Dear America,
We're deep into familiar Republican territory now, and it is hard to say whether Hillary Clinton can play the game. The ad hominem attack is the métier of the campaigning Republican politician, especially the conservative one. For the most part, such tactics amount to little more than preaching to the choir, and since our polity breaks down in thirds--one third Democrat, one third Republican and one third unaffiliated--Republican voters become more entrenched because of it, but the voters who turn elections, that is the independents, tend to think rationally and vote based on policy rather than calumny. This time, however, we are dealing with a chimera in the form of Donald Trump, who is imbued with the traits of Republicans along with the amorality and greed for both money and power of a modern American businessman plus the win-at-any-cost mentality of a father who believed that it didn't matter what you were as long as you were a big one. Between Trump's egotism--his preening, strutting narcissism--and his lack of conscience, any restraint at all is unlikely if not impossible, and with its absence, the prospect of civility and rationality on the right is grim. We are on new ground now with the injection of racism and bigotry into the rhetoric of the campaign, which will serve to mobilize the very kind of voters that founding fathers like Hamilton, Madison and John Jay feared. As far back as their papers titled The Federalist, founding fathers Hamilton, and presumably his co-authors of the papers, proposed at least one idea intended to minimize the impact of what they might have called "the rabble." The Senate they proposed would comprise representatives from the various states elected by the means chosen by each state legislature, which the founders intended to mean that the legislatures would vote on them, not the populace. Their rationale was that those who ascended to such state office would be more able to concentrate on the business of politics if they were not required to consult with the populace, and that they would represent a more restrained and less fickle point of view, especially with regard to the desirability of ratifying the newly written constitution. That didn't change until 1913 when the 17th Amendment to The Constitution passed and the people finally had to be involved in the selection of senators, and that eventuated only because of the abuse of the political process by the various state legislatures; they were apparently populated by the venal rich and powerful rather than the vindictive and petty masses, so popular election was deigned the lesser of the two evils. And that putatively lesser evil chooses the president too.
And now we have Trump's campaign being run by Breitbart's CEO: a man whose lack of restraint allows him to depart from rational criticism with impunity. His management of the campaign of a man similarly inclined will likewise be as far off the rails as Breitbart's "news" tends to be. Stephen Bannon is less a loose cannon than a loose "dirty bomb." Like his ilk--I'm referring to people like Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh to name just two--he will say anything to achieve conservative hegemony, which means that he fits right in with Donald Trump. Add to that terrible twosome the input of Roger Ailes, the former, disgraced head of Fox News, and you have a troika of would-be banana Republicans who see themselves as leading the horses to the Kool-Aid they want them to drink. There is a sufficiently massive constituency of right to far-right leaning voters that a political triumvirate like them could be dangerous to a candidate whose life is built on rationality and giving all Americans what they want as long as everyone, including our posterity, is protected from lunacy and predation. To put it concisely, if it's not too late for that already, I'm not sure that Hillary Clinton is vicious enough to overcome a juggernaut like the Trump-Bannon-Ailes terrible trio, and the most recent exchange regarding bigotry makes my point. The great majority of reasonable voters won't be persuaded of anything they don't already believe by Clinton's insinuation of Trump's own racism in that he does nothing to repudiate the racism of many of his supporters. Trump's mantra about the odiousness of "political correctness" practically insulates him from such criticism. But Trump's response that Clinton is the racist as between the two of them could convince some of the less contemplative voters who are not members of either political party, which in turn makes this election too close for comfort, but what's Clinton to do. Fighting fire with fire seems the best course, though in the end, what does she have to gain. On the other hand, if she stays on the high road, which she has already strayed from to some extent with her unfitness argument, isn't she open to the criticism from her own camp that what distinguishes her in terms of character from her opponent is being clouded by comparable bad behavior.
If I had Clinton's ear, I would counsel a somewhat subtler approach, but in the end, I think she has no choice but to "call 'em as she sees 'em" and call Trump out on what he has failed to do: repudiate the viler and more vicious of the movements that support him, specifically articulate sane policies that will accomplish desirable ends and comport his conduct with some acceptable moral standard rather defaming others and calling his opponent corrupt just because he knows that his own corruption is soon to become a palatable cross that he must bear once the debates start. So I say, go on with your bad self, Hillary. Just keep it down a little.
Your friend,
Mike
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