Make voting great again

Glad I can't cast mine in this one

No. It’s P’s Toulon rugby team cap

Closing a video catch-up with someone this week a friend remarked on how much he had enjoyed it. "That's because we spent the whole time agreeing" I said and it was true.

We're both tired of a culture that wallows in despair and anxious agitation around 'injustice' and 'oppression' so it's a relief to know that someone will laugh if you speak your mind. He jokes about being a 'proud gammon' and his need for a sympathetic interlocutor is palpable.

These are the times we live in. Where politics are not just what we think about some things, but a big part of who many of us think we are.

It made me think about going on demonstrations and the sense of 'bonding' you feel alongside others who are as bothered about something as you. I experienced this on a couple of anti-Brexit marches and it was nice.

For the last two months there have been regular street protests over an extraordinary rape trial which is inevitably portrayed by feminists as emblematic of the plight of women en général here in France.

“We are all Gisèle. Are you all Dominique???” said one placard.

Since Dominique spent ten years drugging his wife and recruiting men on the internet to have sex with her zombified body, while he filmed it all, it's safe to say no. No, we are not all Dominique.

Also, no. No, you are not all Gisèle.

What I see is mostly you all having a nice time being furious about Dominique's behaviour, while bonding over a shared fallacy that all women are unsafe because some men behave unconscionably.

In reality I tend to think that there are always grains of truth in most concerns about 'justice' and the better part of me knows that a significant number of men do get away with doing things to women that would earn them life-changing injuries from me if their target was my daughter.

But this moment reminds me of the last time a particularly egregious case of male-on-female sexual violence led to similarly overblown claims.

Traditionally, what happens here is that statistics about this kind of thing are contrasted with other statistics about other victims of things in a vain attempt to establish rational perspective and it all runs into the sand and everyone just hates each other a little bit more.

It's exactly the same dynamic as the one that makes people in the US wildly overestimate the number of black people shot by police.

We all know what happens next.

You say: "But the situation isn't as bad as you're making out"

And they say: "So you don't care about this Bad Thing" or "You're denying that this Bad Thing is Bad".

(Things continue in this vein until both sides give up and cash in mutual resentment chips)

I think about this often, when there are protests.

And elections, when the hyperbole of both sides reaches the kind of crescendo we're seeing in the US election.

Aware of a grain of truth becoming a comprehensive worldview, the protesters and partisans lose me.

Then something stupid happens. The moment I see the flattening of an interesting question into an entire ideology I reflexively begin to balk. Then care less, rather than more, about it.

Ideological flattening makes me confused about obviously significant questions that I'd prefer to feel settled on.

I'm glad I don't have a vote in the US election because that's pretty much what governs my perceptions of that contest at this point.

For example, my sense that Donald Trump is unsuited to be president never diminishes, on the basis of my belief that respecting electoral defeat is important. I was even moved to celebrate this when Britain's useless outgoing Conservative Prime Minister this year made warm and respectful remarks while handing over office to his Labour opponent.

I like it when boxers hug after a tough bout and footballers commiserate on the pitch with their vanquished opponents. It's just how I'm wired.

But, were I to be voting on November 5, I'd struggle.

The media is the last place to look for decision support

Did you know that Trump recently said this about Harris?

"She seems to have an ability to survive, because you know she was out of the race and all of a sudden she's running for president. That's a great ability that some people have and some people don't have. She seems to have some pretty longtime friendships and that's, you know, also that's - I don't call that an ability I call that a a good thing.

And she seems to have a nice way about her. I mean, I like the way some of her statements, the way she behaves in a certain way. But in another way I think it's very bad for our country, very bad for our country. But she does seem to have some relationships that be lasting and she does seem to be a survivor because remember she was the first one out and all of a sudden she's running for president and the other 21 people that are running they're sitting home watching her on television right"

Sure, he's bumbling. It's the weave. And I enjoy it enough to think that people who don't get it are a bit dim. (You can dislike it to your heart's content, but if you can't see why others do like it, there's half the basis for America's supposed polarisation problem right there.)

Trump saying nice things about Harris turns out to be as tricky to find as Trump condemning the Charlottesville right-wingnuts because the information landscape is skewed.

As the US election has ground on I've become increasingly frustrated with that skew.

So when I saw the headlines about the Madison Square Garden campaign rabble-rouser being indistinguishable from a Nazi rally I was curious to see how it would look to me. So I watched most of it and ran the video through a transcription service, to read at leisure.¹

Either I'm a Nazi or that was a stock political entertainment event, Trumpkin-style, with a provocative joke thrown in referring to problems they have with running out of landfill sites in Puerto Rico. 

Yes, I'm as bored of the outrage as you are outraged by me carrying water for racists and misogynists by not finding jokes all that bad.

I'm getting most of my 'news'² about the US election from extremely skewed sources that lazily focus almost entirely on the predictable tone of Trump and his team.

By serving me headlines every day about the latest crop of daft remarks made on the Trump stump they are making me numb to their concerns and less trusting that the information piped through their editorial nozzle includes all of the salient policy positions.

Despite being unable to vote I want to know how I would if I could and that's turning out to be difficult.

I already got to vote in the UK General Election this year and it was comparatively easy to choose, even if with little enthusiasm, to help Labour sweep a moribund Tory party out of office after being there under false pretences for way too long.

But a settled position on how I'd vote this coming Tuesday has been more elusive.

The thing is, I'm preternaturally hostile to finger-wagging normative progressive culture. So that suggests a slam dunk for Trump.

I despise identity politics for its divisiveness. I'm sceptical that the 'expert' classes in various domains operate in good faith by default and sense that 'being educated' and employing only approved speech is not quite the panacea for human advancement that its proponents insist.

All the excitement about the prospect of a woman being president being great because it's not a man leaves me cold. There are important things to do and the biological workings of the person who does them seems neither here nor there to me. (I speak with the luxury of having had three women as PM in my native country, where we thankfully got over the novelty of that long ago. And, anyway, it's bad faith because you can bet progressives wouldn't celebrate Marine Le Pen ascending to the presidency of France and I don't recall any celebrations of that nature about Giorgia Meloni).

In short, nothing about the Harris campaign or anything its outriders are saying, moves me to think that I'd be voting for Kamala were I unfortunate enough to have to choose.

Then there's the childlike glee I feel about how upset people get when Trump says his characteristically stupid things.

I see the stories about Trump supposedly threatening Liz Cheney with a firing squad and role my eyes. Then I see the clip where he talks about Liz Cheney having rifle muzzles pointed at her face and roll my eyes. Then I watch the clip in context and roll my eyes less.

But my eyes roll like a wild man when I see Liz Cheney tweeting about it and signing off with #Womenwillnotbesilenced.

Women will not be silenced.

What not silencing women has to do with Trump's desire for non-intervention in conflicts outside of America I leave for others to decide.

It doesn't move me, is the point. Nothing the Harris campaign says moves me, except to find something more interesting to look at.

In the closing stages of this campaign it feels like - were I an American voter - the Harris campaign is entirely uninterested in me except insofar as they can count on me as a relatively affluent white educated liberal to embrace her vibe. Which I don't.

But that leaves Trump. And me feeling deeply conflicted between my desire to see the Democrat brand of politicking rejected and the fact that I am mostly just enthralled by The Donald as an entertainer who annoys all the people I'm tired of.

That would not be an intelligent basis for my vote.

But I understand the appetite in certain quarters for another Trump term.

I was enthralled by Jordan Peterson's depiction of it as a real-life comic book superhero fantasy.

But listening to that felt like dwelling in a looking glass world of a different kind. Some of the things that Peterson ascribes to 'eccentricity' seem to me genuinely risky to have at the top table of the world's preeminent power.

Even so, there's a part of me that wants to see this unfold in real life.

I mean, it's not like the 'normal' leadership class is presiding over an increasingly stable world.

But could I cast my vote on the basis of the undoubted romantic appeal of a wild potential adventure?

This is where my sensible muscle twitches. Peterson's enthusiasm is quite infectious, but it feels as storylike as the vision of social justice utopia sold by the other side.

Wouldn't I really just want stability for my country? For things to work. And opportunities for everyone's material and social wellbeing to be more easily graspable? All the boring but important stuff that tends to happen in small increments rather than sweeping aside the status quo.

That's just me, of course. I do get why many people would want to take a punt on this, though.

The situation reminds me of stories that emerged during Britain's Brexit referendum campaign; where canvassers would go onto sink estates and explain to people who already had almost nothing that leaving the EU would be bad for the economy.

And wasn't Brexit the same story of greatness? Romantic derring-do. Buccaneering and brave Britain, going its own way and becoming great and influential once more. People bought that one and it really did turn out to be just an enchanting story. This gives you a flavour of that idiot vibe.

I feel sorry for Americans having to choose this time around.

It's one of those moments when the reasons not to vote for either candidate stack up more convincingly than either of their pitches.

I've made a real effort to theoretically choose. I've read and listened to the arguments from each side and mostly felt no closer to a settled position. One of the problems seems to be all of the extremely articulate people talking nothing but vibe. Time was when I was moved by excellent rhetorical powers, but not so much these days. I'm sceptical of language itself.

The reasons not to vote for Trump are manifest and yet the reasons to vote for Harris seem obscure to me, beyond the fact that she isn't Trump.

Maybe it would be easier if the ballot just had two boxes; Trump & Not Trump. I'd probably cross the latter box, safe in the knowledge that it wouldn't mean Harris. But this idle aside isn't how it works.

Before this meandering meditation on confusion and despair loses its last reader, here's Rarely Certain's surprise endorsement. Fortunately Jeff Bezos has no influence here, so I can do this.

Rarely Certain endorses ... Mike Pesca

Mike Pesca is one of a seemingly rare breed of Wokeist cancellation victims who didn't become rabidly right-wing after having his life upended by the jihadists of social justice. A surviving liberal, if you will (and a free subscriber to this newsletter, last time I looked).

Mike Pesca

was on the panel of the best podcast I heard during this election cycle, discussing how poorly the media has served American voters with information on which they might make their choice. And how wilfully blind news orgs are to the appeal of DJT, long after the rest of us seem to have grasped it. This was the episode - The Comeback of Donald Trump, by Reflector.

The Comeback of Donald Trump

And then Pesca did his own endorsement. Like Rarely Certain, he doesn't endorse Trump. Unlike Rarely Certain, he does endorse Harris. But Rarely Certain has the luxury of not having to choose, remember? He doesn't.

The Gist's First Ever Political Endorsment (Video)

Poor Mike has to make a choice and insofar as he rationalises his I am in deep sympathy.

Unintended consequences

Over the past few years I have grown persuaded of one thing; that identity politics is more of a disease than a cure. The hate expressed toward ordinary people who aren't onboard with the melting pot ideals of their affluent 'superiors' has corroded my respect for the relentlessly moralising 'educated' and idealistic.

I remember the hysteria of 2016, when Trump was elected, and subsequently concluded that his victory (along with Brexit) was the best thing to have happened to the identitarian left in my lifetime.

Whatever encourages that seems best avoided. I don't really do anxiety about politics these days, but I do have a tiny fear that you Americans will see a lot more trouble from that quarter if Trump gets a second term than if Harris makes it.

This is a terrible reason for a vote. Because one side will go mental when the other side wins. But it looks true from where I'm sitting.

Of course, there will be trouble if Trump loses too. Both sides have proved already that they are the most important and correct people in the world who will cause real-world damage if they don't get their way. But that would be an equally bad reason to vote for Trump.

Substantial numbers of outriders on both sides in this election are bullies, who you know are not going to accept their candidate failing.

On this basis I think I would conclude that neither deserves my vote, were I unfortunate enough to have to choose between two houses I would prefer to to see withering under a plague.

So, with 48 hours to go, I'd be considering sitting this one out.

Outrageous, no? With so much at stake?

The last word here goes to

Oliver Burkeman

with some advice on how to handle the coming times.

He suggests:

"... the underrated activity of not necessarily doing anything overtly political at all, but of more devotedly embodying, in your everyday actions, the kind of world you take yourself to be fighting for."

As for me, I'll have the ultimate luxury. Of being able to say, whatever happens, well I never voted for this.

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1. Speech transcript service from Taqtiq.io, lightly edited above for punctuation and readability.

2. Mostly newswire services, like Reuters or AP, and France24.