Trump is a horror – but then so is the Republican Party

In an earlier post I claimed that it was the moral duty of all American citizens to oppose Donald Trump’s attempt to become U.S. president by the most effective means available to them. For most citizens, of course, this means voting for Hillary Clinton.

My favourite American pundit, Charles Pierce, points out (for the nth time) what a danger Trump is in his recent post: “This Isn't Funny Anymore. American Democracy Is at Stake.” Pierce doesn’t pull any punches (not that he ever does): “Anyone who supports Donald Trump is a traitor to the American idea.” 

His conclusion:

Here is the truth. Nobody called for a moment of silence for Micah Johnson. Eleven U.S. cities are not on the brink of racial violence. He, Trump just made that shit up so his followers can stay afraid and angry at the people he wants them to fear and hate. This lie was a marching order and the Party of Lincoln is right in step with him, straight into the burning Reichstag of this man's mind. 

Welcome to the 2016 Republican convention: a four-day celebration of the ritual suicide of American democracy. 

With balloons.

Sadly, the fact of the matter is that most of the candidates whom 'the Donald' vanquished were pretty horrible as well (they simply were more subtle in expressing their racism, misogyny, homophobia, inegalitarianism, and intolerance). The Republican Party has become an extremist party, one now closer in its rhetoric and agenda to France’s National Front or Britain’s UKIP than the party of Lincoln and Eisenhower.

But lest despair overwhelm us, I recommend the following two pages that mock the Donald:

1. This one mocks Trump by imagining what kind of Dungeons and Dragons ‘Dungeon Master’ he would be in a series of tweets. It’s called (appropriately enough) ‘Dungeons and Donalds.’

2. This one replaces Calvin’s head with Trump’s in a number of classic ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ strips. No dialogue is changed! The aptness of Trump uttering Calvin’s lines indicates that intellectually he on par with a six year-old cartoon boy. (And the expressions on the photos of Trump’s face that are pasted into the strips are perfect.)

The moral duty of American citizens to vote against Donald Trump

Political theorist (and friend) Julia Maskivker has a recent piece in the Washington Post: “Yes, you do have an obligation to vote for the lesser of two evils. Here’s why.” I think that her position is spot on.

The forthcoming American presidential election will be between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. It is clear which of these two candidates is the greater evil: the unstable, narcissistic, quasi-fascist Donald Trump. Trump plays to, and is in large part supported because of, the authoritarian impulses and racial resentments of many white American men.

I am no fan of Hilary Clinton. Her foreign policy record is too hawkish for my comfort. And based upon her past positions and ties to Wall Street, I have little confidence that she will pursue genuinely liberal and egalitarian domestic policies, especially within the economic domain. But Clinton is the candidate whom the Democrats have chosen, and whatever her flaws, I cannot comprehend how anyone can deny that she is several worlds more competent than Trump. His destructive and incoherent policy views aside, I find it unimaginable that someone so manifestly unbalanced – a person in the grip of a juvenile ‘dominance’ view of political relations – could have control over the United States’ nuclear arsenal.

There is no grey area in – or room for ‘reasonable’ debate concerning – this US election. American citizens have an overriding moral duty to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president. And voting for Clinton is simply the most effective means that most citizens have to fulfil this duty.