Saturday, October 8, 2016
Trump's sexist, Clinton's corrupt . . . so what else is new?
I must confess to a feeling of frustration at the latest kerfuffles erupting in this year's election campaign. They seem so damn pointless.
Donald Trump made a sexist comment? So what? He's made dozens over the years. Some of the most notorious are gathered here, if it matters. We've always known he's that way inclined - just like many influential figures in business and politics. It's not just in America, either - witness Sergio Berlusconi's scandals in Italy, or Mitterand's mistress in France, or the Profumo scandal in the UK.
Hillary Clinton's speeches have been 'exposed'? Again, so what? We've known for years that she's incorrigibly corrupt and dishonest. I think it was in 1996 that she was first publicly called a 'congenital liar'. Nothing appears to have changed in the two decades since then.
Both Clinton and Trump are deeply flawed candidates for the Presidency of the United States. I don't think either of them will make a good President if elected, and I wish there were better alternatives. Unfortunately, there aren't. The minor party candidates exhibit significant shortcomings of their own, so I don't think it's worth supporting any of them; and even if one of them were elected, he or she would never be able to muster enough support in Congress and the Senate to be effective. All that's left to us is to vote for the lesser of the evils confronting us in this election.
Who is the 'lesser evil' among the candidates? To my mind, that has to be Donald Trump. I find that thought deeply distasteful in many ways. Don't forget, I'm a retired pastor, and I assess candidates from that moral and ethical perspective. He doesn't check many of my 'positive' boxes, and checks far too many of my 'negative' ones . . . but he checks more of the former, and less of the latter, than Hillary Clinton. He's also made some campaign promises that I would like to see implemented, even though I'm not sure of his sincerity or their practicality. On those grounds, and with great moral reluctance, I see no-one else to support in the present election. That's a very sad commentary on the state of US politics today.
Joseph-Marie de Maistre famously said, "Every nation gets the government it deserves". I can only respond that the USA must have done a whole lot of pretty ghastly things to deserve this!
Peter
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14 comments:
A couple of things.
1) You're downplaying what Trump said. He's casually talking about sexual battery, not just "saucy talk".
2) If I knew someone who I heard talking like that, I'd be done with them personally. I'd distance myself because I wouldn't want to be associated with such a horrible person. The voters are responding like that.
I've never understood the standard for voting to be for a candidate who's simply not Satan. If that's the standard, then you'd vote for Wormwood or Screwtape. Can we at least require our candidates to not be minions of Hell?
Yep, Hillary is a horrible person, and Trump is just as horrible, he simply hasn't had the power of government to be horrible yet. I'm not going to be party to giving it to him.
There's one of those photo memes going around that contrasts them. It lists Benghazi, the horrible security violations, the people she's gotten killed, the corruption and so on. Opposite every one of them is the argument "says mean things" about Trump.
Comparing their behaviors and trying to assign equivalency is like comparing mass murderers to the local thug holding up the "Stop and Rob".
Mark, Trump was talking about celebrity power,
Many women will allow that is consent to all manner of things with rich powerful men that they would not with you and I
For goodness sake, 50 Shades of Grey was one of the best selling books in history bought almost entirely by women and it was about a sadistic billionaire in a sick relationship with a woman if you aren't aware.
Its nastier than anything Trump said
In any case this is a liberal double standard, I'll note that Bill Clinton isn't called on his inappropriate sexual behavior much less his talk
Also we had a super moral guy in office in the 1970's Christian, Teetotaler, Veteran married without a hint of infidelity or wrongdoing
His name was Jimmy Carter
Right now, Trump isn't perfect but between him and Hillary I'll take Trump since at least he might work on closed borders and won't start a war with Russia,
That alone puts him head above HRC
This was an "October surprise", just like the "NYT Tax Returns story of last week", and I expect to see more of them, since it's early in October. The whole point is to distance people from Trump, and win by focusing attention on Trump. Hopefully, with enough attention focused on Trump(and never forget the MSM are simply Democrats with bylines), Hillary's crimes will be ignored, and she'll slide into the presidency.
Eh. Trump might, might be a good president. If he is, he'll probably be the best president we've seen in a long time. Or he'll be a complete disaster, probably plunging Europe if not the world into a nasty war with Russia and co.
Both candidates suck pretty much equally. One's going to be bad no matter what, and the other is either going to be great or abhorrent. I truly don't envy those that have to vote and are undecided, because this one is going to be shit.
Personally? I'd like to see Trump win, just to see what happens. Enough to vote for him? That's like asking which bollock I want chopped off.
We're certainly testing the "lesser of two evils" voting theory to destruction this year.
"....a whole lot of pretty ghastly things...."
Like 50 million abortions?
Everyone has to do what they sincerely believe to be correct. I'm not going to try to talk you out of it.
As always I hope you're right about Trump and I'm very wrong.
We're certainly testing the "lesser of two evils" voting theory to destruction this year.
Heh.
- Charlie
You've basically just summarized my own perspective on the election. I mean...*perfectly* summarized. Mind if I link to this/email a link to some family members and friends?
I hope blogorado is going *great* and that you survive (lol) whatever spectacularly pyrotechnic memorial service has been planned in honor of Mr. Carter! *grin*
God bles! :-)
I think the situation is far more sinister than the media (!) are saying, or perhaps even perceive. I believe we're seeing the GOPe secretly and silently conspiring to replace Trump with a candidate more to their liking. Pence maybe? October surprise indeed: who knew it would come from within the "ranks" of the establishment right?
Don't underestimate the self-preserving instincts of the powerful.
TC
Leatherneck:
there is no procedure for "replacing" either candidate at this late point. It's never happened, yet. I'm not sure if that is a good or bad thing, that no mechanism exists for that situation, no matter what the cause.
Americans had their chance to vote for a decent, virtuous man in 2012. A majority of us didn't. We shouldn't be surprised that we now have the choice between two people who are anything but virtuous. (Not that there's really any comparison between the two: everything people are afraid that Trump [i]might[/i] do, Hillary has [i]already[/i] done and for Trump, the press would try to expose his wrongdoing rather than cover up for it like they've been doing for Hillary).
But since justice, the rule of law, and equality before the law are all dead and we're very firmly in, who/whom? territory, I'll vote for the guy who seems most likely to abuse my enemies rather than the witch who wants to abuse me. It's not a hard call. If we're lucky, Trump will turn out to be like Sulla and his purges will extend the life of the republic for a generation.
Considering the U.S. has always been a wantonly social-rank-fascist country with an eternal chronically on-going "civilian cold war syndrome" that goes full-frontal from time to time, not to mention its wanton xenophobia towards any and all things eccentric and individualistic, I think this country's ghastly enough to deserve the dysfunctional attributes of a Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.
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