As I left this office this afternoon, I realized that I’d decided who I was going to vote for president. It wasn’t a decision I was happy with, obviously, but I’d hit a tipping point over the course of the day’s reading, believing that the consequences of the lesser of two evils’ shortcomings outweighed those of the somewhat-less-lesser of two evils. It just sort of came to me, and I didn’t feel the immediate shrinking back from the conclusion that I’ve felt every other time I’ve made a tentative move toward that decision over the last month or two.<\/p>\n
I actually felt slightly tranquil, as though I’d found a position that, though not fully comfortable in, I could live with.<\/p>\n
Then I turned on the afternoon news, heard campaign statements made today by the candidate in question, and literally shouted at the radio, “HOW THE FUCK CAN I VOTE FOR A MAN WHO SAYS CRAP LIKE THAT?!”<\/p>\n
Oh, well. It was nice while it lasted. Maybe I should just flip a coin, send in an absentee ballot, and go camp out in a cave for the next few weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As I left this office this afternoon, I realized that I’d decided who I was going to vote for president. It wasn’t a decision I was happy with, obviously, but…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-2004"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":131964,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/11\/07\/when-the-lesser-of-two-evils-is-the-compelling-choice.html","url_meta":{"origin":7150,"position":0},"title":"When the "lesser of two evils" is the compelling choice","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 7-Nov-16 10:42pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Someone who in 2012 prominently refused to vote for Obama [http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2012\/09\/why-i-refuse-to-vote-for-barack-obama\/262861\/] so as to send a \"message\" has changed his tune and is voting this year for Clinton -- largely because of the grave danger Trump poses.'If you\u2019re a constitutional conservative, or a classical liberal, or a Bernie Sanders progressive,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6655,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/08\/09\/lesser_of_two_e.html","url_meta":{"origin":7150,"position":1},"title":"Lesser of two evils","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 9-Aug-04 2:46pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I consider colorization an aesthetic abomination. Black and white hold no horrors for me -- my earliest TV-viewing days were during the very end of the B&W era (\"IN COLOR!\"...","rel":"","context":"In "Media Moguls"","block_context":{"text":"Media Moguls","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-moguls"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5499,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/03\/03\/position_paper.html","url_meta":{"origin":7150,"position":2},"title":"Position paper","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 3-Mar-04 9:29am","format":false,"excerpt":"What he said. I feel like I should say more about it, and I no doubt will, later. It's a pity that support of either candidate has to carry with...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132013,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/11\/11\/the-evils-of-the-electoral-college-as-redacted-by-donald-trump.html","url_meta":{"origin":7150,"position":3},"title":"The Evils of the Electoral College (as redacted by Donald Trump)","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 11-Nov-16 4:51pm","format":false,"excerpt":"1. In 2012, believing that Romney had won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College, Trump went on a several-tweet bender about how outrageous such an outcome was, how the Electoral College should be tossed out, and how people should march on Washington or stage a revolution2. In 2016,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30337,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/25\/political-preaching-to-the-choir.html","url_meta":{"origin":7150,"position":4},"title":"Political Preaching to the Choir","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 25-Sep-12 8:44am","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm not quite sure whether the Right is the only group that suffers from epistemic closure (though it does seem more pronounced from my not-unbiased perspective). \u00a0More important here, though, is that good ol' end-of-election scramble for the \"undecided\" vote. Things like the \"redistribution\" teapot tempest aren't meant to sway\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131216,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/08\/07\/on-protest-votes.html","url_meta":{"origin":7150,"position":5},"title":"On Protest Votes","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 7-Aug-16 2:22pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A very good article here on how protest votes for President (votes to \"send a message,\" votes for third parties, votes for write-ins, or just staying home) are pretty much futile because they don't actually succeed in doing much of anything except leaving the voting up to the folk who\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/democrat-republican5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/democrat-republican5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/democrat-republican5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7150\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}