Edward and I have been watching the American election in growing alarm and appall this year. It’s just too disgusting to imagine. On the one hand you have clearly the most visibly corrupt politician in American history running as the Democratic nominee and on the other hand you have the most fascist and racist politician running as the Republican nominee. Both of these candidates are deplorable choices and we wish we could deport them, build a wall to keep them out, and make them pay the expenses. They could afford to do so.
Donald Trump has made a career out of enriching himself with other people’s money. Every review of his business dealings since the 1990s shows they ended badly in failure and bankruptcy. Donald Trump lost control of his casinos after losing 90% of investors’ money. Is that really a great recommendation for someone who is expected to create jobs and lower the budget deficit? Being President may be glamorous but it’s still just an administrative function. The President is expected to run the government bureaucracy and keep things afloat if not actually solvent. He will need an experienced administration team by his side if he is elected to the White House.
Hillary Clinton has made a career out of enriching herself at other people’s expense and even humiliating others into committing suicide. She has survived numerous scandal investigations but her behavior is consistent: she is always acting suspicious. And this year the FBI appears to have had real reason to charge her with crimes, but instead FBI director James Comey instructed his agency to destroy evidence even while extending unnecessary immunity to her staff and granting her an incredible interview on her own terms. The outrageous behavior by the former Secretary of State has even been criticized by Democratic appointees.
It should be obvious by now that we can trust Donald Trump to be Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to be Hillary Clinton. And yet people still voted for these two least desirable of candidates. Both of them bullied their ways into their parties’ nominations. Trump literally shouted down all his opponents during primary debates and ridiculed them to the point of speechlessness. Clinton did not have the numbers to win the Democratic nomination without the support of the super delegates who, if they had supported Bernie Sanders, would have been a much better candidate and would also have easily won on a first round ticket.
Unfortunately the people trusted with ensuring that this kind of corruption does not happen in our government are running the government. Congress will never pass any real election reform laws to protect the American people from the political party system. There was no provision for political parties in the constitution. And our first President, George Washington, stood as an independent candidate. Over time he came to favor the Federalist point of view (which supported a strong central government with progressive polices) but he was never formally affiliated with any political party.
We cannot unmake this election. We must choose between either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Yes, as many as 18 other candidates may appear on the ballots or be eligible as write-in candidates. Utah may vote for Evan McMullin, giving him a shot at a Presidency if both Clinton and Trump fail to secure 270 electoral votes. But his success is even less likely than the success of Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor who still enjoys wide support in his state. Johnson is running as the Libertarian candidate. Green Party candidate Jill Stein has rendered her candidacy ineffective with the silliest of stances on the issues, such as promising to slash the national defense budget in half.
Political corruption and incompetence are not new to US politics. If we were electing Presidents on the basis of their administrative skills and budgetary merits no one would ever have heard of them before. Skilled politicians are terrible leaders and less effective administrators. Our system of government, considered by many political science experts and economists to be the least inefficient form of government, still leaves much to be desired. We will never have a government of Naboo in Star Wars, where only the best, most ethical and moral, of candidates were elected to office. But would it not be nice to have such a system?
Instead we must make compromising choices. The American public chose badly when it elected a Republican Congress to oppose President Obama’s administration. Obama has not been a good President. He is more concerned about his legacy than he is about the harm he has done to millions of families in other countries. But the Republicans have stood against him on every good proposal he has made. Their uncompromising positions have led to a disastrous government shutdown, losses in benefits for millions of uninsured Americans who could have been helped by what became the Affordable Care Act, and Obama’s increasing use of questionable executive power. Instead of working with the President the Congress has made the White House a more independent and dangerous institution. It is doubtful the right checks and balances would be restored under a Hillary Clinton administration regardless of which party controls the House and Senate.
Trump has indicated he wants to take a hands off approach to being President. Some people have speculated he wants to be a figurehead, a mere “head of state”. And while he is rumored to have offered Mike Pence free rein in controlling the government we won’t know what that is like until it happens. Still, his every public policy statement has been derided by politicians on both sides of the aisle. Only the disenfranchised staunchly conservative white voters in America support Trump. The political pundits say that is not enough to elect him to the White House. The candidate who based his candidacy on hatred and intolerance has alienated millions of Hispanic, African, and Asian Americans. Even many white Americans detest him.
If we elect a Democratic Congress they won’t be able to control Trump but they would be able to work with the more moderate Pence, who even as a deep conservative politician has broken with Trump on several key issues. Pence has sold his soul to the devil, to be sure. His judgment on certain matters like Climate Change is abysmally naive. But he would be a better administrator than Hillary Clinton provided he had to work with a Democratic Congress.
We cannot afford to give the Republicans the power to lower taxes on the wealthiest of families. We cannot afford four more years of their anti-climate change rhetoric. We cannot accept their Americans-be-damned-support-the-party attitude. What we need is a way to get through the next four years so that Americans can look at new choices without having to worry about how to undo all the damage of the previous 12 years. We have already put up with far too much political shenanigans. It is time to send a message to both political parties: either clean up your acts or be voted out of power in the next election. And we need to continue sending that message every two years (1/3 of all Senate seats are elected every two years) until the political parties bow to the will of the people.