By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--September 12, 2016
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Applying the same methods Campbell does, I can easily draft comparisons where Trump looks less favorable than Clinton. Is lying about Benghazi equal to risking global peace by torching our NATO alliance? Is giving canned speeches to Wall Street fat cats worse than launching trade wars that ruin the economic prospects of millions of middle-class and working-class Americans? Is failing to give press conferences as bad as instituting national security policies that could literally fracture the civil-military relationship? Neither major-party candidate is conservative, neither candidate has the character to be president, and both advance policies that I believe are deeply harmful to the country. Trump would be better on judges, the Second Amendment, and (maybe) immigration. Clinton would likely be better on national security, trade policy, and deficit spending. Clinton promises a continued unacceptable status quo (with perhaps some small foreign policy improvements). Trump carries with him the possibility of some better policies — but also the possibility of truly catastrophic failure. They both will bring a traveling road show of lies and scandal to the Oval Office. Some Christians bizarrely ask me to choose the “lesser of two evils” as if the choice is obvious. It’s not. Not one person has made a convincing case that — on balance — Trump is better than Clinton or Clinton is better than Trump. The only convincing case is that they are both unfit for our nation’s highest office, and I won’t — and will never — vote for an unfit candidate.If French thinks no one has made the case that Trump is superior to Hillary, he can go here on character, and here on policy. But even if French were to read these pieces, it would make no difference to him. He has constructed an unfalsifiable argument, one in which no issue position Trump takes can be believed because Trump never means anything he says. This allows French to ascribe pretty much any issue position he wants to Trump by claiming that any Trump expression to the contrary is simply a lie. Yet look at how French has constructed the comparisons above. In every case, he has compared things Hillary has already done or is actively doing to things French thinks Trump would do if elected. Hillary lied about Benghazi. That actually happened. Trump has made some statements about the NATO alliances that leads some people to think he might do undesirable things regarding it, but Trump has not proposed to "torch" it, nor has he said we should. Yet French presents these two ideas as if they are apples and apples. Hillary has already given canned pay-for-play speeches to Wall Street. This is a fact. Trump believes some things about trade that might not be so wise (and on policy here I'm probably closer to French than I am to Trump), but it is a gigantic extrapolation to say Trump will be "launching trade wars that ruin the economic prospects" of millions of Americans. Yet again, French has presented Hillary's Wall Street corruption side-by-side with his worst-case scenario of Trump's trade thinking as if the one is the equivalent of the other. And French does it one more time: Not holding press conferences? This is an established Hillary pattern of behavior, and we all know why. She doesn't want to have to answer any questions about what she does. Trump "instituting national security policies that could literally fracture the civil-military relationship"? Trump has proposed no such thing. That is French's most hysterical outlook on what could result from statements Trump has made, but it is not an actual Trump proposal, nor is it an established pattern of behavior like Hillary's ducking of questions from the press. In every case, French puts things Hillary already does against things he fears Trump might do, and presumes to call this a valid way of comparing the two. But this is the kind of twisted logic you have to deploy when you back yourself into an intellectual corner and you can't defend your position, but you're completely unwilling to admit you were wrong. Donald Trump a very flawed candidate? Clearly. Donald Trump as bad as Hillary Clinton? That's completely insane. For a smart guy like David French and many of the other #NeverTrumpers to continue clinging to this position can only be explained in one way: They bluffed, they got called on the bluff, and even though it's plain that they were wrong and overplayed their hands, they can never admit it because they made a pact to take this all the way. No matter what. The good news is that the #NeverTrumpers are far less numerous than they are vocal, and I don't think they're very influential at all. The other good news is that rational people can see just how horrible Hillary really is. And even if the #NeverTrumpers of the world are prepared to let her become president just to prove they will never back down, logical and rational people are not.
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