Harris and Trump

 

The last nominee for president from either major party who met even minimal criteria for knowledge, experience, character, intelligence, and fidelity to the Constitution was Mitt Romney in 2012. Since then things have been bleak, and this year we have Trump and Harris. The question for voters in this election is not which of them should become president. The clear answer is that neither of them should. The question is which of them is likely to do less harm.

Both have authoritarian tendencies, Harris from leftist ideology and Trump from non-ideological power mania. Both have authoritarian leaning running mates (though to be fair, both Vance and Walz had different opinions when it was expedient for them and so may be just ordinary lying political scoundrels at heart). On foreign policy Harris is too soft on Hamas and Iran in Gaza, while Trump is too soft on Putin in Ukraine. Both are a little vague on dealing with the strategic threat from China. Trump has talked about the need for strong and unequaled armed forces and is probably better than Harris on national defense. (At least he seems unlikely to appoint people who write about the need for “queerness” in nuclear policy to important positions dealing with nuclear policy.) On illegal immigration Trump wants to deport too many people, while Harris wants to keep the southern border effectively wide open. On economic issues, Trump’s worst scheme is for a huge increase in tariffs and restriction on international trade. Harris’s bad ideas include price controls, taxes on unrealized capital gains, dictating what sort of vehicles and appliances people can buy, race and gender quotas, and generally a more powerful and robust regulatory bureaucracy, especially on green issues. Neither of them has a serious plan for reducing or eliminating the annual federal deficit. While bad enough, Trump’s plans here are less harmful.

Both have well earned reputations as ignorant, arrogant, dishonest, power hungry, repulsive people who cannot be trusted. But bad as Harris is, she never tried to overthrow the government or called for overturning the Constitution, things which should have disqualified Trump from holding any elected office in the United States. On the evidence she is the less bad human being. 

It is a truism of strategic analysis that one should consider not only the enemy’s intentions but, also and especially, its capabilities. It is likely that Harris’s capability for doing bad things is far greater than Trump’s. Trump would have the traditional media, the federal bureaucracy, the intelligence agencies, and most of the country’s big money and large tech companies working against him. Harris would have the same people mainly working for her, giving her a higher likelihood of getting what she wants done. That is major point in Trump’s favor, though it is a little saddening to have to evaluate presidential candidates the way one does hostile foreign nations.

Though I dislike saying it and thought I never would say it, if I had to vote for one of them today, I would vote for Trump. But I surely don’t like it and surely respect the opinions of those who see a Trump administration as likely to be  worse than a Democrat one. Before Gaza and the selection of Harris, I did too. I do have trouble respecting the opinions of people who think either of them is hot stuff. They both are bad news.