Americans have a habit of threatening to move to Canada if a presidential election does not go their way; however, few actually follow up on this threat. While I am worried that Trump might be elected President, I have not made this threat and have no intention of leaving should the Trumpocracy come to pass. While some of my reasons are purely practical, I also have philosophical reasons. Getting to these will, however, require a short trip through some other issues.
When I was much younger, I was into politics and dreamed of holding political office. This dream gave way to cynicism about American politics and the embracing of anarchism and then apathy. I got better, though.
When I was an anarchist, I decided not to vote. This was based on the anarchist principle that voting is both ineffective and entails acknowledging the legitimacy of the oppressive system. When I became apathetic, I did not vote on the basis of an analogy to picking a movie. As I saw it, picking between candidates was like picking between bad movies. The rational choice, it would seem, would be not to pick any: vote none of the above. I accepted this until I had a revelation while watching a movie I did not like while on a date. Elections, it turns out, are like being on a movie date when only bad movies are playing. Since you are stuck going to a movie, you need to pick among the bad choices. The goal is not to pick what you like—since all choices are bad. The goal is to pick the least bad option. In the case of elections, you are stuck with the results if you vote or do not vote. If all the options are bad, you can still try to avoid the worst option by voting for the least bad. If all options are identical in badness, then you could avoid voting at all or use an alternative method. In my case, I often vote for the one that most resembles an animal I like or vote against the one that most resembles a creature I dislike.
There is, however, a downside to voting when you regard all the options as bad: you have become part of the process and are a party to the crimes of the person you voted for—should that person win. On the plus side, if you helped the lesser evil win, then you deserve kudos for preventing a greater evil.
One problem with becoming part of the voting process is that this would seem to acknowledge the legitimacy of the process (assuming one is not compelled to vote). This would seem to commit the voter to accepting the results of a fair election. Since it looks like it will be Trump vs. Hillary, when I vote for Hillary it would seem that I am accepting the voting process. This would seem to entail that when Trump wins, I have to accept that he is my president. This is required by consistency: if Hillary wins, I would expect those who voted for Trump to accept this result. This, of course, assumes that the election was fair—if it was rigged, then that is another matter.
Locke addressed this matter—he was well aware that the losing side in a vote might be tempted to refuse to go along. Locke’s response to the problem was to point out that doing this would tear apart the system and send us back to the state of nature. As such, he reasoned, we should follow the majority in regards to voting. This, of course, leads to the problem of the tyranny of the majority, something that could be used to argue that one should not accept the election of a person who will engage in such tyrannical behavior. My own view is that the election should be accepted on the basis of majority rule. However, the tyrannical, immoral, or illegal actions of an elected official should not be accepted. So, if Trump wins the 2016 election fair and square, then he would be my president. If he started implementing his various absurd, immoral, illegal and perhaps even unconstitutional harebrained schemes, then I would certainly not accept these schemes. This opposition would be based in part on Locke’s view of tyranny and in part on John Stuart Mill’s discussion of the tyranny of the majority. The gist of both is that a ruler acts wrongly if he uses the power of office in a way that is not for the good of the people or imposes on the liberty of others without the justification that it prevents harm to others.
So, if Trump gets elected, he will be my president. I will stay here—and will certainly do what I can to oppose his likely attempts to do awful, immoral, and illegal things. Oddly, I think that the Republican controlled congress will be on my side in most of these matters.
Damn.
“In the short time since Trump declared his candidacy, he has performed a public service by exposing, however crudely and at times inadvertently, the posturings of both the Republicans and the Democrats and the foolishness and obsolescence of much of the political culture they share. He is, as many say, making a mockery of the entire political process with his bull-in-a-china-shop antics. But the mockery in this case may be overdue, highly warranted, and ultimately a spur to reform rather than the crime against civic order that has scandalized those who see him, in the words of the former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, as “dangerous to democracy.”
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/frank-rich-in-praise-of-donald-trump.html
“The gist of both is that a ruler acts wrongly if he uses the power of office in a way that is not for the good of the people or imposes on the liberty of others without the justification that it prevents harm to others.”
Why does it take a meaningless popular vote and a subsequent electoral college ballot to achieve this? Rule by aristocrats and monarchs can be just as beneficial and they’re aware that their continuance in power depends on the satisfaction of most of their subjects. The democracy/republic sham is simply a subterfuge that attempts to make people think that collectively they have some control over their destiny. They don’t.
Mike, years ago you asked us to predict what terrible things would happen if Obama were elected. I predicted that Israel might not survive an Obama presidency. Israel is still here, so thankfully it is looking like I was wrong.
What terrible things do you think will happen if Trump is elected?
Exactly the question I’ve posed to the rabid anti Trump crowd. I usually get crickets.
I usually get crickets
Welcome to the fight…
I think the worst thing if Trump were elected, would be his deportation plan, if it were implemented would be a humanitarian nightmare. In order to handle the volume of detainees to be processed and moved, we would be looking at huge detention camps and the use of rail freight cars to transport to move them. An irony there is that one of Trumps biggest supporters, Alex Jones, has been warning us for decades that detention camps and mass rail transport of political prisoners in this country is just around the corner — and none of those terrible scenarios Jones has been warning us about has come to pass. The closest we have come to concentration camps in recent history has been ICE detention centers. How, under Trump’s plan would we be able to provide any judicial due process for the detainees in anything resembling a speedy trial? Unjustly detained full US citizens could be in those ICE detention camps for years before they have a chance to plead there case. Of course, I’m sure our private prisons will see Trumps plan as a windfall and they will do everything the can to draw out the detentions in order to pad their bottom line regardless of an injustice that results. And given Trump’s thin skin, I wouldn’t put it past him to find a way to get his critics to be ‘accidentally’ swept up in all the deportations and be sent to one of those Stalinist American Gulag immigration detention centers.
He doesn’t actually have any policies, so I would have to make guesses based on his assertions about walls, winning, and whites.
Guess away!
1. Make hats.
2. ?
3. Win.
What were Obama’s policies before he was elected? BTW, Trump was the first to show a complete tax plan. He has far more experience than the other candidates in dealing with real issues. The others have whimsically made decisions in areas that barely effected them, if at all. If Trump fails, I’ll vote for someone else next time. This country is in trouble. A wall is not something so radical it renders comparisons to Hitler valid. Mexico has a wall. Many countries throughout history have walls.
Trump has expressed many more ideas on policy than any other candidate. Same things he’s been saying for decades, too.
https://www.facebook.com/DisdainForPlebs/videos/1020610168019430/?pnref=story
Trump says many things, but things like “win” and “we’ll make Mexico pay” are not policies. This is not a criticism from the dew eyed moonbats, but from conservative thinkers.
I can’t imagine Romney making an ad like this, even after the Dems accused him of murder. This is why Trump may win.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cqWQ2ykC0C4
And our intellectual betters are aghast at why people are voting for Trump. Of course, this is neither here nor there. Can’t do anything about this as POTUS. It’s a local issue. It has nothing to do with political correctness. It’s all very complicated. You little people just don’t understand these grown-up things. There are no slippery slopes. And Trump’s ideas have little or no philosophical merit.
http://miami.cbslocal.com/2016/03/11/teen-burglary-suspect-killed-homeowner/
1) better trade deals with China and Japan. Calling out China on its currency manipulation.
2) enforcing our immigration laws. Calling out the Mexican government, which has a wall between Guatemala and mexicos southern border, for releasing thousands of criminals and pointing them north.
3) calling out business for employing leaving and employing cheap labor in Taiwan, saying he’ll put a stop to it.
4) saying that the 2nd amendment has been eaten away, and he’ll stop the erosion.
5) saying that law enforcement deserves respects and has been unjustly portrayed in the media
6) stating that our military is being gotten and that America’s military should always be strong.
WTF is wrong or extreme about these things ?
* military is being weakened*
How much of what Trump supporters believe about Trump is reality and how much is a combination of him saying what he thinks people want to hear that will help him reach the presidency and also what his supporters have attached their own beliefs to him? Keep in mind, Trump has never held political office nor, as far as I know, written anything resembling a philosophical treatise on social political matters. I think Trump is largely a blank slate that a lot of his supporters write there own hopes and dreams on.
There is no way to know what someone will do when they become president. I took Obama at his word when I did not vote for him. He didn’t disappoint.
Dude, you have stated that you usually vote for the Socialist Workers’ Party candidate. To dismiss Trump supporters as being deluded is a bit delusional.
Don’t forget the Netflix option, ie Jill Stein.
Quote from a friend of mine:
“I paid $20k in total taxes last year & still owe $2k more. Bernie Sanders can eat a whole bag of dicks.”
Gee, why would we want to want to push back on the incremental destruction of individual agency by the socialists and crypto-Communists? Why would I vote for Trump, who’s proposed tax plan caps taxation for all income levels at 25%.
Destroy socialism and communism wherever you see it.
But how much did he make? Is $22K too much and unfair or not? Also, there is the question of where the tax money is going now and where it would go under Sanders.
How much did you pony up yourself? Taxes paid to the Feds are more than just income taxes, which are only a little more than a third of revenues. Taxes on imports, fees on businesses, ad valorem, estate, social security, etc. are also passed on to the people who actually produce the wealth.
The total tax burden for this country, what the Feds collect each year, is 3.3 trillion dollars. The local and state combined add up to a matching 3.3 trillion. On a population of 300 million, this works out to $11,000 for every man, woman, and child for just the federal side. Another $11K for local and state. Of course, not all those people pay income tax.
In addition to the taxes paid, the share of the national debt for every man, woman, and child is well over a quarter million dollars.
As for where Sanders would spend, Health and Human Services is already the biggest pig at the federal trough. Enough already.
Sanders says he’ll increase taxes.
Story about the kind of filthy stinking rich people that Bernie Sanders and Mike would want to raise taxes on.
http://www.yourobserver.com/article/pool-paradise
He’s looking more conservative all the time. How do you feel about non-interventionist foreign policy, Mike? I personally love the idea.
“Trump questions need for NATO, outlines noninterventionist foreign policy”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/03/21/donald-trump-reveals-foreign-policy-team-in-meeting-with-the-washington-post/
Leaving NATO as Russia rises would be a very bad idea.
Have you seen what other countries give to NATO as their contribution? They don’t even meet the chartered agreement.
And the other Armies in NATO are flaccid. Impotent. And they’re impotent exactly BECAUSE America is in NATO–they can afford to be impotent. All NATO does is require America to act in situations that may not truly be in its best interest. We can always choose to act if we need to, we don’t need NATO for that.
We do benefit from having bases around the world. Also, it is better to have countries in NATO rather than heading to ally with Russia.
‘Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent Alliances, with any portion of the foreign world.
George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/03/a-terrorist-attack-has-happened-in-europe-let-the-standard-response-begin/
There’s more…oh, so much more. But you know the story, right Dawg?