Last weekend, Hillary Clinton won the Nevada Democratic Party caucuses and Donald Trump won the South Carolina Republican Party primary. We now have 3 states’ results for each party. On the Republican side, 103 out of 2472 delegates have been awarded, and on the Democratic side, 97 of 4763 delegates have been awarded. Yet, despite the fact that only 4% and 2% of the delegates have been committed (not including the super delegates – more on that in a moment), the avalanche of political commentary following the weekend’s results is strongly suggesting that, come election day, our choice (other than minor party candidates) will be between Clinton and Trump.
To quote Taggart from Blazing Saddles – I am depressed.
Even before this weekend, it was obvious that the race was down to 5 legitimate players: Sanders, Clinton, Trump, Cruz and Rubio. Or, as I like to think of it, a commie, a criminal, a fascist, an asshole and Bush 3.0. There’s little of joy in that list for a libertarian, and even the portion of Cruz’s message that is small-government is overshadowed by his social conservatism and culture warfare. While there’s a whole lot of election cycle to go, and despite early polls in such contests being notoriously unreliable, it seems increasingly difficult to dispute that Clinton and Trump are going to win the nominations.
On the Dem side, despite Sanders’ increasing popularity, it seems that Clinton is holding onto the black vote. That, combined with the noxious superdelegate system that put 500+ delegates into her pocket before voting began, tells us that Clinton will probably hold Sanders off.
On the Repub side, Trump won South Carolina easily. Cruz, the evangelical, couldn’t pull evangelical votes, and this bodes ill for his chances. Rubio showed respectably, but didn’t give any reason to think that he’s going to unseat Trump going forward. Jeb Bush dropped out, and while it remains to be seen where his supporters concentrate, I don’t see them making the difference. There’s still a chance that Trump’s train derails, but he’s proven all such predictions wrong so far, and it looks increasingly like wishful thinking to presume that he’s not going to be last man standing.
Eventually, the argument’s going to turn, on the Republican side at least, to not voting for Trump is no different than voting for Clinton. I’ll touch briefly on the wasted vote and least worst argument at the end of this piece, but herein I want to discuss how a Clinton presidency is not necessarily a worse thing than a Trump presidency.
Make no mistake, President Clinton would be terrible for the country. But, so would President Trump. Some will obviously disagree, but considered from the perspective of liberty, neither is anything other than another giant dose of poison to a nation that once respected freedom and was once about limited government. Both are rank statists, neither has a shred of principled respect for liberty. They’d be terrible in very different ways, but they’d both be terrible. The difference, and which one will be worse, depends on what time horizon we look at.
In the short-term, Hillary will get to further cement Obama’s policies and actions, making them harder to undo, and she’ll pursue her own liberal agenda. She’ll also have a shot at shifting the Supreme Court to the left. What Trump will do is anyone’s guess, given that he’s all over the map in his proclamations, but we could reasonably expect that he won’t do as much damage as Clinton – in the short term. I believe that his nativist and protectionist agenda will be destructive the way Smoot-Hawley was, and his “tough talk” about rounding up 11 million illegals brings visions of brownshirts and papers please to mind, but who knows if he actually means what he’s saying, or how far he’d actually go?
However, what will happen at the mid-term? Mid-terms tend to go against incumbents, and a President Clinton would be facing a 2018 Senate run with 23 Dems up for re-election vs only 8 Repubs. Even if the Dems recapture the Senate in 2016 (current polls suggest the GOP has a decent chance of retaining the majority), the odds are that it will swing back to the GOP in 2018. And, if Hillary makes a hash of things, the Senate might even go supermajority GOP. Non-presidential election years are good opportunities for advancing the liberty message, especially if the party not in power can be infiltrated with small government types. In 2010, the Tea Party (not libertarian, but with a decent bit of small government in its message) gave the House to the Republicans. Under a Clinton presidency, there’s a chance to make real inroads.
Consider, though, the message of a Trump presidency. The GOP has demonstrated that it isn’t actually interested in small government, no matter what it says, and the only way to get the party there is to drag it, kicking and screaming, as the Tea Party did in 2010. If empowered by a Trump win, the GOP will have little reason to improve it’s bona fides in that regard. A nativist, protectionist, autocratic message will have put the party in power, and the party will be happy to run with that message. History makes a strong case that such an approach will do great harm, economically, and this will set the stage for an even more liberal Democratic party to challenge and succeed. In short, I expect that a Trump presidency would kill the last shreds of liberty within the GOP and undo the recent efforts to move it towards principled limited government and liberty. This damage will shift the entire political spectrum further in a statist direction, and make even the few liberties we have today seem like quaint relics just a few years from now.
We’re left with two poisons. One will sicken us quickly, but gives us a chance to recover sooner. The other will kill us more slowly, but will also require much longer recovery time and might even put us in the grave. We can choose which one we take, and be complicit in our own poisoning. Or, we can refuse and have it forced upon us. Either way, we’re going to get sick. The difference is, if we elect not to choose one or the other, we might actually improve our chances for recovery.
That last point is in reference to the wasted vote or least worst argument. I’ll go into greater depth on another day, but the short argument is that more information is transmitted to the major parties (especially a message of dissatisfaction) by not voting or by voting third party than by holding one’s nose and voting for the less worse candidate.
Loading ...
Active Comment Threads
Most Commented Posts
Universal Background Checks – A Back Door to Universal Registration
COVID Mask Follies
When Everything Is Illegal…
An Anti-Vax Inflection Point?
“Not In My Name”
The Great Social Media Crackup
War Comes Through The Overton Window
The First Rule of Italian Driving
Most Active Commenters