THREAD: Here we fucking go yet again, for the slow traffic.
1. Every election in a democracy is a choice between evils. The voter attempts – or so one hopes – to choose the lesser of the two.

2. Since at least the presidential election of 1912, in the United States the choice has been, at almost every election, not between one party or another, but between statists and the opponents of statism.

3. The choice has far too often been between the more or less statist; and the choice of the lesser evil involves supporting the least statist candidate.

4. I leave it to the reader to determine in each instance which candidate that is, by whatever slim margin exists.

5. But there is this much to be said: Character matters immensely, yes; but in this context it is measured by the extent to which the candidate is or is not a statist.

6. After all, if men were angels, no government should be necessary. We’re not, and it is.

7. In the 2020 presidential election, it is exceedingly difficult to determine which major party candidate is less statist and therefore deserves your vote, should you vote for a major party candidate.

8. HOWEVER. An utter bastard whose personal moral character is on the level of pond slime, but who shall more often than not adhere to the Constitution, even out of the basest motives, were preferable to a saintly messianic archetype who shall not, even from the loftiest motives.

9. Not that the latter describes either candidate this year. This seeming paradox is readily resolved. You may put it in Pratchettian terms:

10. or, better, in terms of Jack Lewis’ wisdom:

11. Again, I leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine which major party candidate, if either, deserves your vote on this basis.

12. In this election, though, there are further considerations of which I remind you. Neither corrupt, compromised, elderly, half-witted major party candidate is at all likely, in the natural course, to serve out the next four years before God calls him to judgment.

13. Consequently, this same weighing of balances, this same determination of which is the lesser evil, which is less statist, must be made for the vice-presidential nominees.

14. And, such are the repugnant times in which we live, a similar assessment must be made of the two parties.

15. The Elephants are thoroughly compromised and besmirched. Of that, there is no question. They are in desperate need of reform, the reform which, as a rule, comes only from having their heads handed to them by the electorate.

16. The problem, in this election cycle, is that MY party deserves at least forty years in the electoral wilderness, until we extrude all these illiberal, undemocratic, un-American demagogues infesting the party and claiming to be liberal, American Democrats.

17. The Elephants are shabby, hypocritical, badge-licking, and ill-disposed to the constitutional guarantees of the rights of a goodly proportion of the citizenry.

18. My party is lumbered with Pelosi, Schumer, Da Nang Dick, and other despicable creatures bent upon the wreckage of the constitution, of the rule of law, of the presumption of innocence, of trial before verdict, and of playing by the rules;

19. has a photo-negative version of the KKK as its latest paramilitary arm, engaged in violence, riot, arson, intimidation, and assassination;

20. and has chosen as its vice-presidential nominee a woman who ought never to be within a heartbeat of the presidency – or indeed within 60mm mortar range of the political power attached to any public office, from the Federal level to that of local dogcatcher.

21. You must make your own choice in determining which slate of candidates constitutes the lesser evil. I certainly do not recommend that you vote for Donald Trump, any more than I intend to do.

22. But I shall tell you that no one who can claim honestly to be a Democrat, large “D” or small, in the traditions of the Democratic Party, can vote for Biden and Harris. They are the people Pterry, and Jack Lewis, and the Founders and the Framers, warned us against.
END THREAD