  Democrats or leftists. The case for supporting Trump is that the plans and policies of the Republicans generally are less bad than those of the Democrats, and the hope that Trump would mainly follow those and be restrained from doing anything really crazy and destructive, likely producing a better outcome for the country than we would get with Biden.

It is truly a Hobson’s choice, and I can see good reasons for people deciding either way. There are serious people I respect who have picked Biden and others who have picked Trump. My choice based on what I know now is that the less bad choice is to elect Biden and work for Republican majorities in both houses to mitigate the damage he would do. But it is not a choice a person can be comfortable with.