The loyal opposition

Faced with this unappetizing set of prospects, it is interesting to observe the different responses of the intellectual elites on the Democratic and Republican sides. Both are right to castigate the evident weaknesses of the other. But the Democrats are far too likely to whitewash Clinton’s many flaws and to claim that there are strong positive policy reasons to support her candidacy. After all, they don’t have any qualms with her aggressive brand of progressive politics. Interestingly, the response of Republican elites has been much more fragmented. There are many distinguished Republicans who so fear the erratic Trump that they are willing to support the Clinton nomination, warts and all. At the same time, many other Republicans find the prospect of a politically destructive and morally bankrupt Clinton administration too much to bear, so they are supporting Trump’s election and hope to restrain him while in office. And then there are those, like myself, who find the entire situation so unsettling, and both candidates so lacking in merit, that they will not vote for either.

I do not regard this last choice as irresponsible. I am thinking of my vote not just as a way to determine the outcome of an election, but also as an expression of the policies and public officials whom I am prepared to defend. The selection of one candidate over the other is like the purchase of a complex market-basket of goods. The only choice given to anyone in an election is to purchase all the goods in a particular basket or none. In most elections, it is commonly possible to have enough confidence in a candidate and a party platform to make this kind of choice. But in this election, my strong doubts about the character and integrity of both candidates, and my deep reservations regarding the substantive positions of both candidates, lead me to one conclusion. I cannot adopt the theory of vote for the lesser evil when both evils are so unacceptable.

I know that nothing that I could say would influence the decision of a President Clinton or her supporters on domestic issues if they were to control government. Our intellectual and ideological differences are so profound that I doubt that there is any common ground for discussion. One prevailing view is that Clinton has no abiding principles, and thus is always open to moving one way or the other depending on what’s most politically expedient at the moment. Yet my own sense is that she will resist any fundamental shifts in policy, such as reform of the ill-fated individual mandate under the Affordable Care Act. On foreign affairs, she is harder to read, although it is disappointing that she has not distanced herself from the Obama policies on Iraq, Iran, and Israel.