Apparently Ben Carson was literally preaching to the choir when he tied Hillary Clinton to Lucifer. Recently, Public Policy Polling found "33% [of Trump voters] think Clinton even has ties to Lucifer, to 36% who say they don't think so, and 31% who are unsure either way." There wasn't polling in the 1690s, but it would be a safe bet that hanged witches in Salem Village had better support for their innocence. In one of the best examples of understatement in recent memory, the pollsters conclude, "Against that set of findings it's simply not very likely that many Trump voters will be moving into the Clinton column." This, of course, is not the first time that a candidate has been associated with pure evil. In 2013, the same polling group found "13% of voters think Barack Obama is the anti-Christ, including 22% of Romney voters." There are dozens of policy reasons to oppose any politician, including Clinton or Trump. Those decisions can reasonably stem from a person's faith or lack of faith. Linking Clinton to Lucifer, however, seems to require the same lack of reason as the bizarre logic brilliantly illustrated below.
As I said in this post from the last election cycle, I rarely vote for anyone; my votes usually are against someone. While live blogging Monday's events at the 2016 Democratic Convention, Harry Enten of the FiveThiryEightblog wrote,
One question I wonder about these days is where have the popular politicians gone? I just spoke about how Michelle Obama isn’t all that popular, and, despite the huge applause in this hall, neither is Elizabeth Warren. While many Americans still don’t have an opinion of Warren, those who do are slightly more likely to have a negative than positive opinion of her. That, combined with Clinton and Trump being two of the most unpopular nominees in recent history, makes you think that Americans are just pissed off at everyone.[Emphasis mine]
Because I am a perpetually angry human, my fellow citizens' being "pissed off at everyone" concerns me. To adapt a line from Dashiell Hammet's The Maltese Falcon, anger is "something you can't do judiciously, unless you keep in practice." Given that looking on the bright side is "a patriotic norm in the United States, a matter of national identity and an sacrosanct mantra of living as a red-blooded American," it's unlikely that most Americans have had enough practice to be judicious in their anger.
A body politic practiced in anger would have created a four-way race between Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein, and Gary Johnson. If the binary option is necessary, judiciously angry folk likely would have found far better vessels than Trump or Clinton. They certainly would be able to act with less petulance than the Sanders supporters in Philadelphia or the Trump faithful who booed Ted Cruz's injunction to vote your conscience.
The angry rookies should consider a return to optimism until after this election. Then, they can practice until they can be judicious in their anger. Elections shouldn't be left to novices.
If one reads certain reports and reactions of Senator Ted Cruz's address to the 2016 Republican Convention, he figuratively defecated on the carpet in Mr. Trump's living room. Others seem to believe Mr. Cruz deserves two chapters in an updated version of Profiles in Courage.
While many are trying to analyze, defend, or vilify Cruz, the fact that he spoke without endorsing Donald Trump may reveal more about Mr. Trump than it does Senator Cruz.
Mr. Trump's political success seems predicated in no small part on the belief that Trump says what he means and means what he says.
Cruz's speech gives the lie to that assumption. If Trump truly says what he means and means what he says, Cruz would not have spoken at all. According to a June 27, New York Times report, Trump categorically declared that no one who had not endorsed him, including Senator Cruz, would be allowed to speak at the convention.
“If there’s no endorsement, then I would not invite them to speak,” Mr. Trump said in an interview, adding that former rivals like Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio should not expect to address the convention if they continue to withhold their support.
Cruz offered no endorsement prior to his speech ,during his speech, or after his speech. Trump knew he would not.
The man constantly referred to from the podium as the world’s greatest negotiator went along with giving his last and strongest rival for the nomination a prime-time speaking gig knowing that Ted Cruz would not endorse him.
Those given a copy of the prepared speech indicated that Cruz would mention Trump's name only once. Further, the "vote your conscience" line that caused so much consternation was in the prepared remarks.
Since the RNC will probably lie and say Cruz changed his speech, this is the text the RNC sent out at 8:21p.m. pic.twitter.com/7g96QDBC4L
With no endorsement prior to the convention or in Cruz's prepared remarks, even the truest Trump believers will have difficulty that he said what he meant or meant what he said in this instance. Even a single failure is damning when a campaign is based on the cult of personality rather than issues. Perhaps that's why the true believers in the convention hall were doing their best to appropriate the Sam "Say It" Kinison and have Cruz take the Rodney Dangerfield from Back to School.
A simple Google search of the words "Trump" and "fascist" yields 6,900,000 results. I haven't heard an adjective applied to a person's name that frequently since Dan Aykroyd spent the entire film Dragnet protecting "the virgin Connie Swails." To call Trump a fascist implies he has a coherent political philosophy. It's not clear that Trump has any philosophy other than a belief that he should selfishly satisfy his ego, bask in puffery, and frequently issue 140 character insults. These qualities indicate he is a truculent demagogue, but while nearly every fascist leader is a truculent demagogue not all truculent demagogues are fascists. The most obvious illustration of Trump's lack of philosophical integrity is his complete refusal to follow Machiavelli's advice. In The Prince, Machiavelli urges leaders to avoid virtue when necessary but always to appear to have virtues:
Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.
Trump seemingly doesn't care if anyone views him as faithful or upright or merciful. In fact, he appears to relish being the most vile politician to seek the Presidency since George Wallace sought the office to continue legal racial segregation in the South. Contending that Trump is not a fascist does not mean one should doubt he would be a dangerous President. His truculence indicates he will brook no challenge to his efforts to enact whatever ill-considered whim strikes his fancy. Further, no one should doubt that a President Trump would use the power of his office to curtail civil liberties. Chris Christie, his first major endorser, has not, to the best of my knowledge, encountered a civil liberty he did not want to quash. Trump's entire campaign seems predicated on similar views. Although that fact makes him a threat, his distaste for civil liberties means a Trump administration would differ from the Obama and George W. Bush administrations in degree not in kind.
Quite frankly, calling Trump a fascist lends his campaign gravitas it doesn't merit. Trump is a fascist in the same way goose-stepping professional wrestler Baron von Raschke was a Nazi Now that I think about it, Trump has other things in common with von Raschke. Both are brilliant entertainers. Both are bombastic. When questioned both conclude "Dat is all da people need to know." Both combine weird facial expressions with bizarre gesticulations.
Baron von Raschke illustrating his Claw finishing move
Donald Trump illustrating that he's Donald Trump
Von Raschke and Trump share one other similarity: both are equally qualified to be President. That fact alone, not assertions that he holds a dangerous political philosophy, should dissuade everyone from voting for Trump.
