One Last Thing About The Election

I am asked all the time whom I will vote for, Harris or Trump. My unequivocable answer is that I am not going to vote for president. “What!?” – you may say. “You have a duty as an American citizen whose forebearers fought and died for your right to vote!” Well, I reply, I didn’t say I wasn’t going to vote, just that I’m not going to vote for a president. And the beauty of our system is that I won’t go to jail for not voting for the leader unlike some countries.

I regard my stance as a moral and principled one. Those of you who have been reading my columns know that my perspective is to look at how the candidates’ policies would affect the economy and our collective well-being. Would they negatively affect our prosperity? Would the consequences of those policies achieve the intended goals or be beset with unintended negative consequences? 

Both candidates’ policies have serious flaws which would be harmful to our economy and would result in making all classes of Americans poorer in the not-so-distant future. These policies would hit the middle- and lower-classes harder than those in the top 20%.

I can’t rightly say which candidate’s policies would be worse, maybe Harris’s, maybe not. But if I vote for the lesser of two evils I’m still voting for evil. Besides, if I voted for Trump my vote would be meaningless because California is a solid blue state and a vote for Trump wouldn’t count. Harris has already got the Golden State in her pocket. 

I am also asked whom I think will win. I usually answer that I know who is going to win, just ask me on November 6. I know what the polls say. Maybe they’ll be right this time, but I don’t have a lot of faith in polls.

This has been a very disappointing election season. It is as content-free as one could get. Harris keeps saying we need to go “forward,” whatever that means. Trump doesn’t make much sense in his rambling campaign stops. Both are trying to buy your vote with giveaways which, to use a value laden word, is pandering to you. If you are new to politics let me clue you in: almost none of these promises will be met because we don’t have enough money to pay for them. The candidates, or their handlers, know this, but it sure sounds good on the stump.

Both candidates’ policies
have serious flaws which
would be harmful to our
economy and would result in making all classes of
Americans poorer in the
not-so-distant future.

As President John F. Kennedy said, with apologies to daughters: “Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don’t want them to become politicians in the process.” He was a politician so he would know. The point being that candidates will say a lot of things to get elected, but don’t count on their promises. 

Harris is trying to move to the center and “represent all Americans.” Sounds just like Biden. He lied to us and went left, very left. I think Harris will do the same. Her instincts are left-Progressive and that’s what she knows. I don’t trust her. Nothing personal; contrary to her portrayal on the Right, she is an intelligent person, but she just can’t see past the Progressive playbook.

And Trump. I really don’t know where he is coming from. I don’t think he has a political philosophy. They say he decides issues transactionally – that is, how they would affect businesses, and probably his business in particular. I think that’s mostly accurate. He does say a lot of crazy things. If he wins we’ll have to see what he comes up with policy-wise other than cut taxes and build a tariff wall against the rest of the world. I don’t trust him either as the leader of this country and the free world.

I don’t think either Harris or Trump are capable occupiers of the Oval Office. They are short on ideas to grow the economy, preserve our freedoms, and make everyone better off. But they are what we’ve got and we put them there. 

I’ll leave you with a quote from my favorite curmudgeon, H. L. Mencken, 1920:

When a candidate for public office faces the voters he … must either bark with the pack or be lost. … All odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre – the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. … On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.