With only a couple weeks now till the election, I’ve decided to make it plain (if i I haven’t already) that I intend to vote for Hillary Clinton.
I have a number of reasons for doing so, some of which are not quantifiable, but if I may I’d like to state a few of them.
First off, she is opposed, disrespected, and outright hated by all the right people. Her list of detractors is a grocery list of those I would like to see ousted from their own positions in government. This includes people like Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, Representative Issa, and just about every firebreathing Tea Party moron who has been miring the workings of my government in the muck of intransigence like a child refusing to eat their vegetables for far too long. Given their records, if Hillary Clinton bothers them, then I’m voting for her. This extends to the entire Republican establishment which made it their number one priority eight years ago to simply block and impede everything President Obama tried to do, for no good reason. Try as I might I can find no justification for this other than petulance. If you aren’t willing to play the game you do not get to set the rules.
This has cost us as a nation.
Secondly, while I have been lukewarm about her for years, this past year I have come to respect her. She’s tough, smart, and by virtue of the relentless vetting she has undergone at the hands of a congressional majority determined to ruin her has apparently been demonstrated to be not only less corrupt than one might wish to believe but also one of the more honest candidates we’ve had. As to her criminality, the fact—the galling fact to many of those in my first category—is that if she were guilty of something we would know it by now and she would be under indictment. They have tried. They have spent multiple tens of millions, wasted months of public time, scoured, probed, intimidated, and otherwise made a nuisance of themselves in service of destroying—
Destroying what?
Apparently (and thirdly) a woman they fear. A woman. I know there is another woman running for office, but in the course of this last year I have come to feel that Jill Stein is not capable of managing the office. Her understanding, for one thing, of international finance and even basic economics seems lacking. While she opposes many things I also oppose I do not see her as someone who could do a damn thing about any of it, not just because both parties would be disinclined to work with her but because she doesn’t show to me the requisite comprehension of the complexities of the problems. She’s not being attacked much by the major parties because she is not a viable contender, but if she were then they would be going after her for the simple fact that, like Hillary, she is a woman. (Which means they would not bother discussing the issues, it would all be personal attack.)
(Years ago Phyllis Schlafly endorsed a woman for president—Michelle Bachman. Demonstrating that she was less interested in the historic meaning of having a woman as president as she was in wrecking the legitimacy of the idea.)
Like Obama, I believe the bulk of the antipathy toward Hillary Clinton is in her failure to be a white male.
Yeah, I do think on a gut level, for many of her detractors, that’s about it. First a black man and now a woman. A woman! Good gosh, what will the world think of us? As far as I’m concerned, it’s about time. She’s qualified. Her lack of the appropriate genitalia should not be a factor. But for some, it is. It will be. If they’re in congress, they must go. We need to get past this nonsense.
Fourthly, given her range of experience, I believe she will be best able to steer this ship that is our country through the reefs of the next several years quite ably. Not, perhaps, spectacularly, but we don’t need that. Spectacular has drawbacks. I’d like to bank on competence. That’s what I’ve liked about Obama. Say what you will, he has not wrecked us. We’re coming out the end of his term better than when he began. No, not for everyone, and for certain not without mistakes, gaffs, and bad calls along the way, but I believe we are in a better position to face the future now than we would have been under either of his opponents. I have no desire to have that derailed by handing over the wheel to a berserker.
Which brings me to Five. She is not Trump. If ever there was a clear distinction between two candidates, this is it. Aside from the meanness he has elicited in his base, he has a pitiful grasp of government, he has been a blatant hypocrite, a consistent liar, and a demagogue. I don’t believe you can call him an ideologue because I can’t discern a cogent ideology, unless it’s narcissism. But above and beyond all that, I do not believe he will Be There. I believe he will get quickly bored and leave it all to his vice president. We’ve seen a bit of what that can lead to (Cheney) and Pence is an ideologue, on par will all those in my first category, and I am weary of them. But Trump will quickly tire of the innate difficulties of managing an office he doesn’t understand. I believe this is why he has failed at so many of his well-touted business ventures. He has no staying power.
Hillary Clinton does have staying power.
Finally (Six) at least publicly she supports many things I support. Her statements on policy are consistent with many of my preferred positions. I need not recount them here, I think. Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time should know. Yes, there are some things that trouble me. But I will still back her rather than risk destroying the country.
That has often been part of the hyperbolic campaign rhetoric of many campaigns, but this is the first time I’ve felt it had some legitimacy. Trump’s assertion that he will virtually eliminate corporate taxes should surprise no one—he will directly benefit—but it will, under present circumstances, put us in such a hole that we might never climb out of it, effectively transforming the United States into the richest third world nation on the planet. The poverty, the collapse of infrastructure, the ruin of any and all safety nets will tear us apart.
I know people don’t like taxes. But for once we have to stop thinking of them as some kind of penalty. Taxation, at its most basic, is the best and surest way to secure capital in the country. That’s why we were able to build the strongest economy in history during a time when the top marginal tax rates were north of 80%. Even the private sector did better because the money was here, not free floating in some vague transnational pool of capital under no nation’s control.
Anyway, there’s my endorsement.
Since I’m in Missouri, I’m also throwing in my support for Jason Kander for senate and Chris Koster for governor. Both of their opponents hold positions antithetical to my own. It’s that simple. I do not agree with either Roy Blunt or Eric Greitens.
Maybe now there will be no more political posts from me till after November 8th. Maybe. We’ll see.
