With midterm elections nearly upon us I again find myself thinking of how the lesser of two evils affects the course of the country. I’ve written several times before of accepting the premise of the enemy in the political arena of ideas.
I have to say first off that I am not a Republican. And because people tend to assume that because I don’t agree with them in perfect lock step, that I must be whatever they imagine to be the most radical opposite, I have to extra-super-duper-emphatically say that I’m definitely not a Democrat.
The problem I have with the modern Democrats, to whom I usually refer to as “Demoncraps,” is that they are rabid and insane liberals who are in favor of the totalitarian philosophy that Big Government, particularly the federal government, should be in charge of everything everywhere, and that they, as our superiors in intellect, should decide what is right regarding everything for everybody. This, by the way, is not a new thing in the world. It’s as old as dirt.
The problem I have with Republicans is that they have a tendency to believe in and accept the premises of the radical left. I think that most Republicans, while sincerely wanting what’s best for everybody, don’t really realize what is and is not constitutional and just how far the federal government has drifted away from the following of constitutional law into the area of the liberal totalitarian agenda.
I have no hope for the modern Democrats so the focus here is not on them. I would prefer to place my thinking where it might do some good rather than just pointing out everything that is bad.
Yet every single day I find myself in conversation with Republicans who believe that some programs which were instituted in great controversy, by liberals in some point in the past, accepting them as a forever and always kind of done deal.
Picture World War II. Hitler takes Paris. Watch the History Channel for about thirty seconds and you’ll see the video of him gazing pensively at the Eiffel Tower. Now imagine if you will, that World War II were stopped at that point, where Germany holds more than half of France and speculate with me about how the world would now be had they just decided to go no further.
Would Paris be to this day part of France? Or part of Germany?
If you said it were part of Germany then you would be tacitly acknowledging the inherent right of Germany to own and rule France, wouldn’t you?
Now I could never imagine the likes of Eisenhower or Churchill saying, “Well, that’s nice. The Germans stopped at Paris and I think we should just stop too and let them have it.”
This is what is meant by accepting the premise of the opposition. You cannot win on such terms.
There are other ways of accepting the premise of the opposition. One of the most egregious and insidious ones I can think of comes up every time there is an election. This is why I hate the subject of Political Science and have abandoned it for Political Philosophy. I would rather think about what is right and wrong for a government to be involved in than focusing my attention on all of the lies politicians have to create in order to make sure the other guy doesn’t win, whether he is right or wrong.
I have to be honest, and I know this will hit a bad spot with some people who read this, but I’ve never been a fan of President Trump. I don’t agree with anything the Democrats say about him, most of it being just totally fabricated, but I do have my own objections to him which strangely enough the Democrats never comment on. Certainly he’s better than any Democrat but that does not make him the best president ever. The problems I have with him are mostly constitutional. He ran the country as a businessman, not as a Constitution loving president. He knew the right things to do about a lot of things in business terms but the United States is not a business. It’s a country. It should be run as a country.
The consequences of doing the right things for businesses and the economy, but not doing them in constitutional ways, are demonstrated by what happens when he is no longer the president. The next guy is free to totally reverse everything accomplished. The economic destruction and loss of freedom we are now witnessing is caused by the Democrats, however the reason that they are able to do it is because President Trump did what was successful for the economy rather than reinforcing the constitutional rule of law.
The thing with government is that while you love and trust the guy you voted for, who is currently in charge and making things in your own life seem to go right, will not be in charge forever. The next guy inherits all of the power that you’ve entrusted with the last guy. Sometimes the next guy is just outright crazy and completely willing to use the same powers to reverse the gains of his predecessor.
If President Trump would have run the country according to the Constitution, limiting the powers of the federal government, instead of running the country as a business, doing everything possible to set the federal government on the constitutional path and explain to the People what is Constitutional, it is very likely that we would not be experiencing the horror show that is the Biden presidency. Even, in this hypothetical speculation, had he enforced and promoted the Constitutional rule of law, Biden’s powers would have been seriously diluted as the worst case example or Trump would have won so decidedly the Democrats could never have had a chance of defeating him.
That, after all, is what the Constitution mainly does. It limits the powers of the federal government to screw with our individual lives.
So, how did we get here?
The basic truth is that Hillary is evil and popular. Everybody on the political spectrum to the right of Che Guevara knows this to be true. The Republican Party, when Trump was running, was split between a guy with a reputation for being a fervent constitutionalist, Ted Cruz; and a businessman, Donald Trump, with a big record of historically siding with liberals.
“But only Trump can beat Hillary!” his supporters claimed, “And Hillary will destroy the entire country!” It seems the argument was persuasive enough to convince enough people to side with Trump over Cruise to nominate him as the Republican candidate.
We had then the situation that Hillary, a representative of the ultimate evil in the universe, verses Trump who said that Hillary was the best ever Secretary of State and the Clintons were good people, and that he was in support of federalized health care and in full agreement with a lot of liberal federal policy programs but he should be elected because he could run them better than Hillary can. Yes, he did say all of these things. A simple Google search will typically find them.
While this is true that he can run them better, as any businessman could, the real question should not be concerned with who can be better at running liberal federal programs. The real question for the constitutionalist should be, “should these liberal programs even exist under the constitutional rule of law within the federal government?”
In eight years Obama cranked up the national debt by eight trillion dollars. President Trump did the same thing in just four years. Neither of these examples of presidents would hold up to a strictly constitutional scrutiny. Or for that matter, even cursory scrutiny.
The reason we are here is largely because half of the Republican Party “held their noses” and voted for President Trump because “Hillary is so bad that he is the lesser of two evils.”
Not to go on and on about President Trump because as I said, he’s better than any Democrat in so many ways that I don’t have the time or inclination to enumerate them here. If you are a hard core constitutionalist as I am and honestly review all of the things he signed into law you will see my objections to him. The only standard for judging a president for a constitutionalist is how well he preserved, protected and defended the Constitution.
And it’s not that someone voted for the lesser of two evils in only the 2016 election. It’s that people who do vote for the lesser of two evils in elections, always vote for the lesser of two evils in every election. They do this out of the fear implanted in them by their side of the media of what will happen if the other guy should win.
The leadership of the Republican Party knows this. They are experts in Political Science. Do you ever wonder why Mitch McConnell, possibly the most RINO politician ever, keeps winning? Simple. The voters of Kentucky keep getting faced with the decision of him or someone worse.
So he keeps winning. So the Republicans keep nominating him. The Democrats keep putting up someone so horribly worse that they get terrified. The voters keep voting for him. So he keeps winning. So the Republicans keep nominating him. The Democrats keep putting up someone so horribly worse that they get terrified. The voters keep voting for him. So he keeps winning. So the Republicans keep nominating him. The Democrats keep putting up someone so horribly worse that they get terrified. The voters keep voting for him. So he keeps winning.
And the wheels on the bus go round and round.
There is a basic marketing principle at work here. If you keep buying it they’ll keep selling it. If you stop buying it they will have to develop other products for you to buy or go out of business.
The same principle applies to political parties. If you stop buying their spineless politicians they will either develop a better product or lose power. And if they are in the business of political power they will not for a second consider giving it up. You as a voter should not be worried about what will happen if the other guy wins. You as a voter should make them worry about what happens if they don’t put the right guy up for election.
How do you get rid of the RINOs who won’t follow the Constitution and keep siding with every liberal program ever spawned? This is easy. Learn the Constitution, as is your civic duty as a citizen of the United States, and never vote for a candidate who won’t follow it, for any reason. Then, and most importantly, tell the Republican Party that you are no longer buying their product because they are not constitutional enough.
Either that or just keep voting for the lesser of two evils and hang tough until politicians become honest. (Editorial note here: You have no idea how difficult it was for me to type the previous sentence for laughing.)
Thus we drift further and further down the path from the Founding Fathers and their design for a maximal freedom country, with a minimal federal government enforcing its dictates on us. Voting for the lesser of two evils pushes the needle on the dial to the left. Not the right.
There is a philosophic principle which underlies all of this that I hope is helpful to you if you are tired of the leftist trend of our country. If you have to compromise your principles to keep from losing, you’ve already lost anything worth fighting for.
I’m not going to tell you who you should or should not support. I do know that if the Republican Party feels like it is losing power and knows why, and you are willing to hold to your ground for the sake of the Constitution, maybe in a couple of election cycles they’ll get the point and start selling a better product.
As for me I will always support the Constitution and
never support someone who I believe is incapable or unwilling to follow it.
(Afterthought to posting this; if you vote for RINOs because they are the lesser of two evils, you are making and promoting RINOs.)
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