There’s been a lot of news, over the last two weeks, about Trump being a serial sexual assaulter – and although Trump now denies it, many of the accusations match up perfectly with Trump’s boasting. It’s clear that Trump is a misogynist, a sexual abuser, and a scumbag. None of that is surprising.
This scandal has hurt Trump significantly in the polls. As someone who thinks a Trump presidency could be a historic disaster, I’m very happy for that.
I’ve also seen people suggest that it’s morally unconscionable for anyone to vote for Trump, because we now know he’s a serial sexual abuser.1 That I can’t agree with. I have to admit, were the situations reversed – if there was a Democrat running who was a serial sexual abuser, and a Republican running who wasn’t – I’d probably still vote for the Democrat.2
A Republican president, even a Republican who has never abused anyone personally, would certainly cancel the US funding for UNFPA Obama restored. By providing pregnancy and birth care, UNFPA prevents hundreds or thousands of deaths every year, and provides better lives for thousands more (for example, by treating cases of fistula). I don’t take rape lightly, but neither do I take these lives lightly. On balance, I’d rather vote for a sexual abuser who would fund UNFPA, saving thousands of lives, than non-abuser who’d take funding away from UNFPA’s vital work.
And multiply UNFPA by dozens of other examples. There are many cases where the difference between a Democrat and a Republican is a life-or-death matter. Just one provision of the Affordable Care Act – which any Republican President would seek to repeal or undermine – has prevented 50,000 deaths. Not enough has been done on climate change – but Obama has been far better than any Republican would have been, and for hundreds of thousands that’s a life-or-death issue. I could go on (I haven’t even mentioned The Supreme Court, or abortion rights, or transgender rights, or civil rights, or….), but those examples suffice.
So yes, if the situation were reversed, I’d ignore the sick feeling in my gut and vote for the Democrat.
And all the above is why I’m not voting for a third party candidate instead of Hillary Clinton. Even if I Jill Stein were better than Hillary Clinton on every policy issue, Stein is not going to be elected. The choice is Clinton or Trump, and one of those choices will pragmatically cause a lot more preventable deaths than the other. That pragmatism overwhelms every pro-Stein argument I’ve read.
But – going back to voting for Trump. I would never vote for Trump, because he’s awful on policy, in ways that could lead hundreds of thousands of people to die who would be less likely to die due to a Clinton administration. I also have enormous doubts about his competence as an executive.
But what if I were a sincere pro-lifer who genuinely believes that voting for Trump could save thousands of unborn lives? In that case, I might vote for Trump – even though he’s a man of disgusting character, a liar, a fraud, and a serial sexual abuser. That would be an understandable vote. For someone with those views, even Trump could seem like the lesser evil.
(Image by DonkeyHotey).
- Arguably, we’ve known that for a while, but it’s better known now. [↩]
- Obvious case in point: Bill Clinton was credibly accused of raping Juanita Broaddrick. [↩]
Thank you for saying this. I agree with you. I’m also voting for Clinton.
But I don’t like it when people accept bad arguments just because they agree with the conclusion (or, worse, the effect of the conclusion).
Your first paragraph – especially considering the circumstances of footnote 2 – is a perfect explanation of how hypocritical it is for the Democrats to spend weeks harping on Donald Trump’s alleged sexual assaults instead of the issues.
As opposed to the party line, which is that anyone who would consider voting for Trump is obviously doing so because they are racist, sexist, etc. It can’t be because of the issues (e.g., Hillary Clinton has yet to see a war she hasn’t liked). Nope. “You just can’t deal with a strong woman!”. It has to be about emotions, personality and character. For far too many people, the choices in this election have and have had nothing to do with logic or rational evaluation of the issues. It’s the continuation of “You don’t like Obama? You must be racist!”
Yeah, I think biography gets over-emphasized in this kind of discussion. You’re essentially hiring someone to do a job of making and implementing policy. I care a lot more about policy positions and a few ethical considerations (will corruption in official business be a problem?) than I do about personal behavior. But I don’t at all judge people who feel otherwise. (I don’t think you do, either, Amp, just disclaiming!)
Or, I say that now, but I wonder what my actual reaction would be if it happened.
There are possible higher order effects to worry about, of course. I find it hard to imagine that someone who is a serial sexual harasser/abuser of women is going to be able to attract, retain, and make the best use of female advisers, which is a problem for policy and for women who want to work in politics. But in a general US election, a Republican would still be worse than a Democrat with those flaws for me.
Upon reflection, I do want to push back a little bit.
To truly put the shoe on the other foot, you would have to assume that this morally terrible Democrat: (1) was dangerously unstable, (2) had been a Republican for all his life until right before the election, and (3) constantly dissembled and exaggerated.
Would you not consider voting third party under those, more analogous circumstances? Or would you still the devil didn’t know was better than the devil you know?
Trump’s anti-Democratic and first amendment rumblings are of far more concern to me than his sexual misconduct. Confronted with a Democrat making such noises, I’d vote Republican for the first time in my life.
I don’t think anyone would deny that there people supporting Trump because they are anti-abortion, or they want their taxes lowered above all else, or they want regulations constricting their businesses rolled back (and the list could go on). With someone like Bush, McCain or Romney, that would be fine. However, Trump is flirting with authoritarian, alt-right racists – Stormfront and that lot. Anyone who doesn’t see keeping those people out of the mainstream and away from power as a first priority is a racist in my book. As I said above, if there were an authoritarian, racist left-wing populist of a similar sort, I’d vote for the Republican.
Funny Amp would post this. Libertarian-ish economist Steven Landsburg (author of The Armchair Ecnoomist, etc.) recently posted his Frequently Asked Questions About Donald Trump:
Trump’s history of sexual abuse is bad, but to me, what’s way worse is how he’s responded to it coming to light.
I could maybe see myself holding my nose and voting for a Democrat who answered multiple charges of sexual abuse by saying something like “I won’t allow this campaign to get distracted by what I did or didn’t do in private ten or more years ago. I’m here to talk about the issues.”
But Trump, it seems, is incapable of NOT getting distracted. And not only that, his counterarguments are of the form (1) this is just how all men talk in the “locker room” (clearly not true), (2) these women are fat, ugly, and/or “disgusting,” therefore they shouldn’t be taken seriously (i.e., his first line of attack against any woman is to try to sexually humiliate her), and (3) the media are being unfair by giving these women any voice at all (which leads directly into talk of the election being “rigged,” which is seriously scary). I’d have a much harder time supporting a Democrat who did any of those things.
Yeah — in my House district, the Democrat running is just ridiculous — zero government experience, zero anything except “I don’t like the way things are going.” The Republican is someone who I disagree with on a lot of issues, but he seems to actually have a clue what he’s doing. So, I’ll hold my nose and vote for him.
One of my big issues with Trump (and there are many) is his complete inability to admit that he was wrong about anything. He says something stupid, and then he doubles down on it, insisting that stupid thing is actually true, and that anyone who says otherwise is trying to rig the election against him. You can’t possibly negotiate with other politicians, let alone other countries, with an attitude like that.
I share this perspective when I’m voting for an executive, or even a judge. But regarding a legislator? No.
In many legislatures (including Congress), unless you’re the Speaker or chair of an important committee, you might as well be a houseplant–EXCEPT when it comes to picking WHO will be the Speaker, and thus who will hand out the chairmanships. In short, party affiliation is ALL that matters for many of these positions. So if I want the Democrats to control a chamber, I’ll vote for the Democrat–even if the SPECIFIC Democrat in question is a dud.
On the flip side, I’ve been represented by a Republican legislator who constantly burnished his environmentalist credentials. Oh, he could talk a good game–and he even followed up his talk with some actual votes, and authored some environmentalist legislation. No, his votes and bills never mattered, because most of the actual environmental legislation got bottled up in Republican-dominated committees. So, in fact, the only actual, functional environmental vote that occurred was the vote for picking the Speaker–and on that occasion, this brilliant, environmentalist Republican legislator voted, of course, for the Republican.
The environment would have been far better served if we had managed to elect a doorknob who knew enough to vote for the Democratic Speaker, even if he never cast another vote.
Even the local Democratic party isn’t supporting him. Though they are endorsing a write-in, so I’ll look into that person.
I have a Democratic legislator who has consistently voted against Federal funding of abortions and who voted against the ACA. I’ve voted for him ever since the second election he ran in.
I didn’t vote for him in the first election he ran in – which he won – because of the shady and nepotistic (is that a word?) way he was nominated. His father had held the seat for umpteen years. Then, after he won the primary, unopposed, he retired. The rules are that the party gets to pick the candidate if that happens, so they searched far and wide – and then nominated his son, who was a full-time political science professor at the University of Tennessee at the time (remember that I live in Illinois). I still remember his first press conference announcing his nomination. Fresh off the plane from Tennessee, he looked like the most surprised man in the room.
If Trump were the Democratic nominee, at this point I wouldn’t vote for him. I’d only vote for a Democratic presidential candidate that vile if I thought he could win. If he’s going to lose anyway, I’d give myself the empty satisfaction of pretended moral purity and vote third party.
I suspect this is why Republican Trump is cratering as hard as he seems to be. Once the creep is going to lose, there isn’t any reason to humiliate yourself by voting for him.
How credible are the accusations that Trump keeps reaching up women’s skirts?
Let’s just say that the last three times I saw the guy alone with a woman, that woman wore a pantsuit. Draw your own conclusion….
It certainly seems like the Clinton campaign will do anything to win.
While I’m not American, and so don’t have to make a choice, I would be tempted to vote for Trump. Not because I think he would be a good president, rather precisely the opposite; I think he would be an appalling bad one. Perhaps more importantly he would be a president without the support of either major party in congress.
The end goal being to get congress to significantly curtail the powers of the president, helping to diminish the office in the eyes of the American people, but raising the perceived importance of the Congress. I think a weaker executive and voting public more focused on their local representatives would help strengthen the democratic nature of the US republic, leading to better outcomes in the long term.
Of course, I also not likely to personally suffer too much from the policy madness in the short term…
Desipis: There’s a lot of reasons to be skeptical about that video:
Trump says Clinton and Obama paid people to cause violence at his rallies | PolitiFact
Everything We Know About the Latest James O’Keefe Video Sting | TIME
Also, I think you’re being very optimistic to think that a President Trump would be opposed by Republicans in Congress.
Man, if there was only some evidence that O’Keefe had deceived people before. Gosh, if only we had a magical internet search thingy that could provide multiple examples of O’Keefe being a lying propagandist. I guess we’ll just have to take his words at face value since he has no prior evidence of being a goddamn liar.
If you are personally disgusted by one frontrunner candidate, but believe the other will do more damage in important ways, I agree that the moral choice is to vote for the disgusting one. But it’s not easy.
In order to make it a little bit easier, it’s important to remember that what deserves your disgust even more, is the voting system which makes frontrunner status self-perpetuating. In our current system, if you want to have any chance whatsoever of affecting the result, you must ignore anybody but the top two, which generally means the Republican and the Democrat. That impoverishes our debate, encourages mudslinging, and entrenches the corrupt; but it is a fixable problem. With approval voting or MAS voting, you’d be free to support your favorite and still help make sure the greater evil didn’t win.
Jameson, with absolute 100% sincerity, I love your passion on this.
I think you’re overlooking one factor, Amp: experience. Even if Stein had a chance of winning, I wouldn’t vote for her, as she has never held any kind of government position–ever. She could be the purest progressive ever, but she has no idea how to get things done, and thus is less likely to be able to implement progressive policy than Clinton.
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But there’s also the idea that the president sets the tone for the country, in a way. I’ve heard several stories from parents about elementary school kids repeating stuff that they heard Trump say. Everybody that I know on Twitter who’s identifiably Jewish has reported an increase in antisemitic messages. Practically every woman that I know who was sexually assaulted or harassed in the past has been having flashbacks or anxiety attacks the past few weeks. A whole lot of us had to turn off the second debate because the way Trump was talking and even the way he was moving were triggering too many memories. Even if a candidate like that was advocating for policies that I wanted, I would not vote for him, because that’s not the country that I want. If Trump is elected, then all those people, from the playground bullies to the Twitter antisemites to the rapists who think “that’s what guys do,” will feel like they’ve been vindicated, like the country has told them that they’re OK.
I must concur with Ruchama–in extreme cases, character does matter to me more than policy. And I’m glad it seems to matter more for many of the #NeverTrump Republicans.
And I just found out that I sort-of know one of the women who’s accusing Trump of groping her. (We’re from the same small town, and she’s about ten years older than me, so I didn’t really know her, but my older sister was friends with her youngest sister.)
“But there’s also the idea that the president sets the tone for the country, in a way.”
Do you think Obama has set the tone during his Presidency?
Ampersand:
Oh, I am pretty skeptical. I think it’s just an illustration that one should also be skeptical about the news stories about “trump supporters did/said bad thing”.
If I was king for a day in the US, the voting system is probably the thing I would change. Although I’d go for something closer to the Australian senate system, with compulsory and preferential voting, with proportionate representation from each state.
I made this comment a few years ago alluding to the difference in political rhetoric between places that have compulsory voting and those that don’t:
The point being you end up with less extremist nutbags in office because the system incentivises targeting the “sensible middle” who have to vote even though they aren’t particularly passionate about things, rather than trying to fire up an ever more partisan “political base” in order to get them to show up.
I agree with many other people here that the narrow version of this argument is true but there are many non-partisan flaws related to Donald Trump that mean I could not vote for a left-wing version of him. His attacks on freedom of speech/freedom of the press are pretty bad, but maybe the worst things to me are the combination of his apparent inability to sit still and pay attention when need be and his poor choice of advisors; and that he seems to sort people into “good” or “bad” depending on how nice they are to Donald Trump, and shows little interest in controlling his behavior based on criteria other than “is nice to Donald Trump”.
Another thing to think about–a politician could have demonstrated, by pointing to their political record, that they do not let their private-life attitudes affect their job performance. Donald Trump has no political record.
I’m a little skeptical that many politicians could significantly compartmentalize their toxic attitudes if they’re going so far as to sexually assault people. There are plenty of examples of Donald Trump being sexist in other ways towards women, so in his case I’d say there is evidence that he cannot compartmentalize.
Of course, in a lesser-of-two-evils system, a lot depends on who the candidate is running against. I’d have to give it some more thought if this was not just hypothetical, but I think that if it was a matter of a Clinton/Obama-style Democrat with both the verbal misogyny and the sexual assault record of Trump, and they were up against Mitt Romney or John McCain, I’d vote for the Republican. But if they were up against Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz, I think I’d hold my nose and vote for the Democrat. Especially if Congress is controlled by Republicans at the time.
desipis:
The Executive branch was intended to be a lot weaker than it currently is when the Constitution was written. In fact, as it stood the amount of power that the Constitution originally gave the President was viewed by contemporaries as excessive and was one of the major objections to it’s ratification. But over the decades since WW II, and especially since the ’60’s, Congress has delegated huge amounts of power to the Executive branch in a fashion that I think would horrify the Founders (and most people for the century and a half after that). What Congress started doing was to pass laws creating bureaucracies that could essentially make law via regulation, give them broad and vague guidelines for their authority, and then hand them over to the Executive branch to staff and run. That freed up Congress to spend a lot more time fundraising (a.k.a. “selling their influence”) than any opponent not in political office can do, which in turn leads to legislatures where most of the members who have been in office for more than a term or two don’t face meaningful opposition for re-election and are thus less responsive to the electorate. That system needs to be broken up. I don’t know if electing Trump will do that, but I can see where people would figure it’s worth a try. Certainly electing Clinton will only perpetuate that system, not challenge it.
BTW – I’ve decided to vote for Dr. Stein for President. As I’ve commented a great many times, the Democratic party dominates Illinois government to the point that both houses of the Illinois General Assembly have veto-proof Democratic majorities that have been handing out tax money to the point that the State of Illinois is functionally bankrupt. Heck, the last budget they sent to the Governor was $7 billion (21%) in deficit. He didn’t sign it (it violated the State’s Constitution, anyway).
Electoral law in Illinois is such that if a party doesn’t get 5% of the vote in a general election it does not get an automatic spot on the next election’s ballot. They’ll have to get a bunch of petitioners organized, get 2x (minimum) the signatures needed to qualify someone for the ballot and then have to pay for lawyers to keep the Democrats or Republicans from keeping them off the ballot by challenging the signatures (that last bit is how now-President Obama eliminated his competition in the Democratic primary for State Senator in the first election he ever won). If the Green party gets 5% then, they’ll automatically have a spot on the next ballot and possibly have a shot in sucking off votes that would otherwise go to the Democrats. So that’s who I’m voting for.
Cynical? I won’t say no. Just doing my part to break the two party oligarchy.