In 2016, I never, ever, ever considered voting for Donald Trump. I am a college-educated foreign affairs expert — I know my demographic destiny. Trump’s idiotic campaign seemed genuinely offensive, the worst degradation of American politics. As a person of the highest moral rectitude, someone who highlights that rectitude in any media hit, there was no way I could cast my ballot for him. But in 2020, like many of my “I dunno about Trump, but…” ilk, I may be forced to vote for the man. I may have no choice.
Hear me out — there might be a book pitch or a least an Atlantic essay in this very counterintuitive argument, and I need to road-test it.
Sure, as someone who prefers foreign policies grounded in the pursuit of American interests and American values, the Orange Man seems bad. Outside of the Middle East, he has excelled at weakening long-standing U.S. alliances and partnerships. Trump has repeatedly cozied up to dictators and autocrats across the world. He has decided to pursue an all-front economic war with China, the European Union, Japan, South Korea, India, the World Trade Organization, and a bunch of small countries I can’t be bothered to remember. He has appointed a motley collection of toadies, incompetents and corrupt individuals to manage foreign policy. He has eviscerated U.S. foreign policy institutions such as the National Security Council, the State Department, the Justice Department, the intelligence community, and the uniformed military. He has disparaged some countries as “s**tholes” and insulted a variety of groups, including ethnic minorities and female leaders. As someone interested in a robust foreign policy, I am horrified to see the president of the United States being perceived as universally unpopular. Leaders at the U.N. General Assembly and NATO have publicly mocked Trump.
All of these trends scare me. But then I look at Joe Biden, and he scares me even more. I am scared very easily! Perhaps I should see someone about that.
I made it very clear during the Democratic primaries that I could not vote for a socialist. Then the Democrats nominated Biden, and I had to search for even greater clarity to view Biden as a socialist.
What scares me about Biden? The better question to ask is, what doesn’t! I look at Biden and I see a seasoned, experienced politician who has pursued the presidency for close to four decades now. This is clearly a man who will automatically outsource his administration to the Manhattan-San Francisco progressive mores that increasingly permeate my daily newspapers. That must be why he ran in the first place! The only way for Biden to implement fringe left views was to knock out the preferred candidates of the folks who hold those views. This is just science! And science frightens me.
Nor do Biden’s national security positions reassure me. He would enact a reprise of Obama administration policies, and all we got from those eight years was a slow, steady recovery from the Great Recession with restored power and prestige. No one needs to revisit that dark era ever again.
Are there problems on the right? Sure. There is the QAnon candidate running for the House of Representatives, and the guy who Instagrammed his visit to Hitler’s redoubt, and the U.S. senators more obsessed with “Cuties” than actual real-world problems. But I read somewhere that a left-wing state senate candidate nominee did something real bad, and that guy could be the next Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. AOC terrifies me!
With Trump, I know what I am getting. His sins are on the outside. Biden is a Trojan horse, like John Hurt’s character in “Alien.” Sure, he seems nice and affecting on the outside, but how can I be sure that some baby Bernie Sanders head won’t poke out of Biden’s chest? I saw that movie when I was very young, and it scarred me for life. On a related note, I cannot be sure that Biden can stop Ridley Scott from making bad prequels. The risk is just too great.
With Trump, there are knowns. With Biden, there is nothing but unknowns, and the unknowns incapacitate my ability to think rationally. If Biden wins, will the left establish a tyranny of the woke? Will Sanders be appointed secretary of state? Will other Republicans be nice to me ever again? The GOP fights dirty when it loses — the first rule of Conservative Fight Club is to write op-eds about Conservative Fight Club.
To repeat, I did not vote for Trump in 2016. And I have publicly toyed with not voting for him in 2020 for years. But when I survey the American landscape and see a nation beset by recession, plague, civil unrest and corruption at the highest levels, I think, surely America under Trump cannot get any worse!
Biden could get worse. He could replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer with judges of a similar liberal bent. He could defund the police. True, he has expressly ruled that out, but what if there is an alternate-universe Biden with a goatee who has switched places with our Biden? Or what if Kamala Harris does something nefarious — I hear rumors! The risk of these contingencies is just too great to ignore.
You know what, I’m too scared to think straight right now. Even the prospect of Biden’s winning has forced me to retreat to my safe space. The long-form Atlantic essay version of this argument will have to wait until this country is secured. Trump cannot do that — but Biden might not. And that is the risk I have chosen to perseverate about until Election Day.
Pages: 1 2