A day or two ago, Jim Treacher made a useful observation:
Every time you make a #NeverTrump person defend him on principle, you’re just driving away another prospective 2020 voter. Keep it up.
I’m a perfect example.
I don’t like Trump. A year ago, I was writing about my suspicions about Trump’s nomination. A couple days before the election, I tweeted:
It’s turning out just as I feared. One of them is gonna win.
— (((Charlie Martin))) (@chasrmartin) November 9, 2016
So let’s just be clear. I don’t particularly like Trump. I didn’t vote for Trump. I preferred him over Clinton, marginally, because Trump wasn’t an outright criminal whose primary defense was that her political cronies refused to prosecute, and because I thought (as Glenn Reynolds has suggested) that I could depend on the press to at least actually scrutinize what Trump’s administration was doing.
Well, in the intervening couple of weeks, I’ve seen:
- violent protests against Trump
- brutal assaults against Trump supporters
- death threats against Trump, Mike Pence, and their families
- concerted attempts to suborn the election by petitioning electors to change their votes, including by doxxing electors and overtly making repeated death threats against them,
- and open plans to to not just protest, but to disrupt, Trump’s inauguration.
Now, I didn’t like Trump because he struck me as authoritarian: a big-government lover; a crony capitalist who bragged about using his money for political contributions to buy cooperation; an opportunist who changed his political positions depending on the audience who was pandering to the audience he thought had the best chance of falling for his pander; and a person building a cult of personality with an appeal that depended on a policy of “othering” certain racial, religious, and ethnic groups.
In other words, I found Trump to be not easily distinguishable from Clinton or Obama.
Nevertheless, I’ve since been forced into defending Trump and Trump supporters against attacks that are clearly false and unfair. And I’ve seen lots of people on the anti-Trump side valorizing boorish behavior and outright thuggery.
I’ve got to say: if you’re trying to make a case against Trump via trying to reverse the election by mob rule, by threats of violence against electors, and by openly planning an insurrection — er, “disruption”?
Then you’re making one hell of a good case that Trump is less of a threat to democracy than his opponents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx2XtaUkzlQ
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