Race To The Bottom Yields No Winners
This week’s Courier Herald column:
Over the weekend there was quite a shakeup in the political landscape. An eleven-year-old video of Donald Trump surfaced that is yet another straw on an overloaded camel’s back.
Many who have been holding their nose to support him can no longer stand the accumulated stench. There are now more elected members of Congress and Governors breaking with the party’s nominee than when Goldwater held the nomination.
Donald Trump’s comments about assaulting women he finds attractive are indefensible. They go beyond “locker room talk.” And yet, many treat politics as a war game. As such, in the middle of battle, many if not most will ignore a decade old statement from the top general while fighting the battle of the day.
One of the most frequent questions I’ve been asked during this campaign cycle (and quite frequently over the weekend) is “How can anyone still be supporting Donald Trump after this?” This question generally comes from Democrats and independents.
Republicans and independents have a similar question with almost similar frequency. “How can anyone support Hillary Clinton after _______?” There are a litany of issues that fill in that blank. From lying about Benghazi and blaming a known terrorist action on a YouTube video, to lying to the American public about emails with constantly changing answers that were quickly adjusted to meet facts as they were grudgingly revealed, voters have many reasons to distrust what Hillary Clinton would do with the power of the highest office in the land.
This is not an exercise of false equivalence. Unfortunately, it is quite an exercise of equivalence that neither side wants to play to its logical conclusion.
Partisan Democrats and Republicans alike have long since ceded political debate and battles from one of intellectual rigor to one of moral superiority. This process has largely depended on disqualifying the candidate from the other side as fit or worthy to hold office.
Partisans have gotten quite good at constructing arguments that highlight the negatives of their opposition. They then conclude that because they have summarized that the opposition candidate is horrible that you must vote for their favored candidate. This allows a full sidestep of the negative issues of their own candidate, in favor of righteous indignation over their opponent.
Disqualifying the opposition is not the same as qualifying your candidate. It’s logically possible that both candidates are unfit for office. For 2016, this is our reality.
This is the usual point of an argument where the Libertarians are chomping at the bit to say “but we have a third option! We’ve worked long and hard to give you ‘none of the above’ and if everyone just voted that way we would have unlimited prosperity and end all wars!” The problem with this is that the Libertarians, and their candidates, are completely unserious.
Their candidates are entirely uninterested in foreign policy and defense issues. Believing that if we don’t take an interest in foreign affairs that they won’t take an interest in us is as disqualifying as the issues surrounding Clinton and Trump.
Libertarians have had their best shot in a generation, and they’ve have blown it. They should not be rewarded with a protest vote.
Republicans best option at this point is to focus on holding the House and Senate, though these are now cast with renewed doubt. As such, Republicans who have concluded they cannot in good conscience support the nominee had better get comfortable with a fallback strategy of divided government. When Checks and balances are all you have, then voting is even more important.
For those in Georgia that want their vote to count, but agree that the choices given are unacceptable, Evan McMullin has qualified as an official write in candidate. He has virtually no chance to win the Presidency, but is at least someone that conservatives won’t have to be apologizing for longer than NBC can keep vulgar videos hidden.
Politics, mirroring much of modern society, has become a race to the bottom. The 2016 Presidential contest is a small microcosm of much bigger issues. Our country and society needs healing and reconciliation. Our current politics offers further divisiveness and destruction.
The problem with the race to the bottom is that there are no winners. We are all losers in this race.
For there to be a change, we must figure out how to build coalitions built on shared goals and persuasion of others. That won’t happen in 2016.
America has had trials and tribulations throughout our great history. We’ve survived them, and we can survive whoever is elected next month. Our biggest choice now is to resolve if we want more of the same, or if we’re willing to change in order to leave this race to the bottom.
About Author
Charlie
Founder of GeorgiaPol.com; Now weekly columnist Very interested in Georgia and Georginas. Interest in politics is waning daily.
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This years democrat nominee was preordained.
Many incorrectly blame the Republican Party for this years republican nominee. I don’t blame the party, I blame voters that voted for him in the primary, particularly the small number (perhaps 20%) that coalesced early in the process. They wanted an entertainer and they got an entertainer.
An interesting alternative was David French, a former write-in candidate. Unfortunately French dropped out of the race.
gcp,
How is the GOP exempt from blame? They created the desire within the ranks for an outsider like Trump by failing on so many occasions to fulfill their push card promises. Thus the voters who you falsely blame got collectively pissed off then found an avenue to vent their frustrations.
To make matters worse, the same GOPers who have been failing for 2 decades jumped ship Friday and Saturday adding more outrage to collective frustration of a large swath of GOP voters. These same poltroons have had years to take on the Clintons. But they didn’t because they are all mostly on the same team seeking personal enrichment through their ‘public service’. Thus the emergence of outsider Trump.
Blame should be directed squarely at the GOP and the lifelong politicians who care more about re-election and self enrichment than the job voters sent them to do.
“an avenue to vent their frustrations” or show their ignorance. I say it’s the latter.
We had several decent republican candidates this cycle yet voters chose an unaccomplished, reality tv star that knows little about public policy.
So you join with Hillary casting Trump voters as ‘ignorant’ or deplorable in her case. Exactly what I’m talking about. Your arrogance along with many others in the GOP is the reason for Trump. Y’all just keep digging.
So how would you characterize Trump supporters? If not ignorant, then what? Frustrated? Almost all of us are.
Fed up? Who isn’t.
Broke? Join the club.
Scared? Welcome to the new millennium.
No, there must be something else that distinguishes Trump supporters.
White.
Eww. I’m white and do NOT want to be associated with Trump. Try again.
“So how would you characterize Trump supporters?”
All of the above. The difference being many/most Trump voters decided they would vote for a non-pol as a means to change the status quo. Those like yourself feeling the same frustrations, etc. choose to keep voting for the same professional politicians that got us here hoping they will somehow change course.
There were other outsiders running this time that showed at least a minimal level of competence; Fiorina, Rand Paul, and y’all didn’t choose them, so it’s not really the outsider thing either.
I wrote ‘non-pol’, both of the failed candidates you mention had political experience.
If it makes you feel good, just call all of us who support Trump unredeemable ignorant deplorables. No reason to dance around.
Actually my opinion is that many Trump supporters picked him because of the entertainment value. Unfortunate criteria for a president.
Ben Carson?
Voting for a non-pol or someone with little experience in government makes more sense when you’re voting for the house of representatives, though. Or even the senate. The presidency really isn’t the place for inexperience. You could argue that Trump has business experience but he really doesn’t. He has sales experience, and it’s a tad shady at that.
I will make a distinction. The 20% I mentioned above that coalesced early are ignorant. Others that will vote for the republican nominee in the general election are voting because he is less bad than the democrat nominee. I do understand their reasoning.
“Every country has the government it deserves” Joseph Marie d Maistre.
We as a nation must find a way to stop the complete destruction of people (politicians) with whom we disagree. The polarization in America has crippled this country. We can barely agree on funding something as basic as Zika without protracted and vitriolic debates. Many people would rather see the government shut down than to cede an inch of territory in the battle.
It doesn’t matter which party is in power, no one can govern the ungovernable. This nation will not be brought down by the Islamic State or by immigrants, or men using the woman’s restroom nor a nuclear North Korea. This nation will implode from the inside out.
We already fought one costly civil war with physical weapons the one we’re fighting now is being waged with words. Only time will tell which one leaves the greatest lasting damage.
Too late. The next 4-8 years will be a repeat of the last…GOP obstructionism on every level. This is all they know how to do now. They no longer represent conservative principles or any principles for that matter. Charlie talks about the race to the bottom like it was a joint effort. It was not. Lee Atwater started this and they have used this playbook ever since.
Republicans are unfit to govern. And because they won’t moderate or even show up the Dems and America will gradually move more to the left ala Bernie Sanders.
Its not too late.
There are people of goodwill in both parties and enough of them to right the ship. However, the problem is that anyone who emerges from the sensible center is shouted down or attacked as a traitor to the “cause.”
The majority who are tired of this “race to the bottom” need to become as vocal as the extremist who are currently in vogue. I don’t identify as a Republican but I applaud what men of goodwill like Paul Ryan and John McCain have done. But…watch as they gets torn from limb to limb by both sides. They will be branded as Rhinos by Republicans and Democrats will say they haven’t gone far enough fast enough in repudiating Trump.
We have to put aside the labels and applaud people courageous enough to make a principled stand.
“This is not an exercise of false equivalence. Unfortunately, it is quite an exercise of equivalence that neither side wants to play to its logical conclusion.”
It’s really not, unless you are holding one candidate to a higher standard than the other. To illustrate this, try swapping the accusations. Imagine that Hillary Clinton had an uncredited university which collected very high fees and delivered very little value, and was under investigation by at least one State AG. And that she took money from her charitable foundation to donate to the political campaign of an AG in a different state who was deciding whether to open a fraud investigation with respect to said university. Imagine if a fact checking organization gave the 2015 Lie of the Year award to “the many lies of Hillary Clinton”. Now imagine that, similarly, Donald Trump was accused of mishandling classified information based on the network route his emails took.
Yes, Hillary is dishonest. In the normal expected way that every politician who ever ran for office is dishonest. Show me any elected official who does not hold private positions that differ from public ones. Show me one who doesn’t sugar coat things or keep secrets until they are forced to divulge them. Like everyone, I would prefer someone more straightforward. But the fact is that everything that she’s accused of is being/has been investigated to the nth degree. What do you think Trump would look like after a fraction of that level of scrutiny?
I’m sorry but saying that Hillary is unfit for office simply because she’s vaguely dishonest is to call every one that came before her unfit for office. Meanwhile, her opponent lies so much that fact checkers exhaust themselves, screws people over eagerly and often if it benefits his ego or his wallet, and demonstrates on a regular basis that he has no idea how government works, doesn’t respect rule of law, is a bully, and has shown every indication that his pattern of screwing people over would continue from the ultimate position of power. This is not my partisan opinion. These are facts.
It’s like comparing a shoplifter to an axe murder and saying “both are criminals so they are the same”. It remains a false equivalence.
Good, thoughtful column, Charlie. Kudos.