Jim Webb and his wife Hong Le Webb.
Several people over the past couple of days have asked me “What are you going to do about the election?” By which they mean, who will the newspaper I edit endorse? Because I can’t “do” a damn thing about this circus or any other national election.
I am going to “waste” my vote on someone whose political positions and temperament align with my own. I decided I would vote for former Virginia senator Jim Webb the moment he announced his candidacy. What’s that you say? Oh, yes, the Marine author of the magnificent “Fields of Fire” and “Born Fighting,” a history of the great frontier people, the Scots-Irish; the Assistant Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Navy in the Reagan Administration, was, in fact, a candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for about five minutes before being unceremoniously shoved off the stage by a DNC machine bent on coronating Hillary Clinton.
I’ve heard all the arguments. A friend I respect deeply says, “Surely you think Clinton is better than Trump.”
Yes, I do. Trump is a narcissistic twit with the attention span of a four-year-old. If you can’t maintain your focus for a 90-minute debate, you can’t handle the 24/7 responsibilities of the office. His was a stunt candidacy that caught fire because so many people are so sick of the status quo. He would be a disaster as President of the United States, and it is shameful that the voters of this country are even considering placing a position of such awesome responsibility in his soft, manicured hands.
Yes, I’ll admit that Clinton is a better choice than a completely unqualified huckster who is at bottom a sniveling pussy. Big whoop.
Still wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton, not with a gun held to my head.
She is a fundamentally dishonest crony capitalist with no fixed principles other than maintaining her proximity to power at any cost. She IS the status quo that created the rage that has lifted Trump. She has looked us in the eye and lied to us over and over and over again. Easily. Comfortably. Shamelessly. From her phony laughter to her phony “convictions” she’ll change at the slightest shift in the political breeze, her sole consistent characteristic is a complete lack of authenticity.
The fact that she is a better choice than Trump speaks only to the utter bankruptcy of the 2016 presidential election.
So I will write in James Webb, because he’s a candidate I could have believed in if he’d gotten half a chance. Because he can think, and write, and fight, and he honors and embodies the frontier values of work, pluck and courage that we still need in our political and cultural life — and need desperately.
Because if we survive the chaos and tumult that will surely ensue over the next four years, we’re going to need to find some leaders who actually have character, who aren’t reality TV boobs and real estate sharks or career political operators who have found a way to trade access and influence for riches and prestige. We’re gonna need people like Jim Webb — so consider my vote not a “waste,” but simply a premature gesture of support for 2020.
Dick Sandvik says
Your voting for Jim Webb will have no impact on the Presidential election, because Oregon’s Electoral College votes will go to Clinton. I don’t like Hillary either and can’t quarrel with your assessment of her However, I can’t accept your logic. To me, the absolute most important impact of the election will be on the Supreme Court. Should Trump win and the Senate remains controlled by the R’s, we likely will see at least three more “Scalias” appointed to the court, which will affect our country negatively — IMHO — for probably a couple of decades.
That’s why I “scold” the Bernistas (all over the country) who want to “waste” a vote on Stein. The “long game” DOES matter, so whatever minimal impact I can have to avoid a President Trump — even declaring my vote for Hillary – is what I believe I need to do.
JimC says
Everybody has to do what their own dignity and conscience calls for in this slo-mo apocalypse. As I stated in my opening paragraph, no vote nor influence of mine is ever going to have an impact on a presidential election. Oregon is Deep Blue, no matter what I do, even if I could command thousands of minions to vote my way. If Webb was the nominee, Oregon would have gone for him and I’d have been hanging with the cool kids.
Pat_H says
If Oregon will go to Clinton, and if that’s a safe assumption, then voting for Trump achieves nothing whatsoever other than to perpetuate a system that gave us Trump and Clinton.
In the states where there’s a real question of whether Trump or Clinton will win, I think you have a moral duty to consider the implications of your vote. In that case, I’d have to hold my nose and vote for Trump, particularly given as Clinton will mean a disaster in the Supreme Court in all sorts of ways. But when you do not live in a swing state, maybe the obligation is to say “enough” and vote third party or independent.
Craig Rullman says
Webb +2 for dinner, please. The long game certainly does matter, but mostly in the arena of self respect and principle. The Supreme Court argument is tempting to take on but why bother? Some of the justices can’t even stay awake for that drivel known as the State of the Union, which reflects neither the state of things or the condition of our union. No. Webb is the best candidate who was once in the field. Therefore, he gets my conscientious vote.
Fletcher Vredenburgh says
Great and thoughtful, as usual. I like Webb. Clearly head and shoulders above HRC and DJT.
My choice was Ted Cruz (now merely a sniveling example of how far people will lower themselves to maintain their proximity to power) – because I’d love to see three more Scalias on the court. Even the court, though, isn’t enough to make me vote for Trump.
As you know his elevation was enough to make me leave the party of my family and to which I gave many days of my time. My stand against Clinton was in the Rep. primary. I voted and my guy lost. For the first time in 32 years, I won’t vote for president. Oh, I might write in a joke candidate, but pretty much, I’m just gonna sit back and watch the last six weeks of this garbage election.
For me the worst thing about Trump is he really is appealing to a legitimate fury over the nomenklatura that’s squatted on the republic for a century now. It’s a fury that terrifies the ruling establishment. Hell, Michiko Kakutani in the NYT ran a review of a huge new German biography about Hitler, and without saying it out loud, listed all the fuhrer’s points they clearly think mirror Trump’s. Then it does the same thing for Trump’s, er Hitler’s, supporters.
It’s a fury that will have its say at some point – the initial Tea Party movement and Occupy were harbingers of that. Not under the repulsive buffoon without a single cell in his body that isn’t utterly self-serving, but it won’t go away. Instead it’ll build and fester until we’ll almost wish Trump was president.
JimC says
I feel for you Fletcher. Have to admit I was taken aback to see Cruz debase himself like that. Guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. But just on a “man” level… In a more manly age there’d have been a duel. Sorry time we’re living in.
Fletcher Vredenburgh says
If we didn’t live in the age we do, I would have been shocked. I’m old enough that I should know better than to expect anything decent of our politicians.
Ryan says
Cruz was in his way worse than Donald; he’s a fundie jackass who most of the republicans hate (Mitch McConnell called him a “jackass”) and he seems to believe his own nonsense. Donald at least knows he’s a snake oil salesman.
Antonin Scalia was a vile piece of shit and if there is a hell he’s burning there for all eternity. He was happy to wipe his ass with the constitution when it suited him and his stance on the Death Penalty was downright evil (case in point; the signal case he always loved to trott out spectacularly fell apart before he died; the guys he cited as inhuman beasts were proven to be in fact completely innocent and the actual killer a depraved serial rapist who lived right next to the field where the body was found and who killed ANOTHER young girl a month later. The cops later lied and claimed they never suspected the rapist when in fact they had. Did Scalia apologize? hahahahahahahaha….no. He threw a bitchfit when a fellow judge pointed out that had he had his way an innocent would have been given the needle.)
Wayne says
I like Jim Webb and I’d vote for him if he had the Democratic nomination. I live in the key tossup state of North Carolina, so I have to make my vote count against Trump. If my favorite president, Theodore Roosevelt, were alive he’d floor Trump with one punch for a crack about his wife or his military service.
JimC says
Right? And for all his tough-guy bluster, Trump would whine, snivel and threaten to sue. I can’t understand why some of his supporters don’t see through him. He’s just a Manhattan playboy with no backbone to him at all.
Breaker Morant says
My guy is Trump-It is what it is, but your thoughts on Webb reminded me of Tony Dean, a long-time outdoors writer in the upper Midwest. He has been gone about a decade and towards the end of his life moved from the Republican side to being a conservative Democrat-I believe that he was mainly moved by all the wetland drainage and so forth.
Speaking as a life-long Republican, I think the country lost something important when we lost (for all intents and purposes) the conservative Democrat.
JimC says
Absolutely. And the Tom McCall/Mark O. Hatfield Republicans. A mighty donor class and a dogfight, activist-driven primary system have pushed both parties to kooky extremes.
Wayne says
There was a time when there were conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans who could cooperate to pass beneficial legislation instead of harping on extreme positions.
Wayne says
While we’re on the subject of politics, whatever happened to conservation and environmental issues in a presidential debate?
Pat_H says
I’m in a similar situation in that my state is going for Trump rather than Clinton.
As I don’t live in a swing state, I therefore have the option, and indeed perhaps the duty under these circumstances, to register a protest through my vote. It doesn’t matter that my vote won’t carry the day, I don’t have to go with either of these distasteful candidates and I’m not going to.
The entire two party system is, at this point, completely broken. Ideally it would be completely reformed to eliminate the party-centric, first past the post, system that has come to dominate. But for the time being anyhow, in this election, only those who live in swing states have the real burden of determining between Clinton and Trump and weighing the morality and import of that and therefore not going with a third party candidate.
I’m writing in the candidates running from the American Solidarity Party. It’ll be the first time I’ve ever gone for a third party. I don’t agree with 100% of its platform, but I do agree with it picking form the left and the right in its positions, along a rational logical path, and with its distributist economic platform. I know it will not win, but i’d like to see a statistically significant percentage of American voters register a protest where they can so that we can begin to reform this mess.
Fletcher Vredenburgh says
Just googled the American Solidarity Party and saddened to learn Matturen and Munoz aren’t on the ballot in NY – I would vote for them in flash.
Pat_H says
They aren’t on the ballot in my state either. I’m writing them in.
I guess that this year, lately, their ranks have really grown. They are still a small party, but with people looking elsewhere from the two old dying parties, they are picking up a little attention and a little press.