This is the most important election of my lifetime? Nuts!

Evidently I have lived in very bad times. Since I was a little boy, I have been told THIS ELECTION IS THE MOST IMPORTANT OF YOUR LIFETIME. We always stood one more term of “them” from TOTAL DOOM.

Nuts.

My hero Teddy Roosevelt told us “we stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord.” We did not stand at Armageddon and TRex was a fine figure of a man, but not Saint Michael. Wilson was a racist and a bad president, but we survived.

Of course, we had Taft to vote for then. I would have voted Taft and lost. (Throwing my vote away!) Why?

TRex had become a bit authoritarian and Wilson was wicked. In any case, just as the “game of the century” happens every few years in football, so the election of the century will come in four more years.

We were told that three times if we had four more years of Roosevelt we would all be socialists. We got four terms of Roosevelt and we were not all socialists. In fact, we went from Roosevelt and Truman to the 1950’s and Eisenhower. When I was a boy, Jimmy Carter the “born again” President who would save us (Dad voted for Ford) from evil (like Nixon who was going to save us from the hippies!).

Reagan is the greatest President of my lifetime and he came after two terms of Nixon-Ford and Carter. The Republic survived to give us Reagan.

But aren’t we in terminal decline in the worst moral shape ever?

When I was born, segregation was still legal and church people said horribly racist things openly. Things are better. We are now getting sex morality wrong. That is bad, but which is worse? We used to have more civil religion, now we have more mild social persecution.

The civil religion was a mixed blessing. The social persecution is not so bad yet: ask Syrian Christians.

I don’t know. I don’t adjudicate evil generally. Slavery was worse than segregation and segregation was bad. Jim Crow was bad and when we were killing First Nations and taking their land (we gave them in treaties) for farms and mining that was evil. The robber industrialists who killed my grandfather by refusing to give him a mask to cut asbestos were wicked.

What about the world?

The world is a mess right now. I think President Obama is leaving us less safe (by a lot) than we were, but Daesh is no Nazi Germany. We have no foes equal to Imperial Japan. Our economy is prosperous enough that most people are ignoring politics not consumed by politics.

Yet once again I meet people who tell me: if you do not vote for Mr Gobsmack or Madam Grifter of my party, then there may not be another election. Our country cannot take four years of Gobsmack/Grifter. Social media has made this worse.

Most Americans hate both candidates this time. They are some of the worst we have dredged up to run, though I think Fremont-Buchanan-Fillmore was worse. We had a party called Know Nothing and they did not. We were also about to have the Civil War which strikes me as a greater crisis.

Petty pols always want to get power by a crisis.

What is safest? Do not vote for a cad, roue, congenital liar, or criminal no matter what party. If you do not vote, you voted for neither person. Nobody had a right to your vote and if nobody earns it, do not besmirch what your fathers and mothers gave you by giving it to Gobsmack or Grifter.

Since nobody had a “right to your vote,” not voting for Gobsmack is not a vote for Grifter, just as not voting for Grifter is not a vote for Gobsmack. Of course, some things will be better under Gobsmack than Grifter (or vice versa), but if you honor the parties for putting up knaves, then more knaves are what we will get.

If turnout is down, they will get the message.

Of course, someday we will be doomed. I know this: having to choose between Buchanan/Fremont/Fillmore was a bad sign. The worse news: if you had sold your soul and voted for Buchanan or Fremont or Fillmore to avoid the Civil War, we would have had the Civil War and you would have done a bad thing.

If all that stands between us and something as bad as the Civil War is Gobsmack or Grifter, then we are going to have something bad happen to us. Politics is not that important. This is a Christian idea and a wicked Gobsmack or a corrupt Grifter will not hold off the doom. For a doom to happen more than politics has to fail.

Of course, generally political parties will hype up the terror (those filthy Whigs!) so that you overlook how wretched you are. It is a long and honorable tradition to refuse this manipulation and not vote based on conscience or to vote for a certain loser (3rd party) so your normal party gets the message.

No more Grifter or Gobsmack. Anyone who tells you that you must vote has take away your liberty. They must earn your vote. If nobody does, do not.

Four years later find someone better and turn the rascals out. Things might be worse, but the Republic is likely to survive.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THIS BENEFIT FROM GOBSMACK or GRIFTER: the worry changes, but all my life somebody has said we were doomed due to such and such a thing. Often, they have been right. Our segregation policy was voted into place and it was doom ridden, evil, and those who did it were stained forever with an evil deed. We should have voted against this evil.

But what if both are evil in different ways: Gobsmack will torture and is ignorant, but Grifter is corrupt and wrong? If both fall below the bar, vote your conscience. Helping either Gobsmack or Grifter is bad unless we are otherwise doomed.

We might get good justices out of Gobsmack while he tortures people. We might get no torture from Grifter while Grifter loots the Republic. The truth is: we are big country. We have no reason to pretend that Gobsmack and Grifter need your support to avoid the end of the Republic. 

Beware the pundit who will see signs of growth in Gobsmack if Gobsmack can read a teleprompter or signs of virtue in Grifter if Grifter surrounds herself with cool kids.

If we did not think THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF MY LIFETIME, we would laugh at Gobsmack and shudder at Grifter and vote our conscience: even if that meant not voting. Somebody would win one term, but then the other party would learn their lesson and give us someone better.

That is why the parties will play on your fear. They want you to corrupt your values (strip club ownership is not so bad!) or your principles (abortion isn’t as evil as Gobsmack) to win a race. Of course, the only sure thing about such a choice is that you will surely be corrupted by it and cause scandal to those around you.

Fear is the only way to get Mrs. Probity to support someone she would not let babysit her child. Mrs. Probity might save us from doom, though doom is unlikely, but she is sure to tarnish her name.

What do I mean?

If you give up as Probity does, hoping to avoid DOOM, then you will lose the right to say probity counts in public if doom does not come. In fact, you will look either dumb or wicked and bring the Faith into derision.

People will see you justifying Gobsmack and no matter what you say, associate you with Gobsmack forever. The moral bar will be moved. Soon people on your team will see no virtue in Gobsmack or Grifter. They will see a coming golden age if only Gobsmack or Grifter wins.

We might get one of them elected, but we will never get the Golden Age. If you know how to predict the rare awesome person (the Lincoln or Reagan), then tell us. The rest of us can only eliminate the Gobsmack or Grifter, accept the mediocre (Taft or Ford) while hoping a Ford becomes a Lincoln.

Sometimes they do.

Thank God the parties rarely give us dreadful choices, usually they are only pretty bad, like we are. Be patient. They will do (a bit) better next time than they have this time. Meanwhile, be sure: another MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION EVER will almost surely come.

Don’t be gobsmacked. Don’t become a grifter.