If the Case for Your Candidate Relies on Willful Blindness, Your Case Sucks

Spare me your shallow browbeating.

I got a chuckle the other day from a comment a subscriber left under Bernie’s recent column about our nation’s presidential choices in November. The commenter was upset with Bernie and me for our mutual decision not to vote for Donald Trump.

Those who’ve been reading our work for a while know that this isn’t exactly a new position. Neither of us voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 either (nor did we vote for his Democratic opponent). So, it’s become a bit of a tradition in presidential election years, right around this time, for some of our readers to get quite irritated with the two of us. They insist that if we don’t pinch our nose and pull the lever for their guy, America will die in a fiery inferno (probably literally).

I find this amusing for all sorts of reasons (some of which Jonah Goldberg recently echoed), but what should be an obvious one is that Bernie and I don’t live in swing-states. His is reliably red, and mine is reliably blue. Heck, here in Colorado, Biden defeated Trump by 14 points last time. In fact, no Republican has won a state-wide general-election here since 2014… and that’s in large part because of Trump (but that’s a topic for another column).

In other words, we won’t be the ones deciding this race.

Why then are some readers so concerned with who the two of us are voting for? Frankly, I think their anger has a lot more to do with a need or desire to have their own voting decision validated. And truth be told, I kind of understand that, especially now that they intend to vote for an individual who tried to overturn the last election, and provoked a deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol — acts they would assurely deem disqualifying, for any public office, had they been committed by anyone else.

But that only further illustrates the silliness of their frustration with us. If anything, Trump’s last two months in office proved, by any objective standard, that our previously held view of him being unfit for office was, in fact, correct. Because of that, those insisting we must vote for him feel inclined to twist themselves into pretzels to avoid acknowledging that those events (and others) even happened. At best, they present them as no big deal, which is almost as absurd.

Case in point, here’s part of what the aforementioned commenter wrote:

You and that idiot "friend" of yours, John Daly, continue to put forth the notion that the only thing that counts is the demeanor of Trump vs. the senility of Biden.

Of course, that’s not an accurate assessment of our comprehensive thoughts on Biden and Trump (though I did get a kick out of the notion that my friendship with Bernie is in question). What I found far more interesting was the choice of the word “demeanor” in the commenter’s argument, in part because I’m seeing it used a lot right now by Trump’s defenders. In fact, just minutes after I read that remark, I saw an online video of Bill O’Reilly using the same term:

It’s very difficult for some people to acknowledge the truth: that Joe Biden is a terrible president… And Donald Trump did much better in the Oval Office, but Trump’s demeanor holds him back, and it prevents some voters from acknowledging what I just told you. Trump was a far better president, just on logistics … But it’s lost, because of the demeanor.

It probably won’t surprise any of you that I think “demeanor” is doing a lot of work here. It suggests that the biggest problems with Trump are purely stylistic or behavioral, and therefore they’re of no real harm or consequence. One may have been able to make that argument, even in good faith, back in 2016 (before Trump held office). But in the year 2024, it’s utter nonsense.

When a U.S. president tries to overturn the results of national election, and denies our country of its peaceful transfer of power — all because he can’t cope with losing — that’s not the same as “mean tweets” or salty language.

When a U.S. president sits in front of his television and does nothing for hours, while his supporters (whom he duped into believing the election was stolen) beat the hell out of cops (some of whom later committed suicide), that’s not the same as assigning demeaning nicknames to political opponents. Neither is saluting those who committed the violence as “patriots,” and vowing, if re-elected, to free them from prison.

When a U.S. president, on his way out of office, takes and refuses to return top-secret government documents (including on nuclear-weapons and war plans, to show off to random people at his country club), that’s not the same as accusing an innocent person of being corrupt, or calling their spouse ugly. Neither is obstructing legal efforts by the Department of Justice and the FBI to take back those documents.

When Trump’s defenders claim otherwise, they’re telling you that they shouldn’t be taken seriously. A serious argument would be premised on the truth and supported by facts, not revisionist history or easily debunked conspiracy theories.

The same goes for many of those who insist you must vote for Joe Biden. If they’re telling you that he’s as sharp as ever, that he’s an honest broker, or that age hasn’t diminished his capacities, they’re either not being honest with you… or not being honest with themselves. Either way, they’re not telling you the truth.

I understand that making a strong case for either of these men is very difficult, but if you can’t do it without denying significant realities, your frustration should be with yourself… not those of us who recognize that you’re full of it.