The American presidential election is twenty-one days behind us, but it seems much longer. Donald Trump handily defeated Kamala Harris, both in the popular vote and Electoral College, and the Republicans also have control of both houses of Congress. Supposedly it was going to be a nail biter of an election, with the female vote key and abortion the paramount issue. That didn’t happen. There has been much to digest.
Four days after the election I read a curious letter to the Wall Street Journal by Virginia Butterworth of Middletown, R.I., complaining of the writer Peggy Noonan’s choice in voting:
“‘We believe in democracy. It’s a spectacular gesture of commitment’ (“A Great Democracy Faces a Bad Choice,” Declarations, Nov. 2). Yet for the third presidential election in a row, she [Noonan] announced that she won’t vote for either major-party candidate, preferring to write in. What kind of democracy would we be leaving her new grandson if we all followed her lead and nobody made the tough choice?”
Butterworth is arguing, I think, that Peggy Noonan should hold her nose and vote for Donald Trump, who Buttersworth argues is the least bad choice – the lesser of two evils. Butterworth seems to say that Noonan is abdicating her civic responsibility in writing in a “non-serious candidate.” In refusing to make a “tough choice,” Noonan is making the wrong choice.
This stung me to read.
Firstly, because I immensely respect Peggy Noonan. I always look forward to reading her perceptive, insightful “Declarations” column each week.
Secondly, I also voted for a write-in “non-serious candidate” in this election. Noonan and I are obviously thinking along similar lines! In the 2020 election I voted for my friend and co-worked Dan FitzPatrick. Last month I did the same again:
Would Virginia Butterworth also point the accusatory finger at me? Was I chickening out in voting for Dan as POTUS? After I informed my daughters of what I had done, they angrily claimed I was “wasting my vote.” Fair enough.
But I must take some time to explain my reasoning. It will be a cold day in hell before I vote for Donald Trump. I have spoken about why in the distant past, and also more recently, and nothing has changed my mind on that. A tiger does not change its spots. I always loved George Orwell’s quote, “‘To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” With Donald Trump, that quote is more true than usual. He is a loose canyon, a self-promoting blowhard. Trump is not a serious politician. He is in it for himself more than for his country. He is a “populist,” an outsider.
Of course that is the line Trump is running for president on. And he won.
But I was torn right down the middle between the candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. It was a dilemma for me. I struggled to choose between the two. Finally, I chose neither.
On the one hand, I have appreciated that Harris at least tries to reach out to her political opponents, and to seek to lead the entire country. Harris is a strong supporter of NATO, which I appreciate. Trump’s desire to unravel alliances and relationship overseas in the name of “America first” is horrible. Trump as president would be a loose canyon which might hit God knows what. Kamala Harris is reading the script of a “responsible citizen.” I am inclined to vote for that. When my daughters pushed me, I said if that I had to choose between Trump and Harris, if the election came down to me, I would vote for Kamala Harris.
And yet. I’m not sure I would.
And my vote in California doesn’t matter anyways, thanks to the Electoral College.
This is how I saw it: the increasingly senile Joe Biden was forced by high levels members of his own party to drop out of the 2024 presidential race a mere three months before the election. The Democratic Party™ elites then held an emergency meeting and quickly decided that an untested Kamala Harris would take his place on the ballot. Then the Establishment Democrats raised almost 1.5 billion dollars in just three months to fund her ascension. They got pop singer Taylor Swift to endorse Kamala Harris, Beyoncé to play a concert for her, and Oprah Winfrey to do a televised friendly interview. They got Barack Obama out of mothballs to plead endlessly for Harris, and his wife Michelle Obama made a speech where she claimed all right-thinking men who love the women in their lives should vote for the female candidate – “A vote for him [Trump] is a vote against us [women].” The sisterhood was in full swing: they had pulled out all the stops. The powers-that-be brought in their biggest “influencers.” It was quite a media spectacle — behold the wannabe matriarchy:
I wondered to myself, “Is this the political party of lefty ladies? And their ‘beta’ men?” All the estrogen-infused cheerleading almost made my ovaries ache. The whole thing appeared very staged. (And if Taylor Swift is going to vote one way, the prudent voter should probably vote the other way. Just sayin.)
But those were relatively minor quibbles overshadowed by far more serious questions about Kamala Harris and her campaign: Were Washington DC Dem insiders taking an untested candidate and foisting it on the rest of the country? Was Harris mouthing empty platitudes in the hope of attracting independent voters? On the campaign trail was she relying on a scripted vibe of “joy” while avoiding taking any difficult positions on hard issues? Did Harris come across to voters as fake and vacuous? Kind of an unknown entity? I think it was “yes” to all these questions. (In contrast, voters knew exactly who Donald Trump was.)
Or more to the point: Was there more enthusiasm from Democratic Party elites and wealthy celebrities for Kamala Harris than from average voters? (Obviously so.) Should any future Democratic campaign muzzle George Clooney and Barbara Streisand? (Obviously yes.) And should Barack Obama play more golf and stay retired? (Ex-presidents recede into the background and avoid partisan politics for good reasons.) And was Trumpian right wing populism in 2024 going to steamroll any Democrat at the head of the ticket in this election? (I suspect so.)
But first things first: What was my problem with Kamala Harris? Well, she was a Bay Area politician from way back. True, Harris conspicuously tried to avoid progressive causes from California while running for president, and I appreciated that. (What would happen if Harris had won the election I’m sure would be much different.) Here is the thing: I’m from California. I know Democrats here, and particularly those from the Bay Area.
Let me tell you a story. I remember being up in Oakland, California around 2017 visiting family. I woke up early in the pre-dawn darkness and went for a walk up Telegraph Ave. Many of the Oakland store fronts and restaurants along that street had posted large signs conspicuously stating that “all people, regardless of their immigration status” were welcome in their place of business. They placed these signs prominently in the store windows and I read them in the early morning semi-darkness. This was all because of Trump’s election to the presidency in 2016. I was amazed in reading these notices. “Who do these people think they are?” I thought to myself.
Nobody was telling anyone in Oakland they couldn’t enter those places, of course. These notices were pure Bay Area performative politics, meant to make themselves feel morally superior to others, while actually doing nothing in real life. It was like those sanctimonious signs some people put in their front lawns. That was just the beginning. You would come to see pink “pussy hats” and other such symbols of the “Resistance” and “anti-racism,” and much other such grievance mongering. This is the political perspective which complains about “white supremacy” and “incipient fascism.” It is the worldview which later gave birth to encampments protesting “Gaza genocide” on college campuses and “settler colonialism.” Ethnic studies and identity politics. “Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity.” Oppressors and victims ad infinitum. Word policing from “woke scolds.” Land acknowledgements. The “BLM” and “BDS” movements. Latinx. It goes on and on. “What are your pronouns? Mine are….” The politicized language of campus activism in America was seeping into the wider body politic. As one pundit back in 2018 wryly observed: “We are all living on campus now.” It is worse today in 2024.
This was a negative and backwards trend for our county, not a positive and forward one, in my view. And activists from academia and their aggressive politics were a good sight beyond anything most Americans would support: Trump populism would feed on this fact like a rat on moldy garbage. Ideological overreach had electoral consequences in 2024. Kamala Harris wisely avoided radical chic progressive causes while campaigning for President, but I never forgot she was Berkeley, California born and bred. Kamala might read whatever was on the teleprompter in front of her but whatever. As I said earlier, a tiger does not change its stripes. I would not fail to see what was right in front of my nose.
I could not vote for a Bay Area progressive for President, and I was sort of surprised the Democratic Party tried that in a national election. The only practical result would be division and discord: this is what I have seen in my native state. In some deep and dark place, the progressive Democrats in deepest blue America genuinely dislike their country, its history, and huge chunks of its people. If you cross them, they will come after you; these are not the “live and let live” types. They will try to “cancel” you. I have seen this first hand. (Of course, Team Trump is offering much the same stuff from a completely different angle.)
From my time as an undergrad at UCLA through working in California public schools over almost forty years, I have encountered this sort of progressive politics up close. For a community ostensibly preaching tolerance, they are some of the most intolerant people I have ever met. And whoever is against those people, I am inclined to vote for them. Simple enough. So this is how I view Kamala Harris as a possible POTUS, coming from the Oakland and Berkeley community that produced her and which she has represented. Vote for that? Ah, no thank you. A co-worker of mine predicted Kamala Harris would not win the election because America would not vote into office a “California liberal,” even as this work friend herself was just such a California liberal. She turned out to be right.
But vote for Donald Trump? Support the MAGA movement? Get under the sheets in the same political bed with noxious persons like Majorie Taylor Green and Matt Gaetz? Or those blowhards who drive trucks around in our local roadways in parades with Trump flags flying in the air? ( who the fuck you think you are link)
That being said, I have next to no experience with the pro-Trumps types. I suspect I wouldn’t like them. But I live in California. I work here. It is the other side of the coin. I come into contact with the confrontational LGBTQIA+ types. (Even that awkward, overly-long acronym “LGBTQIA+” has grown to become almost a parody of itself.) You are an “ally” or an enemy; you are with them or against them. Everything is “culture war” and constant conflict; this election of 2024 was as much about “culture” as it was about “politics.” True, the grumpy Trumpkins like Charlie Kirk and Laura Loomer are exactly the same on the other end of the “horse shoe”-shaped political spectrum from the racial justice grifters like Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo. The rival extremes are much the same, like the street brawling fascists and communists were in Weimar Germany. “Fascism and communism are not two opposites, but two rival gangs fighting over the same territory,” claimed Ayn Rand. She could be describing a pack of “Antifa” and “Proud Boys” squaring off in a riot in an American city today — in our social media era, the extremes are where the energy is. Those are the voices which get amplified by computer algorithms. We are obviously in the “burn it all to the ground” stage of politics in the identity politics left and the MAGA manosphere right. In a polarized America, the middle is long gone. What we have is rank tribalism, along racial and gender lines, among others — both online and off. Yuck. No wonder so many Americans, myself included, keep politics at arm’s length.
But there still remained the same question: Who to vote for in the 2024 presidential election? The “responsible” politico Kamala Harris? She was the one who ran towards the center of the political spectrum in her campaign, and Harris looks like she at least understands what the rules of American politics are (unlike Trump). Vote for her? The idea makes me queasy, for the reasons I explained. Or vote for Donald Trump, that blustering blowhard? I know what I would get with Harris, more or less. Nobody really knows what Trump would be. Not really.
Trump is a presidential campaigner sui generis. Trump is an entertainer-politician, our first social media president. He is without equal. Marketers will study Trump raising his fist after his initial assassination attempt, or working at McDonalds, and they will marvel at his genius for the photo op:
When Joe Biden appeared to call Trump’s followers “garbage” less than a week before the election, Trump went and drove around in a special “Trump garbage truck” wearing reflective gear — that was genius! (Was this Trump’s idea? Or some savvy advisor of his?) This much is clear: as the bête noire of the American left, Donald Trump (the hated “orange man”) lives “rent free” in his enemy’s heads and feeds on their psychic energy. Their ire fuels his ego and powers his popularity. That is Trump the campaigner. What a force of nature!
Then there is Trump the politico. In that role he has serious limitations. Trump has general sympathies, not concrete policies. Trump claimed in his first term, after all, that he would build a “big beautiful wall” protecting the USA from Mexican immigrants and fentanyl smuggling, and that Mexico would pay for it. Didn’t happen. God knows the mess Trump could make in office with his bull-in-a-china-shop show in a second term! Would the Trump Administration abandon the Ukrainians who have fought so hard and suffered so much against Putin’s Russia, and allow NATO to be shown as an empty shell? Effectively undoing decades of careful work by American statesmanship going back to George F. Kennan and Harry S. Truman? It’s unthinkable. Would President
Trump do that? It takes time, labor, and expertise to build a barn. But any jackass can burn one down in half an hour. America, caveat emptor!
President Trump will get mugged by reality when he takes office in early 2025. He, and America, will be knocked down by blows they didn’t see coming. Did we see COVID-19 coming? The outbreak of violence in Ukraine and Gaza? Wars and rumors of war moving forward? A thousand different problems in a thousand different places. Maybe the gods are punishing Donald Trump by allowing his dreams to be answered in gaining a second term as POTUS. Maybe it’s his own country which will be punished. The people get the leaders they deserve in a democracy. We shall see.
So I don’t know. The Scylla of Kamala Harris? Or the Charybdis of Donald Trump? Pick your poison? The lesser of two evils? The devil you know rather than the one you don’t? Peggy Noonan refused to choose between, in her words, the Awful (Trump) and the Empty (Harris). She would write-in a third candidate. “Should I do likewise?” I asked myself. This had been a quandary I struggled with for months.
I could see either candidate win and I would be happy, in certain ways. I could see either lose and also be happy, in other ways. That is a consolation, at any rate. I was far from enthusiastic for either side, obviously. My sister is all-in for Kamala Harris. My dad is all-in for Donald Trump. Either will look askance at me if I vote for the other side. So I will say nothing to them. But I knew what I would do. I had thought long and hard about it.
Since both major candidates were so obviously flawed, this what I finally did: I voted for neither. That is my right. I voted for Dan FitzPatrick. No apologies. To my daughters, Julia and Elizabeth: this is why I voted as I did. This was too complicated to say to you face-to-face, so I wrote it down. Likely you will read this years from now. I hope you understand.
Maybe this is my way of saying I am for NOBODY in the current electoral climate. Me and Peggy Noonan both. Maybe that is a cop-out, as Virginia Butterfield asserts. But I have my reasons. The American political landscape is divided and disordered, and therein the Red Team just won a narrow but significant win against Team Blue. Next election it will likely go the other way. But I’m not joining either team. Now or ever.
I have always hated the smelly orthodoxies in most workplaces, all political parties, and every academic institution I ever served. I always agreed with Juan Ramon Jimenez when he said, “If they give you lined paper, write the other way.”
LAWN SIGN BATTLES IN POLARIZED AMERICA:
Left vs. Right
“To my daughters, Julia and Elizabeth: this is why I voted as I did. This was too complicated to say to you face-to-face, so I wrote it down. Likely you will read this years from now. I hope you understand.”
