Prevent Defense

The Basket of Deplorables has been emptied by its carrier upon the realization that the comment paralleled the “47%” comment of 2012, part one of that campaign’s twin killing [Hurricane Sandy being the part two].

Instead, it’s been filled by the tops of all four electoral tickets.  The only question is whether to call them “Deplorables”, or “Indefensibles”, the only salient reason to vote for any candidate being playing defense to prevent another one from winning [which, as everyone knows, is what a “prevent defense” does: it prevents you from winning].

Simply put: one who votes for Clinton is joining forces with terrorist sympathizers.  One who joins votes for Trump is joining forces with the alt right and its incursion into the body politic.  One who votes for Stein is joining forces with Jenny McCarthy.  One who vote for Johnson may be joining forces with a modicum of intellectual vacuity that gives rise to the specter of Sarah Palin [more perception than reality, but too glaring to ignore].

Ultimately Trump is playing with house money, even if he’s too narcissistic to realize it.  A Trump victory would serve as the most humiliating repudiation of eight years of an administrative reign since the 1966 midterms and 1968 Presidential race.

A failed Trump administration might trigger a cascade of schadenfreude among Hillary voters.  If he wins and governs irresponsibly, he’s not going to care very much about the results; he’ll dodge responsibility the way he has in all the debates.   However, should that happen, one might then point to the dual failure of the Democrats to put forth responsible policies when they were in power and compound that failure by putting forth a—or the—candidate who should have stopped Trump, his election being the repudiation of eight years of Democratic policies and their once and erstwhile future promulgators.

If Hillary wins—and it’s going to be close—one can easily point at the GOP for failing to put forth a viable candidate against a supremely vulnerable opponent.  If after winning she has a failed administration, she will become the modern-day and Left analog of Herbert Hoover, and earn hatred from all quarters: those to her right who never liked her and prayed for her humiliation, and those to her left who will feel that she shortchanged them for her own selfish reasons.  If she loses the election, as I’ve noted elsewhere, she becomes the political analog to the 1968 Baltimore Colts.  Contra her declaration at the end of the debate, she may really not be all that “prepared” for what she now faces.

So while voting for Johnson may present problems of credibility for anyone with any sense of current events and/or history [which he has proven himself to be woefully lacking], the fact that he knows he can’t win makes his candidacy more palatable.  In fact, his track record as governor indicates he knows something about governmental administration, something Trump knows nothing about, and something Clinton has executed with disastrous results.  [As PJ O’Rourke put it, she’s “wrong about everything”, albeit within “normal parameters”.  Still, no less “wrong about everything”.]  And his choice of VP is probably the closest thing to a bipartisan successful political figure, which indicates he knows how to vet [which is a marketable skill vis-a-vis immigration, but one Johnson would waive in that area.  Oh well.]

[It IS a good thing Johnson didn’t join in the debates; owing to his obvious inability to think under pressure, he might have made Trump look smart.  True Libertarians are likely devastated at the damage he’s done to the credibility of the movement; had his candidacy been more viable, the decent thing would have been to resign.  However, those backing him for other reasons are likely unconcerned with the fate of that movement or its party.]

Basically: Trump appeases the alt right; Clinton appeases terrorist supporters; Stein appeases conspiracy theorists. Whom does Johnson appease, exactly? More specifically: a Johnson supporter might sacrifice some intellectual credibility.  Voters for all other three candidates sacrifice moral credibility. 

Either way, it’s time for me to own that the candidate I’VE committed to back is woefully unprepared and/or unfit for the highest national office; should said candidate prove victorious and proceed to govern with disastrous results, I’d have to own the vote and have everyone say “I told you so”.  I await an equivalent admission from diehard acolytes of HRC or DJT about their respective standard bearers, whether during the election cycle or when whichever victorious future administration spectacularly tanks.  Somehow I don’t expect said admissions to be forthcoming.  [Stein acolytes hopefully will eschew vaccination long enough to Darwin award themselves out of existence.]

If anyone REALLY thought the fate of the Republic was on the line, they’d sit out.   Or play prevent defense.

Endgame?

Super Bowl V.

The first Super Bowl in the merged NFL, and the first one in which the awarded trophy bore the name of Vince Lombardi. 

Tied at 13, 1:51 left in regulation. 

Dallas Cowboys’ ball, all three timeouts, 1^st and 10 at the Baltimore Colts’ 48 after a punt.

How do you blow that?

A run for -1 yard, a 24-yard holding penalty [15 yards from the spot of the foul back then], and a too-high pass from Craig Morton to Dan Reeves deflected off Reeves’ hands into the arms of Colts’ LB Mike Curtis.  The stage was set for Jim O’Brien’s FG that won the game for Baltimore.

On the eve of the first Presidential debate, the drama of what was termed the “Blunder Bowl” bears mentioning.  Note that the winning Colts turned the ball over seven times during the course of the game, but won largely because of a [disputed] fumble on their 1-yard line early in the 3^rd quarter, and Morton’s three 4^th quarter interceptions.  It wasn’t so much the number of or even the enormity of the mistakes; it was the timing. 

One might say that something similar will happen in this election.  It won’t be won by either deeply flawed mainstream candidate, but will be lost by whomever makes the most crucial mistake at the most inopportune time, most likely as close to Election Day as possible.

It’s hard to say which candidate parallels which team right now; there’s no real accurate way to quantify the number of gaffes, or even the enormity of the ones everyone seems to admit are actual gaffes.  At the moment, it does seem as if Donald Trump is doing a better job of controlling himself, while Hillary Clinton is desperately grabbing onto some semblance of a favorable narrative as events both directly [emails, health] and indirectly [the terrorism in NY and MN, riots in NC] related give the impression that she isn’t in control of it anymore, or that she ever was.

If, however, Hillary Clinton does lose this election, no one is going to be comparing her to the Cowboys of Super Bowl V.

She will, instead, become the political parallel of another Baltimore Colts team.

The one that was heavily favored in Super Bowl III and couldn’t lose.

And then did.

To…the Jets.