Binary Choice for Me but Not for Thee
2nd November 2020
We’ve seen the editorials by now: Certain columnists with National Review, Commentary, Dispatch, Bulwark, if you still think they have any morality, the Lincoln Project, Peggy Noonan, George Will, et al., telling you it’s not a binary choice. Vote Biden because he has…something that’s not Trump, which, seems like a binary choice. There’s the occasional “you don’t owe your vote to anyone” contrarian who is voting for someone who can’t win just to posture that he or she is an individual. Oh, that’s cute, you wrote in someone that’s getting as many Electoral Votes as I am, and I’m just as impressed with the person who doesn’t vote because they don’t really have a voice. If I vote for Mickey Mouse, is that a powerful statement or a waste of my responsibility? Why is it different if I write in Mitch Daniels who will probably get fewer votes?
The biggest failure of this election cycle are the people who are faced with a choice between the guy who accomplished what even Reagan wasn’t able to do and the guy who would be the second coming of Jimmy Carter, and would pick the latter merely because the former didn’t fit their idea of The Perfect President. These are the people who would rather lose with Romney than win with a middle-class guy from Queens.