How I Will Vote

 

I dislike Donald Trump. I have never voted for him in either a primary or a general election. I have written some very harsh things about him, and I still believe them. I wanted the senate to convict him after the second impeachment in 2021. I wanted the Republicans to move on from him after he left office in disgrace. I wanted Jack Smith to convict him of one of his crimes. I wanted DeSantis or Haley to defeat him for the Republican nomination. I wanted the Democrats to replace Biden as their nominee with a moderate rather than a leftist. I still wish any of those things had happened.

But none of them did. So now we get to choose between Trump and Harris as to which would be the lesser evil (which is a different question from which of them is the less bad human being or the lesser fool). The choice is not an obvious one, but I think it is likely that the country would be better off and suffer less with a Trump administration than a Harris one.

There are issues on which each of them is better or less bad than the other. However, on the important issues of national defense, illegal immigration, personal freedom, the economy, and siding with Israel and civilization and against Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and barbarism, Trump and the Republicans are better than Harris and the Democrats. A Trump administration would be likely to be harder on our enemies and to move America’s armed forces away from spending time and effort on various irrelevant or even harmful leftist fads and causes and make them more nearly fully directed toward the crucial mission of deterring and, if necessary, defeating the country’s enemies. Trump would try to  restrict illegal immigration, while Harris probably would keep things much as they are now. On personal freedom, Trump and the Republicans would be likely to restrain federal bureaucrats, cut at least some regulations, and generally make Americans a little freer to live their lives as they like, while Harris and the Democrats would be likely to do the opposite. (Some point to abortion as an exception to this, but as a practical matter, abortion is moot at the federal level. The filibuster is not going away, and there will not be sixty votes in the senate for new laws restricting abortion. The issue will stay with the states.) Trump has some bad economic schemes, but overall, Harris’s are worse. Finally, the Republicans mainly are clear that in the present conflict Israel is right and should win decisively, and its enemies are wrong and should lose disastrously. Too many Democrats including Harris are “nuanced” or worse on that.

While both want to do things I think are seriously wrong, Trump would have the federal bureaucracy, the intelligence agencies, and  the traditional media working against him as he tried to do some of the bad things he  wants to do, while Harris would have the same people working with and for her as she tried to do some of the bad things she  wants to do. Because of that she probably is more capable of doing harm than he is.

So I will vote for Trump. I don’t like it. I am displeased with the stupid voters in Republican primaries for putting me and the country in this predicament. But I’ll do it. It won’t be fun, but I’ll do it.

Finishing the Job

 

The Israeli armed forces have begun a land campaign on Lebanon against Hezbollah. This war and their continuing war against Hamas in Gaza are conflicts of civilization against savagery and barbarism. Americans should be unequivocally for Israel in this war and against the savages. I would guess most of us are. However, our government is not. In Gaza the Biden administration has advocated consistently for an end to the fighting that would leave Hamas surviving as a functional organization, an outcome which would be a strategic victory for Hamas and Iran. In Lebanon it has pushed for restraint and diplomacy at a time when Israel seems to be in a good position to eradicate the menace of Hezbollah, a diplomatic outcome which would deprive Israel of a needed victory and leave Hezbollah in place, dangerous, and functioning. Here at home Biden and Harris have treated pro- Hamas, antisemitic, anti-civilization leftist as very fine people, and officials have appeared less concerned about attacks on and threats against American Jews than about conservative parents getting uppity at school board meetings.

The whole thing is disgraceful, and, for Harris, disqualifying. I hope the Israelis ignore our officials and get the job done fully and decisively both for themselves and the rest of us.

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 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.

Harris, Shapiro, and Walz

 

Mr. Taggart: I got it! I know how we can run everyone out of Rock Ridge.

Hedley Lamarr: How?

Mr. Taggart: We’ll kill the firstborn male child in every household.

Hedley Lamarr: Too Jewish.

-Blazing Saddles

So apparently was Josh Shapiro. On the evidence Kamala Harris and the Democrats were set before the weekend to select Governor Shapiro of Pennsylvania as their candidate for vice president. They announced that there would be a big kickoff event for their ticket Tuesday in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania is a state that a Democrat pretty much has to win to become president. Shapiro is very popular there, and people thought that having him on the ticket might swing the state away from Trump. He is also what passes for a moderate among Democrats these days and might have helped with some voters who would be wary of a hard leftist such as Harris. The selection seemed obvious to lots of people, an easy slam dunk of a decision.

It probably would have been except for one thing. Shapiro is a Jew, and not only a Jew but a Jew who supports Israel in its war against Hamas. The best guess is that that outraged the party’s pro-Hamas leftists enough that Harris found it necessary to drop him and choose instead a leftist governor who seems to add nothing to her chances of winning.

If so, the antisemitism it shows is not even the worst thing about it. The war in Gaza is not only a conflict between Israel and Hamas’s savages. It also is part of a world wide struggle between liberal civilization and its illiberal and barbarous enemies in China, Russia, Iran, and elsewhere. If Harris and her party are too afraid of, or worse sympathetic to, those who side with the savage and the barbarous to do not only the right but even the apparently politically expedient thing, it says a lot about her and the entire party.