Thomas Friedman, shown above looking (quite undeservedly) a bit like Uncle Joe Stalin, has ‘risen to the defense’ of Hillary Clinton. So I will be breaking the habits of a lifetime this November and voting… for Donald Trump.
Of course it’s a futile gesture. I live in New York, a state the Clintons bought and paid for years ago. But it will do for me the only thing that voting ever does for anybody: namely, make me feel better.
Now this decision has led to a curious self-discovery: namely, that I do in fact take voting seriously, though yesterday I would have told you I didn’t.
I seem to recall that Alex Cockburn told a story about his father, Claud, and the latter’s advice to a fellow-Commie who wanted to marry a Catholic girl. The other comrade was balking at signing some paper the Church wanted you to sign in those days. Claud’s response was that the comrade was clearly taking the Church too seriously, and respected an oath far more than any good Commie ought to do.
Bracing, eh?
But I’m like Claud’s weaker comrade in this respect. In some way it seems that I regard voting as a kind of collusion. You vote for somebody, then you’ve sorta signed on with ’em.
So I’m trying to take Claud’s advice and work this faiblesse out of my system. Stop moralizing, stop worrying so much about your soul, Smith. Treat the damn thing as the imbecile charade it is. Get some fun out of it.
So here’s my case for Trump as the Lesser Evil:
- The guy is a blowhard and a loon. We have no idea what we would do. But we know exactly what Hillary would do. Regression to the mean suggests that almost any unknown X would be better than known Hillary.
- He’ll be utterly ineffectual, whatever he wants to do, whereas Hillary might actually have a chance to achieve something. I don’t recall to whom we owe the concept of ‘the less effective evil'(*) — as distinct from ‘the lesser evil’ — but it seems germane.
- People are always telling me that Trump is a fascist and he would bring the US closer to fascism. But they’re all fascists, and the US is already a fascist society. Of course this is a gradient, and you might say we’re not as fascist as Germany was in say 1939. And you might be right. But whoever becomes president this November will move us further down the road. Will Hillary move us faster, or will Trump? See point 2 above.
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(*) A kind reader points out that it was the wonderful Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report.
Hell’s Kitchen, presente!
When you vote you have signed on with them. It’s investment of your only political capital. As for The Clintons having bought NY I think you have it reversed. They are wholly owned just like Obama. As for Fascism the U.S. became that on 12/23/13.(See James Garfield quote on control of money) Donald might end up utterly ineffectual but Bernie would absolutely be ineffectual because his backing in congress would be microscopic. Still I whole heartily agree that Trump would be better than Hillary. It has the added appeal that the Liberals will be wailing, moaning, pissing, gnashing teeth, pulling hair out, rending garments and taking to their fainting couches.
The wailing, moaning, fainting couches…all worth it to witness, methinks.
I tell my son, if someone mumbles like this on the subway, avoid eye contact and move to the next car if necessary: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwFaSpca_3Q
Clip is a good summary of Hillary’s foreign policy too.
Well you might do as I.
Fuck the city permits and stand before the courthouse.
With a Fuck Hillary sign. Her alien face with swastikas on each side, and the nuclear blasted city she will create behind.
I really will vote for Trump.
(But do get strategic score voting already. What’s your problem?)
This society fits the classic definition of “totalitarian” much better than did the state totalitarian regimes that crystalized the concept. It’s market-totalitarian, and its works much better, due to greater flexibility and deniability. Fascism is just a mix-in in this order.
for the entertainment value (HRC snooze), for the unknowability factor, perhaps the clincher being the HRC fans constant pearl-clutching & vapors over the fainting couches (nice, chomskyzinn)….VOTE WRITE IN, i mean, TRUMP!
cuomo decides NY should stop doing biz w/ BDS participants. uh huh. your vote, your consumption patterns matter? not as much as any of us’d like to think.
I believe Cuomo actually used the term “blacklist.”
saw headline, couldn’t afford to click to article.
Sorry about that; I’ve never understood the Times’ paywall. Sometimes it’s there, sometimes it’s not. They seem to be improvising desperately.
I used to use a trick: If you open Google and find a NY Times article, and click on it, the Google “referrer” (hidden little Internet creature) will be silently sent to the NY Times site, and they would let me in without paying. There is even a Firefox “RefControl” Add-on that lets you spoof the hidden “referrer.” message. These days I use the “Block site” add-on that totally blocks any accidental attempt to visit the NY Times site.
The incredible shrinking man grows shorter in stature every time you look at him.
My vote may not matter, but my conscience does, at least to me. Trump may be the lesser evil, but there is no conceivable circumstance in which I would voluntarily vote for that clown. The only message I wish to send to our political class is FOAD.
I wouldn’t take the animus of Ziowhacks like Friedman too seriously, They regard anything less than 100 percent lockstep obeisance from their lackeys as treason. Just look at how they treat President Rubberstamp.
Hillary is a sure thing while Trump might not follow the script as much as they require, but I am sure the water will get carried with or without protest.
With all due respect, the silly notion of having a “conscience” has no legitimate meaning when it comes to politics. It’s like keeping a pet goldfish in the desert. For me it’s strategy all the way.
There are plenty of reasons to vote for Trump. But of all the souls, /Friedman/? Can you really even call him a liberal? I mean he’s probably objectively more vile than your average Krugman. But Friedman is what he is and really doesn’t hide it. Was there a point he wasn’t a Hillary ‘supporter’?
It’s well past midnight here but I’m still up checking the results and hoping that my homies in California do the right thing, although, it’s beginning to look less and less likely. We all know that voting at the national level doesn’t make an iota of a difference but it sure feels good to stick it to the fucking liberals and the Democrats who gave us countless disappointments in the past 50 plus years (yes, I’m going all the way back to JFK). So I fully endorse Comrade Smith’s decision and I would have done the same had the expat voting carried the same weight. The trend that has emerged in recent years is that every US president has been worse than his predecessors. So whether the queen warrior or the Donald gets elected, you can be rest assured that either one of them would be worse than Obie. We survived 8 years of W. and another 8 years of Obie. I’m sure we shall survive the reign of terror of the next moron that will get anointed. But why not give a finger to the Democratic party and possibly, and I say possibly bring their demise?
Having said that, I still care about local elections. Of course, in the city of San Francisco there’s no duopoly of Democrats and Republicans. We’re talking about a monopoly of all things Democrat! Still, there’s such a thing as a Reform Slate that has taken a stance against the tech sector, real estate lobby, developers, and basically the Manhattanization of San Francisco and I’m certainly rooting for them.