I am very distressed at the present condition of the election. I thought that Kamala would by this time be far ahead, the character of Trump having revealed himself, just the other day by admiring Arnold Palmer's penis. He is a clown but Kamala rightly says that Trump is an unserious person who could bring about very serious consequences. My late wife reminded me that my predictions were largely based on hope rather than data or analysis and so what I say should be discounted. My daughter-in-law says that one party or the other will be very angry at the outcome, but that is not my feeling. If Kamala wins, I will be relieved, I think, rather than elated. If Trump wins, I will despair over whether the constitutional measures are available to control his worst instincts, which is to cede a lot of Ukraine to Putin, put eleven million people in detention camps and then deport them, and get revenge against his enemies, which include Pelosi and Schiff as bad people who are part of the enemy within. Sixty-one percent of veterans will vote for Trump even though Trump admires Hitler. What is going on?
Let’s put aside the issues. Kamala wants capital gains taxes lower than Biden did. She wants substantial tax breaks for home ownership, children and new businesses. Conservatives can support those proposals because they reduce taxes and Liberals can support them as a way to provide more entitlements to people. Yes, Kamala could have campaigned against the “Do Nothing” Republican Congress, as Harry Truman had done in 1948, but never mind. The only point of difference in the election is the character of Trump versus the constitutionalism of Harris and that is by now well established even though some people think Trump is a flawed vessel who will further their own agenda, much of which seems to me indefensible. These differences are clear. So, less than two weeks before the election, what has to be said has been said. Everyone should go out to vote and let us be done with it.
My daughter said to me many years ago that politics was character, and that applied to the electorate and not just the candidates. My point was that the qualities of a person’s politics, whether they are mean or niggardly to the poor, or care only for their own financial benefits, or are statesmanlike, was an expression of their innermost natures. But I don’t want to believe that because it would mean half of the present electorate are tainted in their souls. Better to think they have been caught up in a frenzy induced by culture, which rapidly changes, and so will just pass, as Trump said would happen in the spring of 2020, at Easter time. But it takes work rather than wishes to lift the malaise.
Ezra Klein in the New York Times says that Trump’s disinhibition makes him attractive. To some extent, people like him mean when some voters are too timid to be so outrageous. But I disagree. Think of what is the content of what he says. Do people disregard that? They just agree with the anger. These people may think you need a mean person during mean times and so a strong man will make the nation free. But crime is down and the economy is up and the nation needs the immigrants to keep the economy going. So anger is an end in itself, not for a purpose. It seems that there has been a sea change in that a lot of people do not want the President to be Henry Fonda or Jed Bartlett: cool under pressure, very well informed, humane. They want the opposite. That may mean Trumpism will outlast Trump, some other potential dictator arising, and that is very disheartening, that meanness, not disinhibition, the real thing.
What might it be that could control Trump if he were elected? The 25th Amendment or a conviction by the Senate of an impeachment? Congressional Republicans have not been a bulwark of democracy, cowering instead because of their contributors and local party officials and their base, the Cheneys notable exceptions, but note that neither of the two have elective office, nor do some Republican ex-congresspeople and loads of ex Trump officials who have defected from Trump. And as for the Supreme Court? All the male justices are corrupt. Alito and Thomas get millions of dollars worth of perks from interested donors who have business at the Court and sometimes report these and sometimes don’t and are both into far right points of view and so in Trump’s pocket. Roberts refuses to impose any ethical standards with any bite. Gorsuch and Kavenaugh told Senators during the time of their confirmations that Roe v. Wade was “settled law” and did not add that they would overrule it anyway. That is hardly the honorable behavior expected of a Supreme Court Justice.
So the anti-democratic forces have been mobilizing for quite some time and can be attributed as far back as Gingrich who tried to make the Republicans something other than the me too party which for many years acquiesced to Democratic initiatives but just slowly. And at this juncture, one might expect there to be rioting of the streets by either side while in the moment of what used to be called a revolutionary moment as preceded the French Revolution or even the easily pacified Vietnam War protests. But people like me are amazed that what we anti insurrectionists do is follow out the formalities of democratic institutionalism for as long as that lasts, hoping that Kamala will win and that Trump would be restrained, nothing premature to be done. This may be the most important election since 1860, but let the other side fire on Fort Sumter.
My son says that I shouldn't worry because the election won't affect my life. I will have my Social Security and my streaming services and Amazon and my friends and family. But I have followed politics for three quarters of a century and care about it and can't give it up, the way I did with baseball when Derek Jeter retired and management knew that A Rod was on steroids. My daughter tries to just cultivate her garden but has become obsessed as well with the election. My granddaughter is spoiling for an argument about how disgraceful Trump is. I guess I should be an Olympian and notice how foolish mere mortals might be and so let the election be noted as a possible upheaval that in history can occasionally come to nations, but I cannot disengage because this is in my time and in my place. I cannot just note that I am fortunate to live in interesting times. But my options are few. I vote and exercise my voice by writing and I can allow myself to feel dispirited.