ELECTION 2016: CLOSER THAN THE POLLS ARE PREDICTING?

National Affairs

We Americans have the right to vote this year for messy, disorganized and possibly vulgar change – or an expansion of what I have dubbed the Reign of Error.

Not a pleasant choice, is it?

Donald Trump is a vain, touchy, coarse and vulgar man.  He wouldn’t be the first US president to have such characteristics.  He can’t hold a candle to Lyndon Johnson in the vulgarity department and it is too late in his life for him to catch up to John Kennedy and Bill Clinton in the taking-advantage-of-women department.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has been caught in a web of lies since she was first seen on the national stage.  These have been well-documented and continue to this very day.  We know her public persona and, more and more, we also know her private persona – and promises, for instance, to Goldman Sachs that contradict her public statements.  Her life has been a series of mis-steps and cover-ups that others have gone and will go to jail for.

Messy Vulgar Change or a Reign of Error?

This makes this election one of the toughest ever to call.  Neither candidate is angelic, though both try to make us think they are.  We know better.  Both candidates this year are persons of dubious character, each in their own way.  That leaves us voters their platform and their prescriptions to improve what ails us as the two areas in which we might make a more informed decision. 

Some well-educated and financially successful voters are aghast at the possibility of another LBJ.  Yet it was LBJ who changed the face of the nation with his arm-twisting, deal-making and blackmailing of Congress to ram through effective civil rights legislation.  He was an agent of change when the country most needed changing.

Many middle class Americans, on the other hand, have seen their jobs lost to overseas slave or cheap labor so financially successful Americans could buy “things” more cheaply.  These befuddled voters can’t understand why anyone would vote to continue the current Reign of Error.  They have seen their jobs vanish, their homes taken from them because of Wall Street and bankers’ greed, and their children’s quality of education, and educational choice, diminish.  They wonder how anyone could vote for a candidate who promises to carry on the current travesties, while adding even more.

For what may well be a surprising number of American voters, this is a game of Truth or Consequences.  The truth, as they see it, is that our nation has been on the wrong track since before the most recent recession.  But worse, far worse, is that things didn’t improve as the recession ended.  Not for most.

But this truth is one which transcends mere personal financial gain.  It includes:

* a dangerously reduced capability to defend the nation against external threats,

* an America that is no longer respected or trusted by those who would be our allies,

* an America that is becoming a global laughingstock, pushed around by not only a resurgent Russia and imperialistic China but by third-world dictators,

* an administration that believes no nation should stand alone even if standing alone is the right thing to do; we should instead consult with “our friends” in Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Myanmar and elsewhere,

* and Americans like those tens of thousands of coal miners in Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia, who are thrown out of work because of some grand Stalinist-type scheme to change the world, then are told “It’s OK.  We’re going to give you welfare and nutritional assistance.”

Welfare is not work.  Becoming wards of the State is not worth it so that the USA may set an example of less greenhouse gases to the rest of the world, which example the rest of the world will surely follow.  Or not.

This brings us to what many voters see as the consequences of these truths: they believe we have lived in a Reign of Error both domestically and globally for too long. They are ready for change.  I believe they may not be willing to tell a pollster they could actually bring themselves to vote for Donald Trump, but in the privacy of the voting booth?  We may yet be surprised that this will be a much closer election than currently forecast.

Hillary Clinton is likely seen by many of those who consume news, rather than the literati who aspire to write it, as part of the problem and in no way a solution.  They see a Clinton presidency as not just perpetuating the class divisions in America, but extending them further.  A couple samples from her platform:

Free College Education for All!   There is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch.  Who really pays for this “free” education?

A Single Payer System of Health Care by Any Other Name.  There is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch.  Who pays when providers are bankrupted and individuals see their rates rise astronomically? 

Continued Lowering of US Stature and Defenses / Negotiating with Tyrants.  Who pays, and in danger, not dollars, when secret codicils to the Iran nuclear talks are deemed too sensitive for mere voters – or even Congress, the peoples’ representatives, to be allowed to see them?

A Shift to the Far Left.  It didn’t work in Russia.  It didn’t work in China.  It didn’t work in Cuba.  It isn’t working in Venezuela or scores of other places so, what the heck, it attracts a certain bloc of voters, so let’s give it a try here. 

Duplicity.  This has to be said.  Using dirty tricks against Bernie Sanders to discredit any real opposition?  Saying one thing about Benghazi then saying “I don’t remember?”  Destroying 32,000-plus e-mails and droning, “I can’t recall?”  Sending Secret (defined as “serious damage to national security” if divulged) and Top Secret (“grave damage”) messages on a private server easily hacked by foreign agents and saying, “I didn’t know they were classified?”

There are many in America who dislike Donald Trump’s style, or lack thereof, and believes he is simply too volatile to lead the nation. But that same base also distrusts Hillary Clinton and believes she might be able to lead the nation – but in a direction they definitely do not want to go.  I believe that group is larger than the pollsters are reporting, primarily because no one wants to admit they might prefer a loose cannon willing to take a different approach.  

What if more Americans are considering voting differently than they are telling the pollsters? 

What if more Americans decide they want a Supreme Court that interprets the tenets of the US Constitution as written, not as it is “interpreted in light of changed conditions.” The Court doesn’t get to rewrite the Constitution, the people do, and only via Constitutional amendments.

What if more Americans are tired of having tin-horn dictators, pompous little Napoleon wannabes and Islamist terrorists denigrate our nation and, effectively, control our foreign policy? 

What if more Americans realize that welfare is not a job and “You want fries with that?” is not a job one is fated to perform for an entire lifetime

There is fear and loathing afoot in the land.  This election will determine if it surfaces or seethes again for another four years.  Even many well-educated and financially successful voters resent the new aristocracy the Reign of Error has bred and the elitism and entitlement they see as Hillary Clinton smugly proclaims that she is the heir apparent.

Some 38% of Americans now identify as “independent” regardless of the party with which they are registered.  I believe they will decide this election. 

Let’s get on with it.  No matter how bad it is, the checks and balances on executive authority will work as intended, and the longest each party’s partisans’ worst nightmare will last is four years before a new election takes place.  We’re Americans.  We’ve seen worse.  We can handle it.