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I, like the rest of the country, feel like nothing good will come of the election. However, I feel this way for a slightly different reason than your average person, and probably closer to the average Mottezian.
I actually don't really care too much who is president. Either one of them would IMO do a good enough job. I mostly care whether the president impacts my everyday life or causes nuclear war. However, though it isn't his fault directly, having Trump in charge would impact my everyday life negatively, mostly because it would fuel another 4 years of incessant leftist whining all around me, from all my friends and family, along with people starting to (erroneously, IMO) see and declare that racism and sexism is everywhere again. It'll start causing fights between me and my wife again. My workplace and all local institutions will start making statements about how they're standing up to Trump and racism. Under Biden, I have truly enjoyed some nice peace and respite from politics.
However, I find this state of affairs to be very irritating. It feels like the left, or at least the leftists in my life, are taking an infantile tactic: we better win or we'll whine and complain for 4 years. I don't respect sore losers, and moreover, I don't like the fact that there is no path forward for the right.
Scott said this back in 2016:
Scott was absolutely correct here in how it played out. But what option does this leave the non leftists with? If the Democrat wins, then the currents move left. We get leftism enshrined into law over the next 4 years, because to the victor go the spoils. If the Republican wins, then the undercurrents move left, and more and more people get radicalized towards the left.
Is there a way for the currents to move right without the undercurrents moving left? Or is Trump just uniquely bad at making that happen? I'm tempted to say that this is just the fact that Trump is a polarizing figure, but at the same time, all the leftists I know scream bloody murder whenever a Republican is in command. They were infantile under George W Bush. And though I wasn't around then, I know many people who are still salty over Reagan and act like he was the worst.
George W Bush was really bad. He invaded a country under false pretences, got the US into two inglorious, expensive, losing wars. He provided the example for the pre-emptive strike/who cares about international law doctrine that Russia is now implementing. Maybe Afghanistan was necessary but he managed it with the same contempt and neglect he showed in Iraq. There was no plan for running the occupied territory, no clear and sustainable objective, nothing! Bush also pointlessly threatened a bunch of countries with invasion - lo and behold Iran did its best to cause problems for America lest it be the next Iraq. After being put on the Axis of Evil North Korea decided to nuclearize.
On domestic policy he wasn't great either. No Child Left Behind was a huge waste of money. He started the unconstitutional mass surveillance program. What is there to like about Bush?
Consider that you’re choosing how to define “worse” in a way that others may not share.
For example:
My litmus test for anyone right of center is asking them if Trump violated his oath of office and is demonstrably unfit to be president.
Anyone who says no is not really worth taking seriously as someone with principles.
Bush was worse by some measures than Trump, but I didn’t question his basic sanity or have to wonder if he was going to purposefully erode our constitutional norms.
I'm not aware of anyone with privileged access to Bush's thought processes (inner circle members, biographers, journalists who were able to do extended interviews etc.) saying this. There are basically two non-exclusive theories I have seen about Bush's motives (the motives of other players in the Bush administration were different) from people who did have this access:
The other thing to remember is that the decision to go to war in Iraq was sufficiently overdetermined that people who were familiar with the US Deep State and the Republican foreign-policy elite were saying "The Bush administration is going to use this as a figleaf to justify a war in Iraq" within hours of the second plane hitting the tower. As far as I can see, both factions had been looking for a window of opportunity to remove Saddam ever since the first Gulf War.
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