Monday, November 4, 2019

Instead of the "best" person for the job, the 2020 election will likely once more come down to choosing between the "lesser" of two evils--and hopefully the electorate will get that "right" this time


In the 1964 film The Best Man, Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson portrayed rivals for the presidential nomination of an unidentified political party. Fonda’s William Russell and Robertson’s Joe Cantwell are polar opposites, the former an intellectual who believes that policy should be formulated through reason and principles, while the latter is a populist demagogue and red-baiter who nevertheless has support by important party leaders because he gives off the aura of “getting things done.” Both have their skeletons hiding in the closet: Russell has a history of womanizing and had once suffered a serious mental health issue, while Cantwell behind the scenes has been engaging in unethical and possibly illegal chicanery to undermine Russell—and there is a former military colleague willing to testify that he had a homosexual dalliance with Cantwell years ago. Both men have utter contempt for each other, as do their supporters, but three other “moderate” candidates prevent either one from receiving a majority of the delegates. Russell is too “principled” to use the charge of homosexuality against Cantwell, which likely would have swayed enough delegates to win him the nomination. Instead, recognizing that neither he nor Cantwell are the “best man,” Russell releases his delegates to support Gov. John Merwin, who ends-up winning the nomination.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could elect the “best” person for the job of being president of the United States? It never really happens, although this country has come close to doing so a few times (Abraham Lincoln, FDR), but more usually it is a contest between the lesser of two evils, and as we saw in 2016, sometimes not even that. This season on the Democratic side, Joe Biden initially seemed to be the “best” of a not particularly inspiring field; unfortunately, Biden no longer seems mentally up to the task to thwart the relentless assaults on common sense and human decency posed by Donald Trump. Elizabeth Warren is the next in line, but with her I’m already seeing a nightmare scenario of her losing by a landslide just as another out-there liberal, George McGovern, did in 1972 despite the Watergate scandal starting to enter the public conscience. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be anyone available with enough gravitas to simply step in the ring at this late date (and it ain’t Hillary Clinton), and it is rare for a relative “unknown” like Barack Obama to step in and immediately excite the better angels in the greater part of the electorate. 

But that leaves us with the problem of Donald Trump, who is clearly as unfit as much as he never was even close to being the “best” candidate for president. What makes Trump so dangerous and contemptible is that he never expected to be elected president to begin with, and thus felt uninhibited to expectorate the most despicable and dehumanizing outrages on the campaign trail, claiming a desire to “Make America Great Again” when in fact he was espousing nativist and fascist propaganda that would insure that the opposite would happen. Most Republicans who styled themselves as leaders of the party, as opposed to fringe fanatics like Sen. Jeff Sessions and the “Freedom Caucus” in the House, feared that Trump was not just unelectable but would damage the party’s image for years to come. Instead, Trump not only won the election but allowed the worst impulses of an extremist minority of the population to rise up and take control of public policy. We saw this when Trump switched gears on condemning the violence by fascists in Charlottesville, and when he abandoned a bipartisan deal on DACA—referring to its recipients as coming from “shithole” countries—after being warned that it would upset his extremist, white nationalist “base.” 

Time and time again Trump was provided opportunities to act with decency and humanity, and he has repeatedly failed, demonstrating that his word can never be trusted to mean anything unless it benefits his own twisted narcissism. When he can’t get his way, he has demonized and dehumanized the “opposition,” referring to them (among other things) “human scum.” Every time he claims he wants to “discuss” an issue with those of a differing view, it is always a one-way conversation—his way, or the ravings of a spoiled child. Even at those times when he was persuaded to say or do the “right” thing, you knew that he was only forced to do so, for within a day or two he would tweet what he really thought—or like the child separation policy, sign an “executive order” allegedly to end it, and then just keep on doing it. I mean, this is a man who told us that he had lecherous feelings for his own daughter. Even when he tries to “impress” the press with evidence of actually thinking-through his pronouncements, he typically only demonstrates that he has given the matter at hand no thought at all before opening his mouth; it is all just what he “feels” in his “gut.”

Everything Trump has done comes not from reasoned principle, but from his and his familiars worst, most feral impulses and instincts. Nothing he has done makes any sense. Willy-nilly he has created never-ending trade “wars,” abandoning the Pacific trade alliance treaty that was meant to thwart Chinese dominance simply because it had Obama’s signature on it. He treats our long-time allies with shared democratic values the “enemy,” and has called the forces arraigned against democracy our—or rather, his—best friends. He has made mock of this country’s moral leadership role on the international stage, or being a trusted partner in shared goals when confronting global issues, particularly in regard to climate change. This is a man who puffs himself up by bullying like a coward desperate, vulnerable people—especially their children—seeking to escape U.S.-bred violence “deported” to their already impoverished countries, not helped by the re-introduction of the banana republic-style presence of American companies through CAFTA. Again and again, Trump holds forth before delirious crowds who are completely blind to his folly and crimes, because he has given voice to those who should never have been allowed to take control of a civilized society.

If this country was meant to be a demi-fascist dictatorship aided by a political party that in the main has unwaveringly—and often fanatically—supports the activities and rhetoric of the would-be dictator, then it has the “best man” for the job in Trump. The evil that he has allowed to escape may never be returned to the box that in the past had opened only just enough to allow the demons of xenophobia and nativism to slip through. Now that the box has been kicked wide open, every instinct that makes this country not “great” has been given license to be acted out—with Trump the principle bandleader and cheerleader. It would seem an easy problem to fix to find someone who is “better” person for the job, and I’m sure that deep down many Republicans know Trump isn’t the “best,” and would prefer someone else. But “normal” Republicans no longer control the party’s “message”—Trump and the extremist-right fringe in this country does. 

That leaves us for the Democrats to find the “best” person for the job, and instead it looks like it will come down once again to the “lesser” of two evils—with the difference being that the electorate may this time see that it is indeed Trump who is the greater evil, which he always was, and is.

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