Looks like the Democrats aren't going to make this easy for me
Maybe- maybe- he'll make a slight breakthrough among the contrarians of New Hampshire and even get to 10%. But I doubt it. Gov. Weld isn't a particularly strong or even viable candidate, but even somebody potentially more formidable- former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, for example, or Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, or Sen. Ben Sasse- would be annihilated should he challenge Mr. Trump's re-nomination. The tragedy is that the Republican party has bought into Donald Trump so thoroughly that, like Chernobyl, it's been contaminated for a generation. It's become the party of Trump; while it's certainly the case that not every Republican politician who is strongly in the president's camp shares the administration's opposition to free trade, its xenophobia, its comfort with and attraction for the more disreputable and bigotted elements of the alt-right, or even sees Mr. Trump's erratic behavior as remotely acceptable, Republican approval of our most bizarre president remains in the high eighties, percentage-wise, and even people of hitherto sound judgment and integrity like Lindsey Graham have been forced not only to make their peace with the new order of things but to become its advocates.
The disestablished "Establishment" wing of the Republican party is dead, or at least in so deep a coma that it will be years before it can be a viable force in American politics again.
I find that I often agree with libertarians more than I expect to. But my view of politics is firmly tied up in my view of human nature. While freedom and liberty are good things in themselves- non-negotiable, in fact - a healthy and realistic suspicion of human nature leads me to be suspicious of the use to which they are apt to be put without strong safeguards against their abuse. In a state of nature, Homo sapiens is a predatory animal, and it preys on the weaker members of its own species. Theologically, I note that St. Paul in Romans 13 presents government as God's remedy for that failing, and I am no more comfortable with the idea of allowing the possibility of bad or oppressive or even excessive government cause me to think of government as such as being evil than I am with causing the inevitable abuse of human freedom and liberty to see them as being things I need to oppose. Seems to me that a balance needs to be struck here.
Many libertarians, I find, actually agree with me, and while I'm uncomfortable with what often sounds like almost anarchist rhetoric from some of them I've learned not to automatically dismiss a libertarian because he wears that label. If I still were (or could be, in conscience) a Republican, I might even support Weld at my precinct caucus despite the futility of the gesture if it meant working toward the repudiation of Mr. Trump's renomination that might be the only thing that could save the Republican party. And while I'm very far from getting on board, I am heartened by Rep. Justin Amash's departure from the Republican party for what seem to me to be all the right reasons and do not rule out supporting him in a hypothetical third-party or independent presidential campaign.
I don't see many indications that Evan McMullin is seriously thinking of repeating his 2016 presidential run, and in some ways, that's a shame. He's an effective speaker, wordsmith, and wielder of ideas, and with an earlier start, I think he'd do far better this time around. Mitt Romney might actually win, and while I can't help but see it as almost his duty to run he apparently thinks that he can be more effective representing Utah in the Senate as a Republican. I still am holding out hope that John Kasich will make the race as an independent. He would make an excellent spokesman for the vast majority of decent, reasonable Americans whose politics lie between the fanatical poles of Trumpism on one hand and the Harrises and Warrens and Sanders-types on the other. This is the time that he should be making his opening moves, though- and so far, he doesn't seem to be making any.
No, I haven't ruled out Amash, at least yet. Yes, I'm conflicted; I believe that it's absolutely essential to the well-being of the nation that Donald Trump be repudiated at the polls and turned out of office, and that conviction makes me willing to take a much more favorable look than I would otherwise at voting for a Democrat.
Alas, Joe Biden is what passes for a centrist among them, and he's being forced by the politically correct orthodoxy of his party to apologize for getting ideological cooties from having merely worked with segregationist senators in the past and to hue the militantly pro-abortion line of his party more closely by withdrawing his opposition to the use of Federal funds for abortion. I'd say that in yielding to this pressure Biden was displaying a want of moral backbone, but the sad fact is that he's being realistic. Both of what was once the major American political parties have become political cults, and it's not only easy to get kicked out of the cult for failing to follow its beliefs rigidly enough but almost impossible to be forgiven.
Could I vote for Kamela Harris? For Elizabeth Warren? For Bernie Sanders? Though I hold the Amash option open- I strongly believe that laying the groundwork for a centrist third-party in 2020 is an even more vital consideration than the defeat of Mr. Trump, neither of the existing parties being viable channels for responsible, non-fanatical political engagement- I've more or less come to terms with the possibility that I might have to reluctantly vote for Joe Biden. And given the radicalism of the Democratic party, I suppose that finally, it doesn't matter which Democrat is elected in 2020; his or her policies will be largely dictated by the hive mind anyway.
But with the ever more exacting demand for not only ideological orthodoxy but even historical orthodoxy, the Democratic cult is making the prospect of voting for its nominee in 2020 less and less attractive. I will be voting against Donald Trump in 2020, and not for what the Democrats are right now, and still less for what they seem to be becoming. Nor am I alone. There are a great many disgruntled former Republicans like me and conservative-leaning independents who are taking a hard look at voting for the Democrat in 2020.
It seems to me not only to be a shame that they seem bound and determined to make it as difficult for us to do so as possible but also kind of dumb.
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