it My wife just got back from voting and declared that she felt like she needed a shower. Which I told her, much to her delight — being a big fan of Charles Krauthammer — mimicked what Krauthammer said when he quipped last night on The O’Reilly Factor that President Obama should issue an executive order to have showers installed in voting booths.
It’s that kind of election.
Now the national debate and talking heads move from the dreary and self-pitying “How the Hell Did We Get These Candidates” phase to the sanctimonious “How are we going to heal and unite after this is over.”
We shouldn’t. Unite, that is. Yes, I wrote that.
To expect fervent Clinton or Trump supporters to immediately assimilate into some corporeal Borg behind the elected President is both dangerous, un-American, and inimical to our responsibilities as citizens.
Obviously, the outcome; absent any manifest and massive Joe Kennedy like “I didn’t pay for a landslide” shenanigans, should be respected.
But let me put it this way, should Trump voters be asked to set aside their loathing for Hillary Clinton as the manifestation of corruption in our political system, said loathing rooted in 30 years of non-stop scandals explicitly demonstrating that for the Clintons, public office is simply a means to further their private gain?
Should we expect Clinton supporters (the minority who are enthusiastically voting for her or the majority who are holding their nose to vote for her) to “come together” behind Trump when they sincerely believe he is erratic and a danger to our safety (to take only one of the accusations hurled at him).
No, we shouldn’t, and nor should either group be anything other than vigilant in regards to the election of the new President (and certainly Clinton supporters would have a trove of Republicans joining them in that vigilance of a President Trump).
It is a strange fetish that we have that democratic elections somehow sanctify the elected. They don’t. Nothing could be farther from the truth and this mythology has allowed those whom we have elected to to govern within limits to rule without restraint.
Politicians, ALL politicians, are, as human beings, ipso facto a mixed bag of sincerity, venality, arrogance, and stupidity. This presidential election has demonstrated in bold relief that reality. The entire river Jordan couldn’t wash away these two candidates’ sins.
So, if we must “come together” let us come together on something salutary, a firm agreement that we all, Democrats and Republicans, Trump voters and Clinton voters, will be skeptical and vigilant of whomever we elect to whatever office.
That much good, at least, could come from this election.
Donald Rieck is President of The American Spectator Foundation and founder and Editor of EconoSTATS.org.
