Cruz Versus Drumpf: Shot Or Poisoned

In my last post, I talked about the two candidates still running to be the Democratic nominee for US president, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, and why I still find it hard to choose between them. I am still vacillating on that front, as Bernie’s better stances on most of the issues are to at least some degree balanced by Hillary’s comprehensive and detailed approach to governing. But of course, they are not the only two people running for President. There’s also the Republican field, which has been reduced to four candidates, all of whom are terrible. That’s a point we should clear up right away; just because John Kasich, for instance, looks mature and even moderate next to his juvenile insult tossing opponents doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be a terrible president. Most of his stances on the issues are awful, and even on the few where he is less extreme he is still more conservative than either of the Democrats. The recent dropout Rubio, even if he wasn’t completely hopeless in other ways, is even worse on the issues than Kasich. But as bad as these two are, and as bad as all the candidates who dropped out earlier were, what’s particularly appalling about the Republican race is that it seems to be shaping up into a race between the two absolute worst out of a terrible slate of candidates. I refer, of course, to Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, or as I (taking a cue from John Oliver) call him, Donald Drumpf. These two are so bad that even many Republicans find the choice an awful one: senior Republican senator and former candidate Lindsey Graham said a couple months ago that choosing between them was like choosing between being shot or poisoned.

Like so many other people both in and out of America, I am barely able to countenance the idea that either of these two individuals could actually become president of the United States, but if I force myself to do so, the difference comes down to this: it is fairly easy to predict just how awful a Cruz presidency would be, while I don’t think anyone can seriously claim an ability to predict with any certainty what a Drumpf presidency would be like. I don’t even think he knows himself, though he no doubt thinks he knows. He could be a lot better than Cruz (not a high bar) or he could be even worse. While the Republicans clearly have a rather different idea than I do of what a terrible president would be like, for most of the Republican establishment and a large percentage of ordinary Republican voters, it seems to be Cruz’s relative predictability that makes him the slightly more palatable choice – even Lindsey Graham recently admitted that if he had to choose, he’d support Cruz. Personally, I wouldn’t say the same, as I think that unless Drumpf fulfills the worst possible guesses as to how he would behave in office, i.e., actually trying to institute some kind of fascist dictatorship, Cruz might be more dangerous, simply because he has much more of an idea of what he wants to do, and it’s pretty much all awful. Having said that, even at best Drumpf would be an incompetent embarrassment who would let all kinds of intolerance run wild, and that might be just as bad as Cruz’s systematic destructiveness. So really, even with a gun to my head – and if either of them gets in, there will be even more guns in America than there already are – I couldn’t really pick one over the other. Really, it is like choosing whether you’d rather be shot or poisoned.

Ted Cruz is scary for a great number of reasons. Most obviously, there is his ideology. This is a guy who preferred to try to shut down the government, regardless of how many people it hurt, in a clearly futile effort to prevent the implementation of a health care reform which used Republican ideas (rather than superior approaches such as a single payer system or at least a public option) to try to ensure that the vast majority of Americans could get health insurance. In his faux filibuster on the issue, he even – and apparently without any awareness of the irony – read the Dr. Seuss story Green Eggs and Ham, about repeatedly refusing to try something and in the end finding out you like it. This is also the guy who as solicitor general of Texas fought tooth and nail to keep a man in prison even though a sentencing error meant he had been given 16 years when it should have been two. This is the guy who called for “carpet bombing” ISIS, showing either a complete disregard of the civilians living in ISIS-controlled areas or total ignorance of what carpet bombing is. This is a guy who openly associates with anti-gay extremists, who seemingly opposes any type of restrictions on guns and openly spreads conspiracy theories about the government trying to take guns away from people, who doesn’t believe the science of climate change and opposes regulations aimed at keeping everyone’s air and water clean, and who would cut taxes for the rich while severely cutting programs that help those in need. He’s also the son of a man who gives speeches calling for Christians to seize “dominion” over everything. And all this is ignoring his character, which is such that one of his college roommates declared he’d rather pick someone at random out of the phone book to be president than see Ted Cruz in the position, and fellow Republican Senator Lindsey Graham joked that if someone killed Ted Cruz and the trial was held in the Senate, the killer would get off. Given that his ideology is awful and he is so dislikable that even fellow Republicans who share at least a large part of his ideology can’t stand him, it’s a wonder that anyone without a similarly warped ideology would seriously consider voting for him for the most powerful position on Earth.

So it’s hard to imagine anyone who could be considered a worse choice for president than Ted Cruz – except maybe the guy who is currently beating him in the race for the Republican nomination. On a few issues, Drumpf is actually more moderate than most Republicans. He says that the Iraq war was a mistake and that former president George W. Bush (aka Dubya) should be blamed for it; on the other hand, his statements about the Iraq War and the aftermath of 9/11 were used mainly as a club to attack Bush’s brother Jeb, so it’s questionable how much this really tells us about Drumpf’s attitude toward military adventurism. There are certainly some indications that point the other way, as I will get to later. He also was the only Republican to admit that Planned Parenthood does plenty of good work (though he’d defund them anyway) or that money is corrupting politics (noted in the context of his bragging about his own ability to buy politicians). Some of his past statements and associations from the days before he got deeply into politics indicated some support for liberal positions and politicians, though it’s unclear how much either his past or current statements represent genuine convictions.

Amazingly, I have seen a few self-proclaimed progressives (or possibly right-wing trolls posing as progressives) argue that we’d be better off with Drumpf winning than Hillary Clinton. They seem to have one or the other of two arguments. One is some variation of the following: Clinton is so completely a tool of corporate interests (rather than, say, someone has her own mind but unfortunately listens to both progressives and corporate types and thus tends to come down in the middle on many issues) that a vote for her is a vote for oligarchy, or perhaps that she really is a centrist but in any case only by letting the other side win will the corporate hold on the Democratic party be broken. This is an easy argument to make if you are not one of the millions of people who will be hurt by a Republican presidency. If these people think four years of a Drumpf (or Cruz) presidency is worth going through in order to transform the Democratic party, they should tell that to the millions of people who will lose health care, the millions who will lose food stamps, the millions who will see their Social Security benefits reduced or taken away, the millions who will be stuck working for inadequate wages, all the women who will lose the option of a safe abortion and even some forms of birth control, the LGBT Americans who will face continuing discrimination and may well lose the rights they have so recently won, the millions of undocumented people who will live in even greater terror of being seized and deported than they already do, and all the people who will be hurt when the Republican winner’s pro-wealthy policies tank the economy. And all this is assuming the worst fears about a Drumpf presidency don’t come true. Even if some people would consider the election of Hillary as president a step backwards, it should be obvious that a Drumpf or Cruz presidency would be a giant leap backwards, and it’s not clear that the US could recover from it.

Another argument I have seen completely ignores the differences between Hillary and Drumpf on domestic issues and focuses on Hillary’s relative hawkishness. The claim here is that based on a few more isolationist statements by Drumpf he would be less likely to involve the US in a war. Even if this was true, the probable disastrous results of a Drumpf presidency domestically would be enough to change the calculations of any thoughtful person. What's more, it ignores the most urgent and important international issue: climate change. Yes, Hillary’s limited support for fracking makes her less than perfect on this issue (though she is no worse than Barack Obama in this regard, and she has stated that she wants to let local fracking bans stand), but anyone who thinks there is not much difference between her and Drumpf - or the other Republican candidates - really isn’t paying attention. This is an issue that can’t wait another four years, considering the damage that can be done by going backward on it. Cruz and Drumpf don’t even admit that climate change is actually happening, and Kasich, the only remaining Republican candidate who grudgingly acknowledges the reality of the issue, would still be a lot worse than Hillary. For the sake of the whole world, not just the US itself, we can’t afford to wait four years on climate change.

Furthermore, it’s far from clear that Hillary would really be more dangerous on foreign policy than Drumpf; in fact, given some of his statements, the latter is likely to be worse in many ways. He has declared that he thinks the US should not merely “go after” terrorists, it should go after their families as well, which would clearly be a war crime. He has also said the US should use interrogation methods “worse than waterboarding”; since waterboarding itself is already a form of torture, he means he advocates using even worse forms of torture. He also wants to tear up the Iran nuclear agreement, which is not an action that will promote the cause of peace in that part of the world. Then there’s his general attitude of blustering against any foreign nation he considers a problem in any way, such as China and Mexico, which he proposes to make pay for the wall he wants to build to keep out all the “rapists” and other bad folk he claims they are sending to the US. How he will make them pay we don’t know, but given his unpredictability, we could be talking about a repeat of the invasion of Mexico by the US in the 1840s. And it isn’t exactly reassuring that when he was asked who his foreign policy advisers are, he refused to name anyone, but said his main adviser was himself, “because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.” Since the overall impression he gives is that he is not particularly knowledgeable about foreign affairs and not even all that well versed on basic facts of world politics and geography, the fact that not only is he acting as his own foreign policy adviser but cites such specious reasons for his self-confidence should be terrifying to anyone of sense. Anyone expecting him to be some sort of peace-loving isolationist who will break the stranglehold that the military-industrial complex holds over US foreign policy is clearly fooling themselves. Also, it’s worth remembering that as much as US foreign policy seems to be all about military intervention and such, it does distribute a fair amount of foreign aid that sometimes at least does do some good. Hillary Clinton would be likely to maintain or even expand such aid. It is seems very unlikely that Drumpf would increase foreign aid, seeing how little he cares for foreigners of any sort; he’s far more likely to cut it. Given all these points, even if one were to decide one’s preference on the issue of foreign policy alone (which would be absurd, given the importance of climate change and numerous domestic issues), why would anyone prefer a pro-war crimes, pro-torture, clueless, blustering megalomaniac over a knowledgeable, experienced leader like Hillary, no matter how hawkish they may think she is?

Of course, even if one were to completely ignore the worst statements Drumpf has made on the issues and view his positions in the most positive possible light, there are still many reasons no one with any brains should consider him acceptable for the job of US president. First of all, there was the issue that he first used to attract support from the right wing fringe, namely the questioning of President Barack Obama’s birthplace. Just like anyone who claims to believe the world was flat or only a few thousand years old or who claims humans never really landed on the Moon or the Holocaust never happened, anybody who expresses any doubt whether Obama was born in Hawaii clearly has such a poor ability to reason logically based on actual facts that they are absolutely unqualified for any kind of major leadership position. While it is possible that Drumpf only pretended to believe the birther nonsense, even pretending to believe something so stupid is enough to disqualify him.

Then of course there is his crudeness, his boorishness, his negative stereotyping and outright racism, and his blatant encouragement of violence against those who oppose him. No one who even indirectly encourages his followers to punch or rough up protesters belongs on even a local political stage, much less a national one. And it isn't just his supporters; even his campaign manager was seen to roughly handle a female reporter (one from the extreme right wing "news" site Breitbart, no less). His appeals to white supremacism, while even more indirect than his incitements to violence, are equally disturbing, especially since the combination has helped encourage some to engage in actual hate crimes. It is no wonder that he is attracting the open support of white supremacist groups. This, plus his megalomaniac behavior, his apparent disregard for the rule of law at least where he personally is concerned, and actions like asking people at his rallies to raise their hands and pledge to vote for him, has led many to compare him to fascist leaders like Hitler and Mussolini. Whether he would attempt to seize the type of dictatorial power they did once they got into office by democratic means, or for that matter how far he would really go in attacking minority groups like Latinos and Muslims is uncertain – it’s possible he’s just using such talk in a cynical ploy to rally support from the extreme right wing. On the other hand, early on even Hitler’s anti-Jewish ravings were dismissed by some as rhetoric used to get support rather than his actual convictions. How much Drumpf really means the worst things he says is not clear, but even if he doesn’t really mean them at all, simply saying them in the first place is bad enough.

This brings up another point about Drumpf that should rule him out in the minds of intelligent people: he’s an inveterate liar. I find it astounding that some people will call Hillary Clinton a liar in spite of any particular evidence that she is more evasive or given to prevarication than most politicians or even most people; in fact I’m sure far more lies have been told about her than by her. Drumpf, on the other hand, lies all the time, blatantly and without shame. He’ll say he never said something when he is on record as saying that exact thing, sometimes just a few days earlier. He repeated a completely false claim that thousands of Muslims cheered in New Jersey when the World Trade Center towers fell on September 11, 2001. As John Oliver pointed out, he claimed several times to have rejected an invitation to Oliver’s show, even though they never invited him (and they don’t generally have guests anyway). He claimed that some of the protesters that have been hit by his followers have thrown punches first, despite lack of any evidence that any of them has done so. During the TV interview where he refused to forthrightly disavow the endorsement of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, he claimed not to have heard the question properly because of a faulty earpiece, and yet his specific response was “I don’t know David Duke” proving that he definitely heard the name clearly – and so the claim that the earpiece was the problem was a lie – and his response itself was either a lie (since it’s impossible that he didn’t know who David Duke was, as he himself had spoken of Duke in the past) or a deliberate misreading of the question (since he obviously wasn’t being asked if he knew Duke personally). Examples of lies he has made in the course of this campaign are easy to find; just a look at his statements that have been rated by the site PolitiFact will reveal that a huge number have been rated some degree of false. While every candidate has made at least a few false or misleading statements in this campaign (Cruz is another egregious offender), no one can match Drumpf as king of the liars.

Lastly, despite all Drumpf’s talk about his brain and how smart he is, what I’ve seen of him has not been particularly impressive in the intelligence department. His speeches are almost incoherent and in the few examples I’ve seen of his Twitter battles with critics he is quickly reduced to tossing juvenile insults. He retweets blatantly false information from highly questionable sources (such as his tweet about homicide rates involving African-Americans that originated with a neo-Nazi group). While everyone gets a few facts wrong from time to time, he doesn’t seem to do even the barest minimum of fact-checking, and he is far too ignorant on many issues to spot obvious falsehoods for himself – if he even cares about the truth of his information in the first place, which is open to question. In any case, given that his complete lack of political experience means he would be learning on the job (business experience – an area where his record is far from the wonderful thing he makes it out to be – is not at all the same thing, especially when we keep in mind that a government should not be run like a business), this lack of judgment or even decent reasoning ability makes him a terrible choice. Whether such a megalomaniacal, narrow-minded, bullying liar who would have no idea how to do the job would be better or worse than an unpleasant, narrow-minded, power-hungry creep who would have at least some idea what he was doing (i.e., Cruz) is a difficult question. What is beyond doubt is if either becomes the Republican nominee, it is essential that the Democratic nominee wins the general election, or else we're all in trouble.