And Trump is very slightly ahead in the polls.
As is usually the case in modern American elections, much that is important isn’t at stake in this election: most notably whether or not the genocide in Palestine will continue. Both candidates and both parties are under the thumb of the Israeli lobby. Nor is an end to the terminal decline of the American Empire on the ballot, though Trump pretends it is.
That isn’t to say the election doesn’t matter, but it’s a choice between two terrible candidates. Trump is clearly senile and mercurial is the kindest word one can use to describe him. Harris is not that bright, and appears to fall into the Bush Jr. category: something happened to damage her. Plenty of rumors of alcohol problems, though I don’t know if they’re valid.
Both candidates are moral and ethical monsters, whose ambition and vanity are such that they would kill or impoverish any number of people to achieve their personal goals. (No, don’t even. This isn’t in question.)
I can’t be bothered to endorse either of them. This is a case of “would you prefer Satan or Beelzebub?” Unless you’re in a swing state I’d strongly urge you to vote third party or spoil your ballot. Even in a swing state you should seriously consider it.
About sixty percent of Americans think that the two-party system is broken, but they won’t vote for a third party because they think it’s a wasted vote, and this collective action problem makes continued decline inevitable.
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Domestically it’s clear that Harris, who says she wouldn’t have done a single thing differently than Biden, is the candidate of status quo decline. Things will keep getting worse in about the same way. Trump will shake things up, primarily because of who he will appoint to government and their plans of taking over the bureaucracy.
Democrats aren’t serious about abortion rights, but Trump will make the situation even worse. His economic policies will be disastrous in different ways than Harris’s: tariffs aren’t a bad idea, but without industrial policy and policies designed to end rent-seeking and funnel resources into industry they won’t don’t do much but cause different types of pain. His appointments to the supreme court will be awful, though that ship has sailed and until Democrats are willing to court pack it seems unlikely there will be any near-term change.
This election was Harris’s to win, but she didn’t want it enough to distance herself strategically from Biden. It wouldn’t have taken much, I’d bet that just some serious talk about taming the inflation which ordinary people feel but economists insist doesn’t exist would have done it. Or she could have come out against genocide, and courted the left instead of the right by campaigning with Liz Cheney, et al.
But at the end of the day, people like Harris would rather the right win than do anything seriously left-wing like “not mass murder”, which is now so far from the central axis of American politics that it amounts to extremism, and is treated by universities, the political class and the justice system as the hand maiden to terrorism.
In such a decaying Empire, the truth is there are few good, viable, choices left. Pick your arch-demon or vote for someone who at least isn’t into mass murder but won’t win.
Feral Finster
“Unless you’re in a swing state I’d strongly urge you to vote third party or spoil your ballot. Even in a swing state you should seriously consider it.”
ESPECIALLY if you are in a swing state. Leverage is worthless if everyone knows that you never will use it.
“If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?” – Anton Chigurh
Feral Finster
And don’t kid yourself by saying that you’ll vote “with reservations” or “holding your nose” as you vote.
It doesn’t matter why you vote or how much enthusiasm you vote with. Your vote counts exactly the same as every other vote.
Joan
I have voted! Crossing my fingers.
Purple Library Guy
I don’t think Mr. Welsh’s position is viable. Sure, Harris is a moral monster willing to see the demise of millions if that’s what it takes to gain power. Nearly all the higher-ups in both parties are. But most of the Democratic higher-ups aren’t monsters without any limits. What they consider and don’t consider a limit on behaviour is very weird from the perspective of people objectively considering ethics–but those limits are there nonetheless. There are evil things they will not do, mainly domestically, because that’s their tribal tradition or something, even though internationally they will not blink an eye at doing far worse things. Again, they’re very tribal . . . foreigners are non-people.
But if you look at what the Republicans these days say, and at things like Project 2025, it is clear they are monsters with no limits. They will do the straight up fascism if they can, and it is looking increasingly plausible that they can–they have plans that I have seen called repugnant, evil, and so forth . . . but nobody has presented an analysis saying those plans can’t WORK. To the Republicans, not only are foreigners non-people, but everyone who isn’t a white male evangelist Christian is non-people, and to most of the leaders even their own foaming-at-the-mouth supporters are non-people. You just have to look at the comments on an article in the mainstream media . . . almost all the right wing comments are not just aggressive but violent, glorying in ideas of destruction and negativity.
The centrist project is about pretending to be good (while actually being no such thing). That’s awful and hypocritical, but it allows a culture of wanting the good to exist, that can at least sometimes push governance to do a good thing once in a while. The alt-right project, which is the right we have these days, is about training people to be evil. Their objective is for everything to be horrible right down to the grassroots level, and they’re having a lot of success. This is a real, important difference.
I would vote for domestically useless with active evil in foreign policy, rather than allow the pure unvarnished evil of theocratic fascism to win. Democratic hypocrisy is more infuriating, but in terms of real world suffering it just isn’t as bad. There was a time when Liberal, Tory, same old story was pretty much true. This is not that time.
(There’s also a side note that modern Republicans and Conservatives are just incredibly incompetent at governing. Partly it’s that they don’t think government should even be doing good things because that would be Big Government, Deep State, not-the-market and so forth. Partly it’s that, because they think that, none of them ever bother to learn how to do it. Partly it’s that increasingly, not just rank and file but honchos in right wing parties are people stupid enough to fall for increasingly bizarre right wing propaganda, so they’re morons who couldn’t govern their way out of a paper bag. Partly it’s because even the few relatively bright ones are massively corrupt, so any real administrative thing they do will be for the purpose of diverting public funds to private interests in return for a fat bribe–they may even consider this virtuous because government should have less money. Add all these things together and they would suck even if they weren’t murderous authoritarian loons who want to check your kids’ genitals before they let them go to the bathroom)
In the particular case of Trump, I could come up with a story that says, in foreign policy, because the Europeans and a lot of others think he’s a stupid gauche dork, and because he has a more dovish position on the Ukraine war in particular, as president he would help end that war and his foreign policy incompetence otherwise would accelerate the breakup of American hegemony, which would be a good thing that might perhaps outweigh the damage he would do domestically. Possibly, but he’s probably even MORE likely than the Democrats to get the US involved in wars with Iran and China, plus anyone he happens to get annoyed with one day because their leader snubbed him. And, the Ukraine war is going to end in a while anyway–I’m really starting to see signs of the Ukrainian armed forces running out of gas. I wouldn’t want to fail to vote against Trump based on incredibly chancy speculation that that aggressive, random, loose cannon bozo wouldn’t start dangerous wars.
Oakchair
This election was Harris’s to win
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I’m not sure what their campaign strategy is if they even have one.
What voters are they trying to win when they call Trump a fascist? What person is unsure who they will vote for, but upon hearing Harris tell them Trump hates democracy will vote Harris?
Which undecided voter will vote for Harris after hearing about abortion for the 10,000 time in the past month?
Which voters know who Liz Cheney is let alone give a shit what she thinks?
When asked what she would do differently Harris replied alone the lines of ‘not a thing’. When given the option of being a semi-competent candidate and soothing her ego she choose her ego.
The primary concern of 10%-20% of the country is the chronic illness epidemic. Harris and the DNC not only blew them off, but spent their time insulting and arguing for censorship. In their arrogant ego filled hate they didn’t even wonder if gift wrapping 10%-20% of voters and sending them to Trump would be a self-inflicted wound.