The moral thing is to vote for the one you believe in.
Chris Christie has announced that he is running for :President and the cable and New York Times commentators immediately opined whether he had “a lane” whereby he could become President, that meaning a combination of constituencies that could add up to a majority of convention delegates and decided that he couldn’t because he could never break into the Trump supporters but could only serve to unseat Trump and letting someone else inherit his following. That was the same reasoning that led none of the Republican candidates in 2016 to refuse to oppose Trump, making nice so as to inherit the booty when Trump would inevitably falter. Well, maybe there is no such thing as a lane, only an opportunity whereby someone manages to catch fire, to capture attention. Both Obama and Trump made their own lanes when so many constituencies turned out in favor of them while Jeb Bush, with the money and the name, was never able to become a taste treat. The commentators are just trying to be objective and so all they can talk about is the horse race or, to use a different metaphor, all the carrom shots needed to get anointed a nominee, but all they do is show their preferences, Christie just a bully and not a serious person, given his poor performance as Governor of New Jersey and a whiff of the Bridgegate scandal, Underlying their political analyses is an assessment of the worth of the candidates.
I want to pose the same question in a different vocabulary: who should someone vote for, given the dynamics on the ground, and my answer is that people should vote for the one who would make the best president regardless of the dynamics and so not a calculation of handicapping a winner however sophisticated they might think by second guessing who will emerge triumphant, Christie being intelligent and willing to work across the two parties and sensing he would not take down the temple, whether through an insurrection or Pence’s evangelicalism, however sincere that belief might be, should be the same issue. My ideal is that both general nominees will be reputable enough that a voter can rest easy whichever one is elected in that they both would manage respectably, aware of the stakes foreign policy and appreciating various ethnic and other status communities, even if, inevitably, a Republican president will cut taxes for the rich and cut services from the poor.
My mandate to support the candidate you believe in rather than play the horserace of who might win and how to strategically interpose in the process is moral rather than prudential because you can feel satisfied if you voted the way you believed in even if you lost. You had fought the good fight but might rue the day if you had miscalculated what your influence might inadvertently cause. That moral principle even applies in spirit to those people who think that a Democrat should want Trump to be nominated because he was more likely to be defeated by Biden, my favorite, however much that mental experiment is ineffectual in that I do not vote in a Republican primary though people do switch allegiances in political parties so as to make the worst candidate the nominee. I want the better person to win and I don’t want to bring into the tent a monster who might perchance prevail. Worry what you wish for. Look what happened in 2016 when people voted for Trump as a protest vote or Britishers had second thoughts about voting for Brexit as also a protest vote, not really expecting it would win.
My view of being honest rather than scheming is very different from the usual Conservative patter, which is to say that Trump is unelectable, a three time loser and so people should move beyond his baggage. That is too much of a calculation which is different from recognizing him for what he is, which is a fomenter of rebellion and people honest enough to admit that even if they prefer him still because they claim the election in 2020 was stolen. Be honest rather than obfuscate. Marjorie Taylor Green says what she thinks, which is to free the insurrectionists rather than just avoid that unpleasant issue. It may be that it does not bring peace to the dinner table to confront the Trump supporters but that at is not the goal of the political market, to hash things out, even if it results in having a wishy-washy moderate so as to avoid absolute opposition which is not an admirable or long term solution, as was clearly the case when the last few pre civil war presidents obfuscated. Rather than dismiss Trumpites as mean spirited and largely ignorant, as mostly they are, tell them to tell the truth about why they like him, and clips of film interviews show them to tell the truth and want to go back before women got the vote or maybe to the Fifties except that segregation was indeed bad, though transgender people are now bad, Mega voters against any new ideas or practices as being unnatural. In that case, Trumpists are honest even if reactionary in that they posit a golden age of an ancient regime and so expound what Karl Mannheim said in 1929 was an ideology rather than a utopia, and I prefer otherwise, society becoming in the future increasingly enlightened as that is demonstrated in legislation and an increasingly humane spirit.
Here is what seems to be an exception to my rule to vote for the candidate you most prefer, offering yourself to the honest truth. What if there is a three contest race and you prefer the small third party candidate who is bound to lose. That is what happened when people voted for Ralph Nader rather than Al Gore and Nader’s absence in the race would have given Gore the election. Should you have held your nose and voted for Gore as the lesser of the two devils? My answer is “no” and vote for Nader anyway but only if you are really sure that there is no difference between the two major candidates, both unacceptable, rather than just claiming that is the case. Really no different? Really and honestly? In that case, go with Nader but the case seems to me a stretch.
Democrats also face the problem of being honest with themselves. What about Biden? The Times said a few days ago that although he is showing his age, he still remains alert, clear on the issues, still mastering the details, and in charge of his administration, and I also think articulate even if his voice is weaker, and that his administration is the furthest left one since FDR, Biden having managed to turn narrow majorities and recently a minority in the House to major achievements though not all of them as I had hoped. But what happens if he starts drooling, which is a shorthand for significantly diminished powers that remain short of the requirements that could occur so as to evoke the 25th Amendment? Will Democrats just cover it up? It would be their turn to deal with a presidential embarrassment, something they have carried with Trump ever since he announced his candidacy and found themselves not able to unhorse him, or worse, find themselves unable to become unamored with him.
Here is a different scenario. One thing that might happen if Biden’s capacity diminished was to become a figurehead for the Presidency whereby the president reigned but did not rule, Biden heavily relying on a strong and able White House and cabinet. He might remain affable and give set speeches and smooch with the crowd and that would be all, his basic point of view continuing on. In fact that is the way Republican administrations often do their business, picking a candidate for name recognition, Reagan and George W. Bush clear examples, who delegated powers to a strong cabinet with Reagan and a strong vice president with George W. The alternative party, the Democrats, had followed a very different course in that the candidates duked it out between one another on different policies and personalities and if the Democratic nominee became the winner of the Presidency took over kit and caboodle and set up his own administration. That is the substance of saying that Democrats make “strong” Presidencies. It isn’t that Democratic administrations are more intrusive in society than are Republican administrations. Trump got three Supreme Court justices who would overthrow Roe v. Wade and that is plenty intrusive. But Democratic Presidents are strong in that they run their own administrations. Having a Democrat resign himself to doing what Republicans do would be a loss because Democratic Presidential leadership is less elusive but the alternative is nonetheless legitimate.
We don't have to consider this succession or rather “de-cession" for very long because what will happen if Biden falters all depends on when and how he deteriorates. If it happens early enough, there will be a scramble for who will replace him as the party nomination. If he falters close to Election Day then the focus will be on the Vice Presidential candidate Kamala Harrris who I hope will be up to the task. If Biden is elected and then deteriorates, the American government can change over into the Republican model, a good question about who in the Biden circle would come to significant power. Biden, however, might also deteriorate slowly and so last longer than he should have and become like Hindenburg or Biden might know enough and be brave enough to do what De Gaulle did, which was to resign over a minor matter because he knew he was failing because he could no longer memorize the long speeches he delivered and decided on his own that it was time to go.
Democrats will have to watch these developments carefully, deciding honestly when it is time for pressure to invoke the 25th Amendment, and disregarding the Republicans who already claim that Biden is on drugs that keep him barely functioning. As usual, there is a heavy duty on the citizenry to use their moral honesty to keep the nation afloat.