Election Links Roundup

I gotta say, not a whole lot has changed in this election since I was routinely blogging here twice or three times a week. Since my thinking has not really changed much throughout this campaign, I’m happy to let the following pieces stand in for my laziness these past couple months.

1. As some in the country are still trying to decide whether their concerns (long-held and genuine, I’m sure) over email and server management practices are worse than their fears of a know-nothing, racist fascist with impulse control issues gaining control over the country’s nuclear arsenal, “Presidential Elections are Not National Psychodramas” is a good place to start. Generally speaking, we’re voting to empower the leader of a particular political party to lead the country. We’re not choosing a best friend.
2. In a similar vein, “Voting is About Empowering the Political Movement with Which You Agree Most” argues that any given candidate is going to have moral flaws. While I maintain that Donald Trump is an exception to the norm that most candidates who receive a major party’s presidential nomination are fit to serve as president, I won’t argue too much with voters who insist they want Trump to win because they agree with his policies.
3. In my most widely read piece ever – “An Open Letter to Sanders Supporters” – I make the case that Bernie Sanders and Clinton are part of the same political movement and with Sanders’ defeat looming, his supporters would do well to make their peace with Clinton’s nomination and work to influence her policies. In the end, Sanders acquitted himself very well in defeat, as did most of his supporters.
4. “Your Vote is Not a Special Snowflake, Except When It Is” is about how voting for a non-major party’s candidate is at best a waste of one’s vote, and at worst it can throw the election to the candidate a voter least prefers. That’s what happened when enough voters in Florida voted for Ralph Nader and swung the presidency to George W. Bush over Al Gore in 2000. I voted for Nader that year and regret that vote to this day. I should add that in this year’s election, third party voters still make up around 6 to 8% of the population. In the infamous 2000 election, it only took 3.75% of all voters to choose third party and produce a worst case result. There’s a little too much volatility out there in the polling, and I agree more with Nate Silver’s relatively pessimistic assessment here that Trump’s odds are more like 2 to 1. I still think he’ll lose, but unfortunately, a Trump victory wouldn’t shock me at all.
5. My first piece, here, shows that the Democratic and Republican parties have very different agendas. They are in consistently stark ideological opposition to each other. Also, modern elected Republican officials behave in manners that are way out of line with previous norms, and they bear much more of the responsibility for Washington gridlock and dysfunction. There is no significant Democratic behavior that is equivalent. Both sides do not do it.
6. On Trump, I wrote “Surprise! Donald Trump Appeals to White Nationalists” over a year ago and it holds up well. In “How I Got Trump Right” – well, that one is self-explanatory.

I’ll be going out to vote for Clinton as soon as I finish my coffee. Exercise your right to vote if you haven’t done so already. I urge you to also cast your vote for Clinton. That would be a vote cast for a solid and competent center-left Democratic candidate, and it’s no small thing that she’d be our first female president. On top of those, it’s very important to keep Trump – a know-nothing, racist fascist with impulse control issues – out of the White House. Finally, I urge you to vote a straight Democratic ticket. Especially if you live in a state where there’s a competitive Senate race, vote for the Democrat. It’s important that Clinton have at least one chamber of Congress on her side. Also, it’s becoming clear that Republicans will refuse to let Clinton fill Supreme Court vacancies should they retain control of the Senate. Republicans’ continued obstructionist behavior cannot be rewarded.