Category: Politics

Well, on December 19, our last hope of avoiding Orange Julius Caesar was supposed to be the official Electoral College vote, which various liberal press outlets were telling us might have been subverted, with people like Lawrence Tribe saying at least 30 Electors were discussing voting against Donald Trump. As it turned out, only two (Texas) Republican electors voted against Trump, but not for Hillary Clinton. Meanwhile, five Hillary Clinton electors went against her (three for Colin Powell, one for Bernie Sanders and one for a protestor at the Standing Rock site) and others would have voted against Clinton if they had not been shot down by their state officials. So it’s now confirmed: Hillary Clinton is THE worst presidential candidate in American history.

I am now a lot more convinced that (whatever the likelihood) we need to get rid of the Electoral College, not only because the institution that was intended to prevent a foreign-sponsored conniver with “Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity” from getting the presidency is the vehicle being used to enact that result, but that the ostensible threat of an unqualified candidate becoming the president would not have been possible – in this case and almost any others – if the presidential election was a national popular vote.

In fact- and this is just my theory here, and I’m going out on a limb with it- but it may be that the process of devolving political power to as many citizens as possible serves to make it less likely that bad decisions will be made in government, compared to government by an absolute monarch or cabal. Contrary to liberals, the Electoral College in theory serves two legitimate purposes. The one that we actually pay attention to is that it addresses the interests of states and regional communities as opposed to just collecting a national vote that would give that much more influence to large population centers like California and New York. But the other, according to The Federalist #68,  was “that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption” including “the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils [by] raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union”, and BOY did the EC fail there. So the Electoral College may have served the first purpose of federalism/regionalism but by utterly betraying the latter, and far more important, purpose.

But given all that, we all have to figure out where we are, which partially means figuring out how we got here, and then figuring out where to go from here.

Democrats: The lesson here is that the Republicans went out of their way to nominate the most repellent and incompetent presidential candidate of all time, and the Democratic National Committee took that as a challenge.

Basically, a good message beats a bad message, but a bad message beats no message. And on a national level, Democrats really had no message besides “stay the course” (which you may recall, didn’t work for George H.W. Bush in 1992).

As I keep trying to tell people, it is possible for two different things to be true at the same time. It is true that Trump won because enough voters really are that Goddamn STUPID. It is also true that Gary Johnson also ran in 2012 and was not a factor against Barack Obama’s victory, that Obama won two elections against respected Republicans McCain and Romney (despite being a biracial Commie Muslim), and that if your opponent is less intelligent and less handsome than Charles II of Spain, and you can’t convince enough people in enough states that you would make a better president than him, You. Have. FAILED as a candidate.

But even beyond all that, it’s more of an existential issue. Americans are just getting sick of it all. Sick of this bureaucratic, technological society. The “American dream” of decent living standards is getting harder to come by. We have to have more and more qualifications to get jobs that pay less and less. Health insurance, whether employer-based or the ACA, is becoming more and more of a hassle. Streets and shops are more and more crowded. Every telephone service is being run on answering machines and call centers. Bluntly, Americans want a Zombie Apocalypse. They want a Zombie Apocalypse and the related population die-off and technological collapse to set existence back to basics. But since zombies are scientifically impossible, voting for Trump is the next best thing.

Or, there’s another way to look at it.

You might remember that in 2012, after Mitt Romney lost a presidential run to incumbent Barack Obama, the Republican National Committee commissioned a “growth and opportunity project” –  more commonly referred to in the press as their post-election “autopsy” – in which the feedback they got in surveys, focus groups and other methods indicated that the GOP was faulty at “messaging”, that young people in particular “are rolling their eyes at what the Party represents” and “many minorities wrongly think that Republicans do not like them or want them in the country.” The proposed solution was for the party to “stop talking to itself,” basically meaning outreach to other people who don’t already agree with the doctrinaire Republican position, as opposed to catering to the stupid bigots fortified by talk radio and alternative media. And the response from the “base” and Republican organizers in the 2014 midterms was “we SHOULD TOO cater to the stupid bigots, because they’re the ones who show up and VOTE, and vote for the hardcore conservatives who fight for us.”

That’s what you had with the Tea Party after Obama was elected, and that’s why Republicans took back both houses of Congress from Democrats. But it still wasn’t enough to win against Barack Obama in the national elections of 2008 and 2012. What Republicans needed to compete on a national level was a leader who represented what they truly believed, a politician who did not project contempt for his “base” but actually embraced and encouraged their stupidity and vulgarity. And then Donald Trump ran for President.

Now, as with the Romney Autopsy, Democrats ought to do the opposite of what they’re being told. That doesn’t mean they should nominate another dull party hack who has no grasp of the victory conditions for a presidential election. It also doesn’t mean you should emulate Republican psychology. You will never top Republicans when it comes to tribal, us-versus-them, persecution-complex, “the only way to stop Satan is to self-lobotomize and vote for the lesser asshole” mentality, and if you try, you will defeat the purpose of claiming to be different from them. But you can learn what they learned from their defeat: First, find the people who will vote for you no matter what, and cater to them. Second, wait for their leader to show up.

Republicans:

You can say that Americans voted for Trump because they were sick of leftist political correctness. You can say that people were tired of losing in the economy and being weak on foreign policy.

The fact is that America, led by the Republicans, has committed a strategic mistake somewhere between invading Russia without winter supplies and producing a Metallica album with no Kirk Hammett solos on it.

This is not the same as the liberals’ previous nightmare scenario in 2000, because while Bush Junior was a dunce and an ideologue, he could at least do outreach to other people. Trump is that much more “my way or the highway” than Bush, and that much more allergic to concepts like “humility”, “foresight” and “learning.” I did not vote for Bush. Either time. I did not agree with most of his policies. But contrary to liberal opinion, he WON Florida, and the 2000 election, and I spoke out against “Bush Derangement Syndrome” and liberals who spouted things like “He’s Not My President.” But then, Bush wasn’t a walking conflict of interest who had his head so far up Vladimir Putin’s ass that it turned his face a non-Caucasian skin color. If Trump’s administration turns out to be only AS bad as Bush’s, it will be a damn miracle.

When Trump’s presidency blows up in your faces like a badly-timed money shot – and with Trump’s temperament, that is a When, NOT If – you are creating a danger that America will end up a one-party state. That one party being the Democrats. Because depending on exactly how things play out, they may get the public support needed to outlaw Republican Party membership as being either associated with treason or as medical evidence of subnormal intelligence.

This isn’t really advice, since, as with the Democrats, I think you’re too stubborn and stupid to take it. I just wanted this on record so that in the aftermath I can quote your prophet and go “See, I Told You So.”

Because if there’s one thing your party has in common with Democrats, it is an overbearing and completely undeserved level of vanity. Specifically, the notion that you will have a permanent majority despite history telling you it never lasts. This is why both parties pass laws to strengthen government on the assumption that they will be able to permanently remake society in their image, only to have all that power given over to their enemies, because people only need eight years or less to get sick of you running things. You should have learned that much from Bush. Of course, you get away with this thinking precisely because the only alternative to one party is to elect the other disagreeable party to the majority, and all Party A has to do is wait for people to get sick of Party B. Then vice versa. There is only one way out of this trap, and that leads to-

Libertarians: The Libertarian Party did not achieve its goal of getting 5 percent of the vote this election, which would have qualified them for federal campaign support (which for Libertarians in particular is a very contradictory goal). It did however achieve 4 million votes, which was the highest vote total for a third-party candidate since Ross Perot in 1996. The Libertarian Party is now the first party other than the Democrats and Republicans to have 500,000 registered members. The fact that the LP achieved this despite the numerous gaffes of candidate Gary Johnson and the tacit support of Hillary Clinton from Johnson’s running mate William Weld indicates that the audience for (L)ibertarian ideas is growing. More broadly, given that about 45% of American voters did not turn out at all, and when two-party politics is based on the premise that “you MUST vote for Candidate A, no matter how rotten they are, because if Candidate B is elected, the world will go to Hell”, and there was more objective evidence for that belief than ever, the fact that Candidate B got elected anyway was, I think, a case of the American electorate calling the political system’s bluff.

However, the trap that the duopoly has placed us in is that either A or B is going to get elected, so the only way to get rid of one party is to replace it with the other, no matter how bad IT is. The only way to really call the bluff is to have a credible alternative in place versus A and B. And in 2016, the Libertarians and other “third” parties were clearly not ready. My advice to them:

As I have said, you need to have a plan for what you would do on Day One, as opposed to being like the Republicans who kept going on for years and years about how they were going to “repeal AND replace” Obamacare, and now that they are in position to DO so, have no plan for a transition besides “your diabetic aunt dies for lack of coverage.”

The Affordable Care Act is also a case study in whether Libertarians can make a proactive case for their philosophy towards government. Even some liberals are willing to admit that the ACA is flawed at least in execution. But the reason it passed in the first place is because it met a demand. If a public demand is not met by the private sector, THAT’s how you get socialized medicine. If there is a better service than the ACA available through the private sector, Libertarians need to promote that. If there IS no such service, Libertarians need to admit that, and look at what we have.

Needless to say, the same auditing process applies to other issues.

Of course in order to be in that position, you need to have representatives in office, not only in a presidential year but in the midterms and the years between. However tempted one may be to think the president can make all the difference, especially with Trump being an outlier in his own party, he still needed a popular and organized party to win, and he needed a base in Congress to make that win count for something. The need for downballot candidates is that much more critical for one reason that became clear in the 2016 election: “ticket splitting” is more rare than ever. And when you don’t even field candidates in a lot of districts, it makes it that much less likely that people will see the point of electing your presidential nominee. So “third” parties need to admit that you need to elect Congresscritters first to get a president, not the other way around. (Incidentally, Democrats: that advice goes for you, too.)

Nevertheless, the Party will need a presidential candidate for the sake of symbolism and the representation of the Libertarian platform on a national level, along with the strong possibility that the 2020 duopoly candidates will be even worse than they were this election. So we have to consider what we need in light of what we learned with Gary Johnson- namely, that the media will focus on a “third” party candidate only for purposes of tearing them down. The party nominee has to be ready for that, and to present their case through “the enemy” without antagonizing too many people by overtly treating the press as the enemy. The nominee has to be someone who is articulate not only on libertarian philosophy but philosophy in general. Someone who doesn’t freeze in the headlights when confronted with a question. The nominee has to be someone who is capable of defending libertarianism and the party platform, but with a good sense of humor. And that means the person nominated has to be somebody who is already media-savvy and with experience in talking to journalists about libertarianism, someone who already has a strong public presence.

I am seriously thinking we should draft Penn Jillette to be the Libertarian Party nominee for President in 2020.

I mean, Penn actually was IN Celebrity Apprentice, and apparently that’s all the qualification you need these days.

“It is a grave error to suppose that a dictatorship rules a nation by means of strict, rigid laws which are obeyed and enforced with rigorous, military precision. Such a rule would be evil, but almost bearable; men could endure the harshest edicts, provided these edicts were known, specific and stable; it is not the known that breaks men’s spirits, but the unpredictable. A dictatorship has to be capricious; it has to rule by means of the unexpected, the incomprehensible, the wantonly irrational; it has to deal not in death, but in sudden death; a state of chronic uncertainty is what men are psychologically unable to bear. “

-Ayn Rand, 1962

“Keep your lies consistent.”

-Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #60

Since The Election, Donald Trump has been not quite as boorish as I expected, but still basically true to form.  Most recently he’s twitted that anybody who burns the flag needs to have their citizenship revoked. Most likely to distract from recent accusations that his son-in-law has conflict of interest problems.  Or, to rally all those people who got bent out of shape when liberals did mass street protests against Trump’s victory. I mean, look at it this way: When the Left gets angry, they go en masse into the streets, protest, and kick stuff over. When the Right gets angry, they go en masse into the polls and elect Donald Trump. Over the next four years, it remains to be seen which temper tantrum will cause more property damage and disruption of human life.

Because that’s what this amounted to. Half of the recent distrust of Hillary Clinton was her vague to non-existent defense on her lack of email and phone security as Secretary of State. But it turns out that Trump as president-elect has carried out a phone conversation (on a non-secured line) with the president of Argentina, a conversation that Ivanka Trump was also privy to.  Did all the Trump voters who wanted a cleaner Washington really think that Trump, with his declared reputation for shady dealing, was going to be cleaner than the Clintons?

All you Bible-thumpers, did you really believe Trump when he said his favorite New Testament book was “Two Corinthians”?

Did you really believe Trump when you said he was an outsider? That he would drain the swamp?  Do you believe him now when he nominates Goldman Sachs veteran Steven Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary, and is entertaining both David “Actually Gave Out Classified Information” Petraeus and Mitt Romney, the ultimate flip-flopper, as Secretary of State? Did you believe that Trump was going to staff Washington with outsiders, when all of his nominees are veterans of the system- because they know Washington, and he doesn’t?

Did you really believe him? No. Of course not.

I have joked that if Donald Trump could get the endorsement of both David Duke and Sheldon Adelson, that’s a pretty big tent.

It’s not really a joke. In fact, this point is at the core of the cognitive dissonance required to be a Trump voter.

Adelson is an arch-Zionist. Duke is an arch-anti-Semite. Trump CANNOT want what they both want. Either he is lying to one of them, or at least one of them is lying to himself about Trump. That is what it takes to support Trump. You have to convince yourself “Oh, he won’t do that crazy thing” (that someone else wants him to do) but he WILL do that crazy thing that YOU want him to do.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the fable of The Emperor’s New Clothes. A pompous, stupid Emperor gets fleeced by a con artist who sells him weightless, invisible clothing which is “magic” and can only be seen by those who are “virtuous.” Well, the Emperor doesn’t want to admit he isn’t virtuous, so he takes the deal for non-clothing. And because he’s the Emperor, everyone around him has to go along with the deal. And they all have to exaggerate how wonderful his clothing looks. Until he goes out on parade showing his naked ass, and an innocent child (whom no one could accuse of being unvirtuous) says, “But he’s got nothing on!”

Well, this point in history is kind of the opposite of that. The Emperor’s subjects had to go along with the scam as long as they did BECAUSE he was the Emperor, and could cut off their heads if they didn’t agree with him. Trump started out with wealth and prestige, but he wasn’t the Emperor. We, The People gave him the power to cut off heads because we looked at his lumpy, naked ass and declared he was wearing the most sumptuous clothing, and no amount of evidence would convince us otherwise.

The fact is, that you, the Trumpets, want to be lied to. There is no better way to put it.

You want to be lied to.

You would just prefer to be whipped and beaten by a Liar-in-Chief with an “R” next to his name instead of a “D.” Well, Trumpets, you are about to learn the same lesson as Chris Christie: In politics, there is no such thing as topping from the bottom. And all you liberals who wonder why I have a problem with Big Government- you’re about to find out.

I have tried to come up with some way of getting across exactly how moronic and counterproductive and anti-reason the Trump vote was, and then the analogy hit me. Boy, did it hit me.

A few days back, just before Thanksgiving, I had to save money until payday, I didn’t have much in the cupboard, but I still had some leftover lasagna from a family dinner at an Italian restaurant and I figured I could eat that after work. I mean, I hadn’t gotten around to eating it for about… seven days… after I took it home, but there wasn’t much of it, and it didn’t look bad… I figured, “what’s the worst that could happen?”

And on the same night, I had a bottle of a prescription antibiotic that my dentist had prescribed in order to treat gum infection, prior to him doing an extraction. I was feeling a little bad the week before, just before the Italian dinner, so I temporarily quit the antibiotic. I looked it up on the Internet, and the potential side effects include (among others I did not experience) chills, difficulty with breathing, difficulty with swallowing, general body swelling, increased thirst, itching, nausea, rash, and shortness of breath. So I had not taken the antibiotic for a week, and was feeling better, but I still had at least another week before the dental appointment, and I wasn’t quite sure that I had gotten side effects from the prescription or whether I was just affected by a change in the weather, and I wanted to make sure the prescription wasn’t the cause of my illness. Only one capsule. At the same time as the lasagna. I figured, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Well- ladies and gentlemen, after two solid hours of projectile vomiting from my diaphragm while leaking liquid fire out of my anus, I can tell you EXACTLY what the worst was that could happen.

Now, you the reader, may look at this account, and think: “James. What. The. Fuck. Do you have no sense? Were you not capable of making judgments from previous data? Did you HAVE to learn this lesson the hard way?

“Wasn’t your choice REMARKABLY STUPID?“

Well yes. Yes it was. Remarkably stupid.

I still feel okay in that my catastrophic fuckups in life only affect me and do not inflict collateral damage on my entire country and its position in the world.

Yes, I did vote for Gary Johnson. I have gone into great detail in explaining why. I have also said that if one is thinking of going third-party that one must think strategically.  I felt safe in voting third-party in Nevada because Nevada is basically two states: the Democratic-to-independent Greater Las Vegas area versus Cliven Bundy Land,  and the votes of the former usually drown out the latter. That was not the case in other “swing” states. I also said that if one cannot transcend binary thinking, or if polling in one’s state was that close, that an establishment politician with Machiavellian survival skills was still a better steward of the nuclear codes than a spoiled little rich boy who doesn’t know which end of the fork to use.

Yes, I did not vote for Hillary Clinton. I have gone into great detail as to why she was a bad candidate, for reasons having nothing to do with her emails (although I plan to address that subject in a future post). But if the two major candidates, and even the third and fourth candidates, were not worth supporting, that does not justify actively endorsing the worst of them. Put it this way: if all the people who voted against Hillary Clinton had voted for Hillary Clinton- we would have President Hillary Clinton. And as P.J. O’Rourke put it, “she would be a terrible president, but she would be terrible on conventional standards.” If all the people who voted against Hillary had voted for Gary Johnson, most likely we would have President Gary Johnson. The worst-case scenario there is IF he overcame Democratic AND Republican opposition, Johnson would have crafted a policy agenda that would horrify “progressives,” but he would not be a sexist, he would not be a racist, and he would not be a blithering idiot. Well, okay, he might be a blithering idiot, but he would not be a sexist and racist. But the vast majority of people who voted against Clinton voted for Trump, so the scenario now is a sexist AND racist AND blithering idiot WITH the lockstep support of the majority party.

And all because so many took to heart something Trump kept saying on the campaign trail, ostensibly as an appeal to blacks and Hispanics in “terrible” neighborhoods, but really intended to white people in terrible neighborhoods: “What have you got to lose?”

What have you got to lose? Like, what did I have to lose by not eating rancid lasagna and risking a pharmaceutical allergy? Well, I could have lost the agony and physical exhaustion of autofire Bazooka blasting from both ends of my digestive tract. But that was two hours. You Trumpets decided to inflict the political equivalent of that experience on yourselves and the rest of the country for four years. And you had A LOT more fair warning than I did.

You done fucked up.

So now the last step between the current status quo and Orange Julius Caesar is the actual vote of the Electoral College on December 19, and the hope that some “faithless electors” will prevent the formality of Trump’s election. This week one of those Republican Texas electors, Art Sisneros, announced that he could not vote for Trump, but rather than “vote his conscience” (as Ted Cruz might ask him to do) he decided to withdraw from his position, presumably so that the Republicans could fill the position with someone who will make the choice he opposes. He explained his decision, sort of, in a blog post, and however self-righteous, Christian and hand-wringing his position is, he does explain why it is unlikely that the Electoral College will actually perform its regulatory function in the system: “The Electoral College was corrupted from its original intent once states started dictating the votes of the Electors.  The two biggest aggressors to the original system were from political parties and the switch to winner-take-all states. The rise of political parties, as George Washington prophetically predicted, [in his Farewell Address] has had a “baneful effect” on our nation. …Originally Electors were free from political parties and their pledges. What mattered most was the character and qualifications of the candidate, not the viability of their path to victory (primaries) or the team that any candidate represented. The Electors were also free from these statewide popular vote contests that run all but two states today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States)#Breakdown_and_revision “When James Madison and Hamilton, two of the most important architects of the Electoral College, saw this strategy [statewide popular vote] being taken by some states, they protested strongly. Madison and Hamilton both made it clear this approach violated the spirit of the Constitution. Hamilton considered a pre-pledged elector to violate the spirit of Article II of the Constitution insofar as such electors could make no ‘analysis’ or ‘deliberate’ concerning the candidates. Madison agreed entirely, saying that when the Constitution was written, all of its authors assumed individual electors would be elected in their districts and it was inconceivable a ‘general ticket’ of electors dictated by a state would supplant the concept. Madison wrote, ‘The district mode was mostly, if not exclusively in view when the Constitution was framed and adopted; & was exchanged for the general ticket.”
And thus it becomes more clear that the real Original Sin of the constitutional system was not the tolerance of slavery, as poisonous as that was. The fundamental flaw was that the Founders recognized that party politics was a major liability in the old British system, but they considered it to be an aberration that they would deliberately avoid rather than a political default, and put no thought into countering or balancing such partisanship in the system. And thus we are where we are now.

Where we are now is that the Electoral College, which was intended as a safeguard against the common people electing a downright moron, is now the mechanism being used to engineer that result. Which is why I am starting to agree with those who want to get rid of it. I am not entirely on board with such an idea, because we still have the matter that if the presidential election is simply a national popularity contest, the political-media complex will be that much more fixated on New York, Florida and California than it is now. I had made a similar point to a liberal Facebook friend who told me, (if I recall correctly) “if the ‘red’ states are being overtaken in population and the majority vote is now on the coasts, I don’t see why that’s not fair.”

I responded: “Ask the people who are being overtaken.”

In that regard, one could say that this Electoral College result is the response of flyover country to the sentiment of “screw you peasants as long as the Dow Jones is up.”

It could be said that this Electoral College result is the response of flyover country to the establishment position of “0.5 percent job growth IS an economic recovery, that’s our story, and we’re sticking to it.”

But- when there were at least two other alternatives to the Democratic agenda, it is also true that this Electoral College result means that Donald Trump gained the brand-name reputation of the other major party, not to mention the legitimacy provided by free media, and used that reputation to present himself as even more of a lying sack of shit than Hillary Clinton, overtly bigoted, that much more eager to go to the gutter, reflexively positioning himself to the lowest common denominator, and enough voters, in enough states, were okay with taking such evil in a package deal, insofar as they were not actively endorsing it.

Because if Trump had won the popular vote but Hillary Clinton got elected anyway through an Electoral College majority, the trappings of the Republic would be saved, but the implications for democracy would be that much more dire. As it stands, I consider that the last time America asked itself the question, “do we want a minority of belligerent rednecks to reverse the course of our nation?” we ended up fighting a civil war, and decided that the answer was “NO.”

 

To: Wes Benedict, Executive Director of the Libertarian Party

Subject: Another Idea for the LP Store

Hi Wes,

I had written to you shortly before the election saying that the LP should start selling T-Shirts and bumper stickers saying “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for Gary Johnson.”  I had cause to regret that immediately after the election when it became clear that the margin of voters who voted for Johnson in certain states could have won the election for Clinton.  I calmed down once everyone on social media had vented and come to the realization that if the choice was between X and Donald Trump and Donald Trump had at least an even chance of winning, then the race was already lost.  Even so, “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted Libertarian” seems like it would best appeal to the Nicholas Sarwark contingent that just wants to make liberals cry.  Mind you, if ticking off liberals was the only thing that mattered about voting, Donald Trump WOULD have gotten a popular vote majority.

So while “Don’t Blame Me” is still a good idea, I think I have an even better one.

I’m sure you’ve seen this picture:

We should sell this with the caption: “BE THIS GUY – VOTE LIBERTARIAN”

I think it would have more universal appeal, and be a more direct way of making the point.

Sincerely,

JAMES GILLEN

Blame me. I voted for Gary Johnson.

That was not enough to cause my state of Nevada to go for Donald Trump in the presidential election. But it must be stated: In Florida, Hillary Clinton lost the state by a margin of 1.4 percent- when Libertarian Gary Johnson got 2.2 percent of the vote. Trump won Michigan by about 0.3 percent- and Johnson won 3.6 percent. Pennsylvania, crucial to Clinton and what’s left of the Democrats’ working-class base, went for Trump by 1.1 percent of the vote. Gary Johnson got 2.4 percent of the vote there.

In other words, you have the “Blame Nader” 2000 election scenario again, although this time based on facts. And a margin not nearly as close.

What’s amazing is that believe it or not, it’s not like the Libertarian Party wasn’t trying to HELP. Not only did Gary Johnson give non-answers to direct questions from the press, his running mate Bill Weld went on Rachel Maddow’s show to “vouch” for the character and record of Hillary Clinton, something the press gave a lot more attention to than Weld’s more frequent speeches vouching for his own candidate. Of course that in itself may have been telling.

Trump’s wins were not entirely due to racism (though that’s not the same as saying that they didn’t have A LOT to do with racism). What pisses me off about this election is not only that liberals were right about the third-party factor but that Michael Moore was right about anything.

A lot of people out there are downright PISSED at me and people like me. And you have a right to be pissed. I cannot speak for other Libertarians. But I have to answer the question: Why did I not vote for Hillary Clinton?

Policy issues weren’t that important. In theory, I ought to sympathize with Republicans more than Democrats. But since I’ve seen Republican government in practice, I have no respect for their theory. I care more about getting things done. I am not a “progressive.” But I would have voted for Bernie Sanders over Trump. Hell, I would have voted for President Obama if he were eligible, rather than Trump. Because Sanders and Obama, like Clinton, know things, and Trump doesn’t. But Sanders and Obama can also make people believe in them. And Trump, whatever you think of him, can do that too. Hillary Clinton cannot.

Why did I not vote for Hillary Clinton? Because I had to wonder why I should be confident about her if liberals weren’t. Because their arguments for her were scared and defensive. Because the only partisan defense on her mendacity was that every politician has to present a public position versus a private position, that they all have to glide on the truth- avoiding the repeated messages, even from the Left, that that is exactly what Americans are sick and tired of in politics. Because even throwing ethics out, she was a horrible campaigner and could not present herself as an effective politician on the level of Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. Because she could not do the easiest thing in the world: Convince people that she (or anyone) would be a better president than Donald Trump. Because this election was simply the absurd resolution of the dynamic of “you HAVE to vote for the candidate you don’t like to stop the candidate you like less.” Because if that’s all liberals had, and they were asking me, as a non-supporter, to give Clinton more enthusiasm than they were willing to muster themselves, then this thing was already lost.

For those carping that Libertarians’ desire for “purity” cost their candidate the election, I point out again that Clinton won my home state despite my not voting for her. Would I have felt more “pure” if I’d discarded my preference, done the pragmatic thing, voted for Clinton, and lost the election anyway?

I knew damn well that my position meant taking a risk. Was I wrong to take the position I did? Was my observation of events incorrect?

People are frantically asking themselves, “Why is it so hard to convince people that Hillary Clinton would be a better president than a pathological liar and sex maniac??” And I thought, “Well, they thought her husband was okay.”

A while back, I said:

“The ultimate lesson here, if you’re a Democratic partisan, is that the Republicans are living in a glass house built next to a rock quarry. But Democrats need to keep in mind that all those Millennial voters (who for some reason they can’t understand, don’t trust Hillary Clinton) were not paying attention to this scandal factory right from the beginning. And if Bill Clinton is not as relevant to this election as Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton is a good deal more relevant than Ken Starr, Dennis Hastert or any other of the conservative meanies from the Whitewater period who either got in their own sex scandals or had to retire from public life while Clinton continued to become more important.

So if Democrats don’t understand that after all this time, Hillary Clinton’s campaign is undermined by the same defensive tactics that she used to defend her husband long ago, then they can’t understand why voters loathe both her in particular and this political system in general.”

Was I wrong?

I said on more than one occasion:

“In any case, objections to the Clintons from the Right are of decades’ vintage, and there has been plenty of time to go over them, and most people who aren’t conservative dittoheads have dismissed them. But these days the most strenuous objections to Hillary Clinton are from the Left. The last time she ran in 2008, most Democrats had no objection to Mr. And Mrs. Clinton; they thought Bill was a great President and Hillary was a great Senator. They just thought Senator Obama had more to offer as a presidential candidate. But this year people are not objecting to Benghazi, or Vince Foster. The attacks on Hillary Clinton are coming from leftists offering critique of the last eight years of economic policy in comparison to the Clinton’s Administration’s push of NAFTA and its results on the American and international economies. In short, they’re a good deal more relevant to the average person than what the National Enquirer or Sean Hannity thinks of Hillary Clinton or her husband. And again, Clinton’s sense of optics is flawed: She is no more willing to reveal what she said in her speeches to Goldman Sachs than Trump is willing to reveal his full tax returns.

… Hillary’s best selling points are that she is a more experienced candidate who represents the sensible establishment position. But the reason Trump ate the Republican Party and Sanders almost snuck up on Hillary is because after eight years of Obama, (however much better he is in comparison to McCain and Romney) there’s no more hope and people have no more change in their pockets. Obama won because people were sick of the old way of doing things, and now they’re that much sicker. Trump is running as the opposite of the establishment mentality and Clinton is running as the representative of it. And it’s going to be that much more of a problem because of who she is. Obama at least has some ability to think outside the box. Whereas Hillary Clinton not only doesn’t think outside the box, she practically is the box. ”

And:

“Part of the issue is that when “first past the post” means that only two parties have a realistic chance of support, the issue of “can this candidate win?” takes almost exclusive precedence over what should be at least as important a question: “should this candidate win?” One of the problems with that mentality, as Hillary Clinton is discovering, is that not wanting Candidate B to win is not the same thing as wanting Candidate A to win. ”

Was I wrong?

When people asked, with good reason, why anyone on the Left would not vote for Clinton, I said:

“It’s pretty clear that just from the standpoint of not making things worse, a center-to-Left voter ought not to choose Trump, or even to abstain from voting Clinton if she is the most realistic way of stopping Trump. But on economic issues at least, a lot of voters are seeing “progress” only in drips and drops, often despite and not because of the Democratic Party. This is why a lot of them supported Bernie Sanders in the first place. And the way (the nomination) ended up is part of why they still don’t trust Clinton.”

Was I wrong?

And just on Election Eve I said:

“I say the same thing now I (said about the 2000 election): It isn’t the fault of third-party voters if your candidate sucks and nobody likes them.  It ought to be that much more damn obvious when the stakes are that much more dire.  If it’s a simple choice of Hillary Clinton versus Orange Julius Caesar, and you STILL have people hedging their bets, what the fuck does that TELL you??

It tells me that Democrats have pinned their hopes and this country’s future on Hillary Clinton, who symbolizes everything that Americans are sick of and do not want in American politics, a career politician who has all the appeal of soggy shredded wheat and would be that much less likely to end the war in Syria.”

 

 

Was I wrong?

So.  It’s almost Election Day.  And on social media, I’ve been getting a lot of flak for voting for Gary Johnson, or at least not being rah-rah-sis-boom-bah for Hillary Clinton.  “It’s Good vs. Evil!  It’s the end of civilization itself!  Don’t you understand the stakes?  Don’t you remember Bush vs. Gore???”

Well, YES.  How the fuck could I FORGET Bush vs. Gore when liberals have spent the last 16 years reminding me of the 2000 election because they need to rationalize the fact that Democratic candidates other than Obama have been both unpopular and incompetent?  I say the same thing now I say then: It isn’t the fault of third-party voters if your candidate sucks and nobody likes them.  It ought to be that much more damn obvious when the stakes are that much more dire.  If it’s a simple choice of Hillary Clinton versus Orange Julius Caesar, and you STILL have people hedging their bets, what the fuck does that TELL you??

It tells me that Democrats have pinned their hopes and this country’s future on Hillary Clinton, who symbolizes everything that Americans are sick of and do not want in American politics, a career politician who has all the appeal of soggy shredded wheat and would be that much less likely to end the war in Syria.

She just happens to have the good fortune of running against Donald Trump, who has exacerbated all the demographic issues the Republicans identified in their “autopsy” of the Romney campaign, adding onto that a schism within the Republican Party itself.  Either some Republicans didn’t get the memo that they were supposed to be appealing to racism all along, or they were okay with that but just don’t like being so tacky.

In retrospect, the main lesson Donald Trump seems to have learned in life is that he can get whatever he wants and do whatever he wants and act as boorishly as he wants because neither society nor reality has ever forced him to pay the consequences for his incompetence and malice.  And I suspect that in the back of his mind, he realizes this.  And so the only way Trump can justify his inflated self-image is to attain the office that actually would make him all-powerful and unaccountable.

So here’s my prediction for tomorrow: Sometime around 7 Pacific/10 pm Eastern, Trump will come out to make his speech.  He will be preceded by his entourage of family and sycophants.  And then he will waddle towards the podium with that Resting Trump Face of his.  And then he will take the mic and fire off so many profanities in the course of two minutes that he will make Andrew Dice Clay look like Pope Francis.  And then he will mount the podium and bellow for ten seconds.  Then he will lock eyes with the nearest male reporter, jump off the podium, land on the reporter feet first, then pull down his pants and shit on the guy’s face.  And then he will run down the nearest female reporter, force her to her knees, and skullfuck her for the twenty seconds or so it takes him to reach climax.

And that’s if he wins.

Letter from James Gillen to Wes Benedict, Executive Director of the Libertarian Party

Subject: The LP Store

Dear Wes,

As a card-carrying Libertarian, I’m glad to get notices and ads from you, but I’m sorry that I am not able to buy the election/promotional materials you advertise for the Johnson/Weld campaign.  I am in fact so broke that I wasn’t able to afford the parking fee to attend the Gary Johnson event at the MGM in October, where you were handing out the materials.

In any case, I’m afraid there isn’t much to advertise.  You see, I did early voting in Nevada, and I did vote for Gary Johnson.  I had wanted to vote Libertarian all the way down ballot, but there was one problem: There WERE no other Libertarian candidates.  For the Senate, for my Congressional District, or my State Assembly district.  We DO have candidates for the Independent American Party, and they’re the guys who want the Bible taught in schools.  I think that in the next series of elections, especially the midterms, you would be much better served by putting such resources you have into recruiting candidates for offices OTHER than President, so I can tell people that there are other people to vote for.

If I may make a suggestion for the immediate future: Do you have any T-Shirts or bumper stickers saying “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted For Gary Johnson”?  I predict those will be VERY popular in the next 12 months.

Sincerely,

JAMES GILLEN

 (UPDATE: Response from Wes Benedict:

Soon, we’ll be offering a sticker that says “Don’t blame me, I voted Libertarian”. When you see us promoting it, send me an email and I’ll send you a free one.

We’ll be encourage people to run for more Libertarian offices in 2018. This year we do have people running in 600 offices, but not many are in Nevada.

Thanks for your interest.

Wes Benedict, Executive Director Libertarian National Committee, Inc.

—

Thanks, Wes!)

 

Early voting in Nevada started this Saturday (October 22, 2016). I just went to my local shopping mall and voted. I want to go over the choices that I made as a sort of endorsement and analysis.

President of the United States

I have already addressed my reasons for endorsing Gary Johnson and choosing a third-party candidate over one of the “real” candidates, in particular Hillary Clinton. As of October 23, fivethirtyeight.com is projecting at least a 72 percent chance for Clinton to win Nevada, with initial turnout giving the Democrats a substantial edge.  Basically, things have gotten to the point with Donald Trump’s repulsive campaign that if Hillary Clinton somehow loses the presidential race, it’s because she deserves to. And up until fairly recently, that could not be ruled out. Because until Trump, there were no other candidates more incompetent at campaigning than Hillary Clinton and more unappealing to the voting public, and I didn’t think that was possible. The difference is that Clinton doesn’t GO OUT OF HER WAY to piss people off. The question is whether someone who doesn’t endorse Hillary Clinton should officially approve her coronation especially when the result is pretty much determined already.

And given that Trump is not really an outlier in the GOP but merely the most honest expression of the ideology they’ve been building for some time,  it gets to my long term assessment of why I would rather be in a third party than one of the majors. I would rather work to refine something that doesn’t have an institutional presence than an institution that doesn’t think it needs to reform. (As anyone who voted for Sanders and then went to a Democratic state convention might testify.) And after this election, anyone who’s still registered Republican needs to consider what the future of that party is and whether it is going to turn around when it has rather clearly declared that Trumpism is what it wants. As it stands, I think a lot of the people voting for Democrats this year will be in the same mind as Will McAvoy in The Newsroom when he said, “I’m a registered Republican. I only seem liberal because I think hurricanes are caused by high barometric pressure, and not gay marriage.”

I’ve also been willing to say that as a candidate in general and as an advocate for libertarianism, Johnson has screwed up. The thing that most pissed me off about Johnson’s Aleppo moment(s) was the realization that there IS NO good choice for president this year- not even on the sentimental, hypothetical level of “Gee, if only my vote was the only one that counted and it wasn’t gonna be drowned out by 65 million other people.” Because the Republican Party is that much more blatant in abandoning its public responsibility to present a serious candidate, and however qualified Hillary Clinton is, much of her resume is built on creating the stagnant economy and shaky foreign policy situation that Americans are objecting to in the first place.

I don’t think Gary Johnson is a good candidate for President. But at least he doesn’t disgust me.

United States Senate

The real problem with being a third-party voter in the short term is that your party is usually too small to run candidates in the “down-ballot” races. Take Nevada. I would like to vote for Libertarians in other offices, but the LP is not running anybody in the other federal races. The only third party that is is the Constitution/Independent American Party, which is basically where you go when you think that the Republicans are a bunch of godless pinkos. The two main candidates are Republican Joe Heck (currently a US Congressman) and Catherine Cortez Masto (formerly Nevada’s Attorney General). I don’t have anything against either candidate personally and think each did reasonably well in their prior jobs, but if the main issue other than the presidency is control of Congress and the Senate, the Republicans as a whole are sufficiently rotten and incompetent that where I didn’t get a chance to vote Libertarian, I went Democrat.

United States House of Representatives

Similarly I voted Dina Titus (Democrat) for the Congressional race for my district, since I know and like her well enough and didn’t think the other candidates matched up.

The Questions

The main issues that are up for vote in this state are the ballot questions, and these require examination in a certain level of detail. Because when you into detail it becomes clear that in many cases the question is worded in such a way as to convince people to vote for the opposite of what the ballot measure would actually do.

Question 1: Shall Chapter 202 of the Nevada Revised Statutes be amended to prohibit, except in certain circumstances, a person from selling or transferring a firearm to another person unless a federally-licensed dealer first conducts a federal background check on the potential buyer or transferee ?

I have no particular fondness for guns, but I am fond of the Constitution, including the Second Amendment. I also know that with the rate of civilian shootings in the last few years that many people have become concerned about “loopholes” to existing laws allowing people to get access to guns. The specific text of the measure says that it is intended to address the discrepancy allowing unlicensed sellers to transfer ownership of a firearm without a background check (which is now required for licensed sellers). Section 6 of the measure specifically exempts sale to law enforcement officers, sale of antique weapons, transfer to immediate family members, to trustees or executives of the owner’s estate, or temporary transfer at recognized shooting ranges and competitions. This basically covers most of the situations that “No” voters raise on the grounds of increasing bureaucracy. Arguably it doesn’t go far enough for “gun safety” advocates who say that many acts of gun violence occur within the home.

With some difficulty, I voted for Question 1, though I could have just as easily voted No. My main skepticism was whether any gun control law is actually going to accomplish its stated purpose. On balance I decided Question 1 actually accomplished the stated purpose of reducing the loophole of unregistered gun sales without creating an undue burden on private gun owners.

Question 2: Shall the Nevada Revised Statutes be amended to allow a person, 21 years old or older, to purchase, cultivate, possess, or consume a certain amount of marijuana or concentrated marijuana, as well as manufacture, possess, use, transport, purchase, distribute, or sell marijuana paraphernalia; impose a 15 percent excise tax on wholesale sales of marijuana; require the regulation and licensing of marijuana cultivators, testing facilities, distributors, suppliers, and retailers; and provide for certain criminal penalties?

This is a prime example of where what seems to be plain language on the ballot is something entirely different in the actual legal text. In this case the text states in Section 10 that a certified “marijuana establishment” cannot be located within 1000 feet of a public or private school, or 300 feet of a community facility, and to a limit of 80 licenses in a county with a population greater than 700,000. The provisions of legalization would render the possession of more than token amounts of marijuana, or the startup of a marijuana business, all but impossible to already wealthy interests. In all, the measure would be much like the 2014 measure in Ohio that failed because even legalization advocates saw it as a vehicle of established interests rather than protection of individual rights. And of course, until the Federal government re-classifies marijuana, a lot of this is technicality. I voted No on Question 2.

Question 3: Shall Article 1 of the Nevada Constitution be amended to require the Legislature to provide by law for the establishment of an open, competitive retail electric energy market that prohibits the granting of monopolies and exclusive franchises for the generation of electricity?

Most of the state is under an official energy monopoly called NV Energy, which is ostensibly regulated by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to protect consumers. However, this same PUC decided last year to remove credits that were previously given to customers of private solar energy producers by allowing them to sell power back to the main grid, a practice called “net metering.”  The irony being that such a subsidy is supposed to be how liberalism ought to work, using the power of the state to protect the consumer while promoting more progressive policies (in this case, a cleaner energy system). In practice, the power of the state is more likely to be used to protect those who already have wealth and power. Removing NV Energy’s monopoly would if nothing else remove the question of whether competitor energy providers are taking “their” energy.

I voted Yes on Question 3, with the reservation that while both Questions 1 and 2 are very detailed in their provisions, Question 3 merely states that after passage, the state legislature shall pass legislation to provide for an open energy market. Ay, there’s the rub.

Question 4: Shall Article 10 of the Nevada Constitution be amended to require the Legislature to provide by law for the exemption of durable medical equipment, oxygen delivery equipment, and mobility enhancing equipment prescribed for use by a licensed health care provider from any tax upon the sale, storage, use, or consumption of tangible personal property?

The ballot measure would add a Section 7 to the Article 10 of the state Constitution: “The legislature shall provide by law for the exemption of durable medical equipment, oxygen delivery equipment and mobility enhancing equipment prescribed for human use by a licensed provider of health care acting within his or her scope of practice from any tax upon the sale, storage, use or consumption of tangible personal property. ” So similar to Question 3, the matter is left up to the legislature. Still, this is pretty straightforward: People using durable medical equipment (DME) would not have to pay state taxes on what are often lifesaving devices and usually keep a person’s living standard from being debilitated. The main objection to Question 4 seems to be the concern that not having these taxes would create a budget shortfall, but anyone familiar with this state’s politics knows that it strains credulity to think that Nevada politicians won’t create some new consumption tax on the middle class when they want more money for something, as opposed to a tax on mining or income. I voted Yes on Question 4.

Question 5: Shall Clark County continue indexing fuel taxes to the rate of inflation, through December 31, 2026, the proceeds of which will be used solely for the purpose of improving public safety for roadway users and reducing traffic congestion by constructing and maintaining streets and highways in Clark County?

This is a Clark County (Southern Nevada) measure as opposed to a statewide measure. This simply allows the current practice of funding road construction and maintenance to be financed through fuel taxes through the next ten years. Since this is not really changing anything for the worse, I voted Yes on Question 5. Still, Las Vegas is a great rebuttal to the people who question libertarianism saying, “Without government, who would build the roads?” My response is, “We have government and taxes, and I don’t know if the roads are being built now or just ripped up.”

The next Clinton-Trump brawl is scheduled for Wednesday October 19^th, and Wednesday is a date that I usually go see friends, so I will most likely have to watch coverage after the fact. But I want to discuss certain things that have come up since, namely in regard to “Pussygate.”  As you remember, towards the end of the first debate, Hillary Clinton brought up Trump’s abuse of Miss Universe contestant Alicia Machado, the subject of which brought Trump nearly to rage even before Clinton specified Machado’s name. This caused Trump to respond that he was going to say something very bad about Clinton and her husband, but decided to stop himself. But never let Donald Trump be accused of class and restraint.

As you also know, on October 7, audio footage was released from 2005 of Trump and Access Hollywood reporter Billy Bush having an on-mic conversation about Trump’s technique with women which included the lines “you just kiss…when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything…grab them by the pussy…” While Trump was unusually defensive and willing to apologize over his 2005 quotes, he also insisted that “this is nothing more than a distraction” and “Bill Clinton has actually abused women, and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims.” Just the Sunday afternoon before the October 9 debate, Trump rounded up Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey and Kathy Shelton, the first three of whom had accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault or outright rape, and the latter being the plaintiff in a rape trial where Hillary Clinton was the defense lawyer who successfully plea-bargained her client’s case. Not only did these four women appear at a press conference where Trump openly accused Bill Clinton of assault, he had them appear as guests at the town hall debate that night. Since then he has told audiences that he is the victim of a great smear campaign and “character assassination”, and that the allegations against him since the Oct. 7 tape are “made up”.

Well, as many have pointed out, it isn’t Bill Clinton who’s running for president this time. Also, bad behavior on someone else’s part cannot be used to excuse bad behavior on your part. (Trump and conservatives may be unaware of this ethical principle, so it ought to be stressed at some point.) In any case, there’s also a factor of relevance. I mean, have you seen Bill Clinton lately? He’s deathly pale, near anorexic, he’s had heart problems, and cancer scares… let’s face it, his best raping days are behind him. Whereas Donald Trump is big, extroverted, and ruddy. Well, whatever that color is supposed to be. He looks like he could keep raping two, maybe three more years.

Another defense along similar lines is where Trumpers on social media show the picture of Miley Cyrus twerking her ass in front of Robin Thicke in that one awards show, or Beyonce in her stage outfit, and they’ll say something like “these are the liberals who say that Donald Trump is degrading women.” Well- for one thing, Miley Cyrus isn’t running for president either, and if she was, I would even vote for that tongue-wagging twerker before Trump. But however hypocritical or misplaced conservative criticisms of their opponents are, they aren’t totally lacking in point.

The actions of a politician or government official are potentially more corrosive to the public culture than the actions of an entertainer, partially for the obvious reason that entertainers do not have legal power over us. And because we recognize that the issue is different, we expect politicians to follow a different standard. We expect different behavior from George Clinton than from Bill Clinton.

But whether you think Ken Starr’s Whitewater investigation should have gone into the matter of Bill Clinton’s affair in the Oval Office,  or whether such a thing is a “private matter”, consider that at the time the Clinton Administration was defending a policy under which gay military members could be forcibly discharged over their private affairs, partially on grounds of being a security risk.  When you see the president flat-out lie about an affair on camera and ultimately get away with it, it does create an impression that as far he’s concerned, laws and standards only apply to others. And when you see Hillary Clinton get absolved by the FBI for security breaches that WOULD have gotten anyone else at least reprimanded, you see the same issue at play.

Of course, it wasn’t even as simple as Bill Clinton getting impeached over perjury and then found not guilty by the Senate. During the House investigation leading to impeachment, Republican head of the Judiciary Committee Henry Hyde was revealed to have had an affair in office as a state legislator almost 30 years prior. Pornographer and Democratic partisan Larry Flynt used Hustler Magazine to expose Bob Livingston (R.-Louisiana) who was expected to be the next House Speaker, but had to step down in favor of Dennis Hastert.

Contrary to Michelle Obama, the Democrat standard is not “When they go low, we go high.” It’s “when they go low, we go lower.” To be sure, it’s not the Democrats’ fault if they have that much more opposition research to work with.

The ultimate lesson here, if you’re a Democratic partisan, is that the Republicans are living in a glass house built next to a rock quarry. But Democrats need to keep in mind that all those Millennial voters (who for some reason they can’t understand, don’t trust Hillary Clinton) were not paying attention to this scandal factory right from the beginning. And if Bill Clinton is not as relevant to this election as Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton is a good deal more relevant than Ken Starr, Dennis Hastert or any other of the conservative meanies from the Whitewater period who either got in their own sex scandals or had to retire from public life while Clinton continued to become more important.

So if Democrats don’t understand that after all this time, Hillary Clinton’s campaign is undermined by the same defensive tactics that she used to defend her husband long ago, then they can’t understand why voters loathe both her in particular and this political system in general.

Nor is the Right unique in demonizing their enemies, nor even pioneers in that regard. I can remember “Bush Derangement Syndrome.” In certain “progressive” circles anybody to the right of Che Guevara is a Fascist. And it’s not like right-wingers aren’t taking notes. Charlie Skyes is a NeverTrump conservative talk show host in the Midwest who’s been making the rounds on MSNBC and other places giving his takes on where the conservative movement is now. Recently he decided that the culture had gotten to the point that he decided to retire his show after this year. But he gave an interview to Vox magazine about that, and I found this exchange very interesting:

Charlie Sykes

Absolutely. And you have these websites out there, like Breitbart.com, which is like reading third-world propaganda. These guys like Breitbart are smart enough to know that they’re full of shit. But if you inhabit that world, you can’t push back without being seen as a sellout.

Now I will say this one thing on the flip side. Some of these people have flocked to sites like Breitbart and they’ve retreated into these dark corners because the left has too easily tossed words like “racist” and “xenophobe” and “sexist” around.

So what’s happened is that when a guy like me or anyone or you says, hey, you know, Donald Trump is a racist and a xenophobe and a sexist. The conservative media world, the consumers, they tell me we’ve been called that for 20 or 30 years. They’ve become conditioned to blow it off as crying wolf.

Sean Illing

I think that’s a fair point.

Charlie Sykes

I’m old enough to remember that being called a racist was the worst thing, the most devastating thing you could call someone — and now it’s lost all currency. I mean, people don’t even blink at it anymore. John McCain’s a racist, Mitt Romney’s a racist, Paul Ryan’s a racist.

But when Donald Trump comes, who is the real thing, we call him that and say we didn’t really mean it about those other guys. This is who we were warning you about. It’s blown off by a lot of the conservative base.

So when you see that one side plays by certain rules and expects you to play at a disadvantage, you resent it. If you’re expected to act in good faith but they get to call you Klansmen and Nazis, you decide to fuck good faith. Fuck negotiation or even acknowledging the other side’s humanity. If they really think you’re a caricature- or know better but act like they don’t- you think there’s no point in trying to disabuse them with proofs. But then if you hold that attitude long enough, you either don’t notice or don’t care that some of your new friends on the alternative-to-being-right are REAL Klansmen and neo-Nazis.

There is a phrase I use that I am going to keep going back to, as appropriate. It is possible for two different things to be true at the same time.

A LONG time ago – a long enough time ago that it depresses me to think about how old I am – some of us judged the Lewinsky scandal and simultaneously decided that the President being an adulterous horndog was not the end of the world AND that it was still not a good thing for the country. It certainly was not a good thing that the President felt the need to commit perjury and get impeached over it. In any case, if an impeachment takes place in the Senate and they end up acquitting the defendant, then legally that’s it. Both the people and the government have spoken. The question then is, why would one bring up the matter again when it only brings up the point that you have more skeletons in the closet than Liberace’s Halloween Party, and in the broader picture, means that if we wash that one issue, forces us to consider your lack of record and competence in contrast to both Bill and Hillary’s political successes.

None of this justifies “conservatives” doubling down on immorality by supporting Trump, who magnifies all the Clintons’ vices while having none of their abilities, but if Democrats still can’t understand why some of us shake our heads at their invocation of morality, then Republicans aren’t the only ones with no sense of irony.

I did not immediately follow up on the October 9 Clinton-Trump debate, partially because I need a real job to pay the bills and mainly because I have spent the other part of the last 24 hours trying to find some way to thread a Brillo pad through my nasal cavity out my ear canal so I can scour my brain.

If the first debate was a steel cage match where Donald Trump got bladed, this one was a knife fight in the depths of the Calcutta sewers. Even if you won, you still are bleeding and contaminated with toxic shit.

With Hillary Clinton, she at least got a couple of opportunities to explain her resume and speak unapologetically about her agenda, including gun control and creating a more liberal Supreme Court. But she continues to give non-answers with regard to her emails and lack of regard for their security, and when she responded to the suggestion of being “two-faced” and said that she was referring to Abraham Lincoln’s policy of having one public policy on Civil War legislation while pursuing a different private policy, Trump was able to respond by mocking her use of “Honest Abe” as a defense of her mendacity. Again, Clinton overall comes off as far more knowledgeable and competent than Trump, and can be sincere about positions she actually cares about. But she still does not come off as honest, and thus she suffers in comparison to Trump, who at least conveys the appearance of honesty even if that’s only because Trump confuses “honesty” with “having no internal monologue.”

As for “Sniffy” himself… he fought back this time.  Whatever his prior feelings about his old friends the Clintons, he has shown himself willing to take on the concerns, however warped, of the Republican base.  More than ever, Trump has answered the question, “what if AM radio could run for President?” He played all the greatest hits: Benghazi, Juanita, the emails that Hillary “acid-washed” like trendy jeans. As the pundits kept saying Sunday and today, he stopped the bleeding. But mainly in the sense that he threw red meat to the base and kept them going, which he really didn’t do last debate. He didn’t persuade the rest of us, who have been nothing but appalled by him, to find a reason to vote for him. In fact he doubled down on the offensive stupidity. He did not explain (beyond removing the barriers between states for insurance policies) how he would make a better replacement for Obamacare. He did not explain how he would straighten out Syria, beyond bombing the shit out of everything, which has worked so well up to now. He did not reduce the suspicion of his dictatorial whims when he said (in between sniffs) that he would appoint a special prosecutor to dive into Hillary’s email accounts. He certainly did not appeal to female voters, some of whom happen to be Republican.   Trump continued to insist that Pussygate was just “locker room talk” as if between Friday and Sunday, social media had not shot down, skinned and dressed that argument. And he did not reduce the impression of being “rapey” when, during Hillary Clinton’s addresses to the audience, he glowered and paced around, showing behind her in camera, stalking her like a particularly lazy and overweight lion with sleep apnea.

And next debate is a week from Wednesday. In Las Vegas. People here have no clue how to drive in optimum conditions, and here we’re going to have TWO Secret Service details on the road.

Technical Winner: Hillary Clinton. But only by virtue of NOT being Donald Trump.

Real Winners: Gary Johnson (who can only look better in comparison) and anybody who skipped this thing to watch Sunday Night Football or Ash vs Evil Dead.

Losers: Intelligence, good taste, public service and the premise of a functional republic.

On October 4, the two running mates of the main presidential candidates, Democratic Governor of Virginia Tim Kaine and Republican Governor of Indiana Mike Pence, got together in their first and only national debate, in which the two-party system attempted to answer the question: “Which one of these two men is better suited to be president once their running mate is impeached?”

Whereas the last vice-presidential debate (Biden-Ryan) seemed fairly substantial and respectful, this one didn’t come off that well in my opinion. It didn’t even come off that well compared to the September 26 presidential debate, where at least Hillary Clinton came off as both professional and sociable. What was odd is that for the most part it was Tim Kaine who was doing all the pointless interrupting, which only gave Pence the opportunity to say “let me respond” and go off wasting time on that point rather than answer the questions that Elaine Quijano asked. Not that either one of them is that good. Both of them seemed to be composed of their respective party’s cliches about supporting working people when the person at the top of the ticket has managed to get very rich gaming the status quo. Kaine at least has the advantage of living in the reality-based community, although he didn’t benefit his party as much as Clinton did in September or Joe Biden did in 2012.

So: Kaine. Pence. Who won? The answer is obvious. Gary Johnson.

And now for something completely different.

Sunday October 2, HBO debuted its re-imagining of Westworld, which was based on a 1973 movie written and directed by Michael Crichton.  Westworld was a major example of the weird old days of 70s science fiction on film, of a piece with Rollerball, Logan’s Run and Silent Running.   In the film, there’s this major corporation running a sort of “adult” Disneyland (featuring Medieval World and Roman World in addition to West World) where the “animatronic” characters are actually androids capable of interacting with humans at almost any level.  But their programming starts to go awry (in what may be one of the first mentions of a computer virus on film), and the androids start killing the customers, so that the movie ends up as a horror-stalker scenario where star Richard Benjamin (and his 70s pornstache) is being hunted by a sinister android gunslinger (played by Yul Brynner and dressed almost exactly like his character in The Magnificent Seven).

The difference here is that in the movie the androids were an unknown Other attacking the human protagonists, while in the TV show, the human customers are largely an afterthought to the narrative, with secondary focus given to the corporate staff running the resort and maintaining the androids, with the ultimate focus going to the androids themselves, whose increasingly complex programming is causing some of them to realize that their world is artificial and everything in their lives – including their deaths – is scripted for the amusement of others.

Foremost of these androids is the pure, beautiful and ever-suffering Dolores (played by Evan Rachel Wood) who apparently exists to see her father get killed over and over again.  She and her father both start to encounter what their inventor calls “reveries” of past programming.  But since their real-time experiences occur within a repeated script, the pilot episode plays less like the Westworld movie and more like a weird cross between Groundhog Day and Deadwood.

The odd thing about this setup is that even though the android “hosts” are there as stock Western characters for human tourists, they also seem to have interaction with each other that may not be strictly necessary for the purpose of the business.  For instance, the pilot episode sets up a romance between Dolores and Teddy (James Marsden), one of the “Newcomers” who just came to town.  But then Teddy gets killed, more than once, and is revealed to be one of the hosts.  It raises the question of whether the characters were “built” to be involved with anyone else, especially since their scripts change in response to customer interaction but otherwise repeat.

Meanwhile, the evil gunslinger in black is revealed to be a human (Ed Harris), who seems to be pursuing some quest within the setting that is unexplained at this point.  Back in the company labs, the head of the programmers (veteran character actor Jeffrey Wright) is trying to integrate the new programming codes with the help of the company’s founder, Ford (Anthony Hopkins).  Ford is both gentlemanly and sinister, a man who genuinely thinks of himself as a loving God in control of the perfect world he created.  The sort of role Anthony Hopkins could do in his sleep.

Otherwise, again, the focus is away from the humans (other than a small story with Currie Graham as a deputized crimefighter) which produces a deliberately alienating effect when one sees how they treat the androids.  The female hosts (not all of whom are prostitutes) are used to prurient ends by the male guests, and when two of those guests hire Teddy as a local guide, they raise the question of whether they should take him out to the wilderness and kill him just because they can.  So once again James Marsden is cast as the nice, handsome guy who exists to get stomped on.  It seems to be his karma for some reason.

That artificiality makes the show seem rather sterile, though I’m pretty sure that’s by design.  But that, and the question of how long it will take the whole situation to blow up, raises the question of whether this premise can be stretched out past one season, although it seems like it would be a very interesting miniseries.