As a registered Independent, I consider more than party affiliation or partisan issues in choosing Republican and Democratic candidates, especially for President. Republicans think themselves the redeemers of the republic from the demonic forces of Democrats, and Democrats think themselves the defenders of democracy from the barbaric hordes of Republicans. So this political contest augments itself as a religious/cultural conflict as well—a kind of struggle which cannot preserve democracy. I prefer not to get embroiled in such irrational polemics, but, for the sake of full disclosure, I lean left.
The CNN Non-Debate(27 June) justifies a moratorium on more such nationally and internationally televised embarrassments. No one with an ounce of sense can think that the fact-free assertions, garbled utterances, and personal insults have anything to do with rational discourse, much less reasonable debate, between two men vying for the presidency. Who has the better golf game is a variant of who has the longer penis. By any metric, the United States is the world’s largest, strongest economy; has the largest, strongest military; and is either the most admired or most resented country in the world because of its ideals or its lapses from them. So I thought of the hundreds of millions in the worldwide television audience who must have asked themselves as they watched this sordid spectacle, is this the best that the United States can do.
But if I were like most Republicans, I would have been very pleased by Trump’s performance. He was vigorous and forceful in his delivery of his usual claims about his accomplishments and his usual criticisms of Biden’s policies and practices. Even if I knew that much of what he said disregarded, distorted, or denied the truth, I would have been pleased that he made his points and made such a sharp contrast with Biden.
If I were like most Democrats, I would have been disturbed by Biden’s performance. He looked and acted frail, was halting in his speaking, and often seemed confused in his answers. That appearance obliterated the truths of his answers about his and Trump’s records. Even if I knew that he had a cold, was affected by medicines given to suppress its effects, or was tired from travel, I would not have been pleased that his performance reinforced the idea that he is too feeble to function effectively in a second term.
Between these candidates’ performances, there is little to choose. If they reflect their capabilities and competence, neither candidate appears qualified to be president, though one might be less qualified than the other. The idea that this non-debate was more than political theatre, entertaining and profitable, even a basis for choosing between them, is absurd. When pundits’ points are analyzed and American viewers’ responses are tallied, the results cannot tell us anything about who would be the better president in his second term. Reasonable people of both parties might wish to have other presidential candidates in 2024.
The only thing which can tell us anything are results from the criteria used to judge the performances. The presumptive point of a real debate—I do not give this event that much credit—is to present the facts about each candidates’ policies, practices, and results, whether in commending one’s own or in criticizing one’s opponent’s. The facts are always true; “alternative facts” are the falsehoods of gaslighters. Trump’s claim to credit himself with the reduction of the cost of insulin from $400 to $35 was of a piece with almost all of his other claims: false or misleading. Biden made no such claims. One criterion, then, is a respect for the truth and the regard for telling it before a large national (and larger international) audience. One candidate lied, and the other did not.
The criterion of truth should need no defense, but, today, it seems to need one. Truth is not the only criterion of importance; principles and values other than truth are important as well. However, truth is prior because it is foundational not only to trust among people, but also decisions based on truth are more likely to get good results than decisions based on falsehoods. Decisions based on falsehoods are not going to have good results and may have bad ones, no matter who as president makes them. Johnson’s lies about Vietnam did much to scar generations about dishonest government.
In times of rapid demographic, economic, and technological change, millions of people, isolated, insecure, distressed, resentful, or angry seek guidance, direction, comfort, or inspiration from a candidate who presents himself as a strongman and whose dishonest claims offer what they want. When covid struck this country, former President Trump offered the false comfort of its quick disappearance and the false advice that it could be cured by injections of bleach. In thrall to supply-side economics, an ideology repeatedly proven false, Trump slightly lowered individual taxes and greatly lowered corporate taxes, increased wealth disparity, added trillions of dollars to the national debt, and got nothing for it. Despite overwhelming evidence of climate change, Trump declared it a “hoax,” undermined efforts to reduce the factors producing climate change and to mitigate its effects, and withdrew the U.S. from the Paris [Climate] Agreement. None of these decisions and others was based on truth, and none has had helpful results.
Former President Trump’s threat to truth will be greater in a second administration because he will have loyalists to assist him. He intends to put them in government agencies to report politically appealing or self-serving information or guidance based on selected or skewed data. He will have them jigger with the truth about air and water quality when his elimination of regulations results in higher, unsafe levels of pollution. He will have them limit research grants to colleges and universities unwilling to support his objectives. He threatens to limit access to public telecommunications to those media which support his ideological agenda, and eliminate regulations which support a stable economy and a predictable business environment. In short, he and his loyalists will set forth as truth what serves their short-term political advantage, not the nation’s welfare.
But the many with a short-term interest in their wellbeing and the few with a respect for their long-term interest will prefer a candidate more favorably regarded as truthful. That candidate would be the one opposing former President Trump. Presently, that candidate is President Biden. My calculus is quite simple: a frail but aging man who respects the truth and regards the national interest is a safer bet to make good decisions than a vigorous but aging man who disrespects the truth and regards only himself. I also factor in abhorrence of violence, compassion for others, and decency in language. I want my president to be one whose character, conduct, and communications, however well or poorly delivered, I can admire.
However, if Biden withdraws—and it appears increasingly likely that he will, perhaps as soon as this weekend—, he should be encouraged to go one step farther, to resign from office. There are two good arguments for his doing so. One, if he cannot run for re-election for whatever, no doubt, face-saving reason, he could not continue in office with the public’s confidence. Two, he would enable Kamala Harris to succeed him and thereby elevate the first woman to the presidency. Her presidency would foreclose rival candidacies and prevent an unseemly squabble at the party’s national convention. It would become a convocation of party unity and a celebration to introduce her to the public in the most favorable circumstances. It would give her a big send-off on the short campaign before the November election. (She would soon nominate a vice president who should not be her running mate because Republicans in the House and Senate would tarnish and reject him or her in the confirmation process.)
Then, there is my concern for the preservation of democracy. As a notable American entrepreneur once said, “all of us are smarter than some of us.” Only a democracy can represent all of us, “We the People.” And a majority of smarter people is likely to make better decisions than a minority of dumber people.
The Republican Party has abandoned democracy. It seeks to replace it with an autocracy, one-man rule. It seeks to disenfranchise voters by removing targeted groups (e.g., felons, students) from voter rolls, by impeding their ability to vote, and by devaluing their vote by gerrymandering. Though too late, even supporters will realize that they have shut themselves out of the decision-making process. They will learn that they can do little about a decision which they do not like. They will be ignored, silenced, marginalized, even demonized. They have only to consider how Trump speaks about those who dissent from his views to know how he or his lackeys will deal with them.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party adheres to democracy and its underlying principles and values. It has worked to expand the franchise to all citizens and encourage their participation in the electoral processes at local, state, and national levels. Its supporters accept that, when all participate in making a decision, the majority prevails. They believe, not in the rule of an oligarchy of plutocrats and cronies, but in the principle of governance stated in the Declaration of Independence, “the consent of the governed.” That means you, me, and the other guy. They know that Biden supports protecting the vote of those who have it and extending it to those denied but entitled to the vote.
If there is any lesson to be learned from recent elections, it is the importance of voting for the same party at all levels of government. So, in November, I shall vote in person, vote a straight party ticket, and keep my fingers crossed on one hand even if I have to hold my nose with my fingers on the other.
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