I don’t normally get this despondent about a presidential election until it is over – but when Cruz dropped out an effectively ended any real opposition to Trump, I succumbed to my usual post-election melancholia. Once again, I am faced with a GOP nominee I can only support as a matter of party loyalty, a strong opposition to the Democrat candidate and a hope that the GOP candidate can be a bridge to a more classical liberal future (the same as I did with Dole, Dub, McCain and Romney).
The truth is I can vote for Trump – not because I support him but because after the power of the Executive has been expanded to monarchial dimensions, to allow the Democrats to hold that power unabated for 12 or 16 years straight is simply unacceptable to me – and is dangerous to the survival of this country. Some have argued that Congress would find it easier to stop Hillary than Trump but given their performance during the Obama years, I have no reason to expect that she and the Democrats would not, as John Adams wrote, “…break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.”
During the two G.W. Bush administrations, the left constantly feared the increased in power of the Executive – the creation of a “unitary executive” with powers far beyond the control of Congress or the Constitution. After winning the Presidency, that fear morphed into support for the very thing they claimed to fear. They have quarried hundreds of thousands of granite blocks to add to the walls of the high castle the president now occupies. If we are truly lovers of liberty, is liberty best served by adding more blocks to that castle or storming the walls and laying siege to a future Orange King’s citadel?
I have no reason to expect a Trump presidency will be much different in the use of executive fiat than what we have just experienced. It will necessarily have to start in that manner to reverse the damages that Obama has wrought…and I get that but the question is this – after those are reversed, will it stop there? Somehow I don’t think it will – for there are too many on the right who will ask, “what good is all this power if we don’t use it?” Lord Acton’s quote seems appropriate: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.”
Which brings me to the angst I suffer in attempting to resolve my current conundrum.
Does it matter how we win? Is the victory tarnished with illegitimacy if it is achieved in a manner by which we have opposed for others to use? Do the ends really justify the means?
Where I struggle is that I believe the answers to those questions are 1) yes, 2) yes and 3) no.
One cannot fight intellectual dishonesty by applying a salve consisting of simply more intellectual dishonesty. That is a progressive trait – to try to “cure” a particular defect in society by vesting the same defect on a disfavored group. They “cure” discrimination by discriminating, “cure” inequality by treating others in unequal manners and they cure inconsistencies in outcomes by being arbitrary and capricious in the enforcement of laws. F.A. Hayek noted this in 1944 when he wrote: “Even the striving for equality by means of a directed economy can result only in an officially enforced inequality – an authoritarian determination of the status of each individual in the new hierarchical order.”
I believe how we win does matter. I can’t support a right wing autocrat any more than I can a left wing one because to do so is to abdicate the power to make my own choices – once a citizen abdicates the power to make choices for himself in order that some arbitrary authority may make those decisions, there is no limit to what decisions that authority will justify to make for them – there are no limits and anything can be justified – just think about the coercion rampant in Obamacare or the federal protection of “gender fluidity” for a couple of examples. Once a state controls behavior by deciding who can do what things, the aspect of who promulgates and enforces those rules becomes even more germane.
If we don’t care how we win, we risk eventually becoming that which we oppose. Therein lies the pain of my conundrum – how do choose between death (Hillary) and dishonor (Trump).
The Rio Norte Line 
Perhaps we must settle for incremental gains simply because in life you can never get everything you want. For me, if Trump’s presidency hastens the departure of those who currently control the Republican Party I will be content that at least some small progress has been made. As always I will continue to work at the local level to ensure those who attain office are truly conservative for that is where it counts the most. Sadly, our educational system is so dominated by the left that I greatly fear most voters have already been fatally brainwashed. I believe it is far more necessary to remove those who control education than it is removing the RINOs and socialists who are products of the education cabal.
I definitely dislike Trump and am certain that he would not be a exemplary President, however he would have to be less terrible than Hillary. I will hate pulling the lever for Trump, but if we don’t do so we will end up with Hillary as the next totally out of control POTUS.
The evil between two lessers. Londoners had the same conundrum: A tree-hugger lib or a radical Muslim. In their case, I reckon the end would’ve justified the means……….had they dropped their skinny jeans and grown a pair.
Lessor of two evils. Isn’t that what we’ve been doing since….forever ?
Isn’t that what we did with Dole, Bush I, Bush II, McCain and Romney ?
So we’re back to the same old game……and “they” won again.
“Long before our own time, the customs of our ancestors molded admirable men, and in turn these eminent men upheld the ways and institutions of their forebears. Our age, however, inherited the Republic like some beautiful painting of bygone days, its colors already fading through great age; and not only has our time neglected to freshen the colors of the picture, but we have failed to preserve its form and outlines.
“For what remains to us, nowadays, of the ancient ways on which the commonwealth, we are told, was founded? We see them so lost in oblivion that they are not merely neglected, but quite forgot. And what am I to say of the men? For our customs have perished for want of men to stand by them, and we are now called to an account, so that we stand impeached like men accused of capital crimes, compelled to plead our own cause. Through our vices, rather than from happenstance, we retain the word “republic” long after we have lost the reality. ” – Cicero, De Re Publica
The past IS prelude huh !?
Many great points in this post Utah !
This among those :..
“.. I have no reason to expect a Trump presidency will be much different in the use of executive fiat than what we have just experienced. It will necessarily have to start in that manner to reverse the damages that Obama has wrought…and I get that but the question is this – after those are reversed, will it stop there? Somehow I don’t think it will – for there are too many on the right who will ask, “what good is all this power if we don’t use it?” Lord Acton’s quote seems appropriate: ”
I think we may have a different outcome. One which is likewise dangerous and which weakens the balance of power of our Constitutional structure. That is that Trump WILL NOT use the EO or EA to undo anything that Obama has done. Implying that the Executive Order is above the Constitution…..in a similar manor that the Supreme Court has self-morphed into the legislative FINAL authority that it and the Congress assumes it is today. So that Trump taking NO EO to undo Obama’s unconstitutional EOs and EAs strengthens the Imperial Presidency and Obama’s action stand as legitimate precedent. Because Hillary would do the exact same….that is she would leave the Obama Regimes EO/EAs fully intact.
Thus the Hillary-Trump difference is on yet another angle, very slim indeed.
As Murtaugh said to Riggs:
“Slim — very slim!”
And Riggs answered:
“Anorexic!”
The “Slim-Jim” option seems to be today’s political “whim”.
Yeah, it stinks. But hey, I haven’t been satisfied w/GOP for the last two go-rounds. I held my nose and voted party loyalty. They lost anyway. So to heck with it. Trump is way more dreadful than McCain or Romney. I’d vote for Jeb Bush over Trump, now that’s a real cringe worthy statement. The GOP can’t guilt-trip me into party loyalty anymore. I don’t want Hillary to be pres, but I can’t, simply can’t, take ownership of Trump. He’ll probably win w/out my paltry vote. Maybe he’ll even prove me wrong. I hope he does. Well see. Cheers!
I will be hating every second required to vote for Trump in Nov. but I would rather do that then spend the next 4 years wishing I had, also then I can justify bitching about Pres. Hillary.
The Thing is Tim, Trump does have a good chance of winning. Then you would get to Bitch about Pres. Orange-Man. So for you it’s a win-win situation… ;- )).
If I vote for him and he wins I can’t justify bitching about how crappy he is………………..
Oh hell yeah you can Dusty !
That’s the beauty of the thing.
I guess I could kick myself in the ass…………………………………
LOL. HillBILLary and/or Orange-Man will do that fer yah …. for all of us.
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