It’s time for that awful ritual that comes every three years. It not only sucks all the oxygen out of the room, but just plain sucks. It’s the (now) over one year long US Presidential race!
Time to fire up my favorite bullshit platitude, “This is the most important election of my lifetime.” This, of course, has been said about every presidential election I can remember. Which leads me to the conclusion that most people do not understand what is meant by the phrase, which necessarily denotes a single event occurring within my lifetime. Then there is the old chestnut that if I vote for a third party, I am really voting for either the Democrat or Republican candidate, i.e. the one my interlocutor opposes. No, I’m voting for who I am voting for full stop. I you don’t like it, then you are welcome to shut the fuck up.
For the record, my lifetime record of votes in US presidential races is as follows: Perot, didn’t vote, Nader, Kerry, Obama, Obama, Johnson, and Biden. The only vote I would definitely change if I could is the one I cast for Biden.
That said, it is looking like a Biden/Trump rematch. This is something very few people want, but the way our primary system works, will likely happen. Then again, my inner Discordian would find it hilarious if Trump won the election from jail. I’d laugh and laugh about that as I moved to my in-laws house.
They live in India.
Having said that, and since ‘tis the beginning of the season for such things, here are my current voting preferences for president in 2024.
Dr. Cornell West
[Pros] Dr. West is the real deal. He’s serious about improving wealth distribution. His proposals about improving race relations are effective as opposed to woke virtue signaling. He is strongly anti-war, and would use our resources to benefit regular people instead of doling money out to defense contractors. And he is probably competent (and ruthless) enough to affect change in the face of resistance from the entrenched bureaucracy and political elites.
[Cons] Dr. West is unable to get a working campaign together. First he was running as a People’s Party candidate; a party with no ballot access. Then he was running as a Green, which has ballot access but is utterly dysfunctional. Now he is running as an independent, and has the same ballot access problems as before. [Note this is why I say “probably competent” under his pros.]
Marianne Williamson
[Pros} She has a solid spiritual core without being too evangelical or too woo. Like Dr. West she is anti-war and in favor of using the resources of the government to improve the lives of our citizens instead of supporting a giant war machine.
[Cons] the Democrat establishment is going to rig the primary process to prevent her from being the Democrat nominee. That is, they are going to do what they did to Bernie Sanders. If Ms. Williamson wins every last primary in every last state, the Democrat party will use “superdelegates” or some other procedural nonsense to put Biden on the ballot. Regardless, I am, to my shame, a registered Democrat and will vote for her in the primary.
Vivek Ramaswamy
[Pros] Vivek has some good ideas and workable plans to accomplish them, like abolishing the FBI and eliminating DEI programs. He states his positions clearly; you always know where he stands on an issue. As a plus, his takedown of Don Lemon on CNN was a thing of beauty.
[Cons] Vivek has some bad ideas and workable plans to accomplish those as well. His foolishness about deploying the US military to the Mexican border is a good example. Vivek is also a climate change denier, so he’ll do nothing on that front if he is elected. On the other hand, that leaves us no worse off than if Joe Biden wins. Biden bleats on about climate change (and may even believe what he says) but will never do anything about it. Actually doing something would hurt the profits of the Democrat donor base, so the most he’ll give us is lip service. In short, Vivek is the functional equivalent of Joe Biden on this issue so it’s a wash.
Robert Kennedy, Jr.
[Pros] Mr. Kennedy is solid on civil liberties, especially free speech. As a former environmental lawyer, he has the record to back his talk favoring environmentalism and mitigating climate change. This includes solid plans, including redesigning agricultural subsidies to promote sustainability. He is also serious about a more egalitarian distribution of wealth.
[Cons] Kennedy is a big Israel hawk, which puts him at odds with my own view that Palestinians are humans with rights. Then again, he’s no worse on this subject than anyone lower on this list except Jill Stein.
Jill Stein
[Pros] Ms. Stein is solid on environmental issues, decent on wealth disparity, and pretty good on civil rights.
[Cons] Her lack of political experience means she is going to get rolled by the establishment, and I think she lacks the ruthlessness of either Dr. West or Mr. Ramaswamy needed to overcome her outsider status.
Stay Home, Don’t Vote
[Pros] I can spend the day with my kids, read a book, play some video games, get high, summon eldritch spirits, or some combination of these. All worthy and enjoyable uses of my precious time.
[Cons] None really, since I see no reason to vote for anyone lower on this list. Although I would lose the ability to cast a write-in vote for Daffy Duck or Christopher Walken.
The Libertarian Candidate
[Pros] My vote signals my strong support for civil liberties.
[Cons] My vote would be misconstrued as support for anarcho-capitalism, which I most certainly do not support.
Donald Trump
[Pros] We’ve already seen from the first Trump presidency that, for all of his bluster and mean tweets, he governs like a country club Republican. Other than cutting taxes for the rich, he did not accomplish much. Trump is long on bluster and short on action. Although, to be fair, he did expand medicaid during the pandemic, threw massive amounts of national resources into developing a COVID-19 vaccine, and sent direct aid to the people (both through direct benefit checks to people and through programs like payroll protection grants and loans). He also managed to not start any new wars on his watch. Wait, why was I supposed to hate Trump again?
[Cons] The main con is that I’ll have to listen to PMC Democrats piss and moan about Trump for another four years. This is Trump Derangement Syndrome, the Democrat analogue to the Obama Derangement Syndrome that afflicted so many Republicans during the reign of Barack. You can see this most clearly in the revisionist Democrats that excoriate Trump, but now say George W. Bush was pretty good after all. I guess this is because they think Trump’s mean tweets are so much worse than two wars of aggression that left over a million people dead. This mindset is disgusting. Maybe we can get another three year investigation into Russian election interference that turns up Jack Shit. Dust off your Mueller votive candles …
Nikki Haley
[Pros] It would be nice for my daughter to see someone who looks like her, a woman of Indian descent, hold the highest office in government. Representation matters, and she would be inspired.
[Cons] She is a belligerent warmonger who may be even more likely than Joe Biden to stumble into World War 3.
Joe Biden
[Pros] None.
[Cons] The primary con is that Biden is a warmonger who has brought us closer to World War 3 than any time since the Cold War. He’s pumped billions into the failed effort to prop up the crooked regime in Ukraine, with the primary beneficiary being the arms industry (certainly NOT Ukranian citizens). He threw the most people in the history of Medicaid off of Medicaid (and here the Democrats tell me they are the defenders of Medicaid). He has failed to address inflation which has brought misery to anyone not part of the upper one percent (and yes, gas prices are still through the roof). Homelessness is up; hunger is up. The only thing that has slowed his public/private partnership of censorship is the ineptness of his administration. Biden also sics the IRS on his critics. This is what authoritarianism looks like. And of course, Biden has gone from being pro-segregation to embracing the most divisive and racist elements of woke/DEI culture. The racism persists, even as the packaging changes.
So there you have it for anyone who cares: my ranking of the current bunch of presidential hopefuls. These are of course subject to revision as the candidates continue their campaigns.
But let me end on this on a serious note. If there was ever an election to stand up and say “no more,” and lay to rest the “but it’s a two party system [derp!],” this is the election. If you consider yourself liberal or left, it is your duty to support Dr. West. No excuses. If you are a conservative, I invite you to give serious consideration to Vivek Ramaswamy and Robert Kennedy, Jr. In no way, shape, or form should we be legitimizing a Trump v. Biden rematch.