Just Say No

For a short while a couple of days ago it seemed that it might — just might — be possible for a person of conscience to vote for Donald Trump.

But then . . .

If you have never dropped terrified to your knees in thanksgiving for still being alive when by all reasoning you should have just been killed, you have not been observant or haven’t lived a vigorous life. I certainly have. One incident I’ll never forget was Christmas Eve 1987. It was a little after midnight and pouring rain. I was driving on the Major Deegan Expressway in the Bronx, on my way to work. The three-lane Deegan — also known as Interstate 87 — is poorly lit and surrounded by illuminated buildings, which made the view in the rain even more confusing. Something, and to this day I do not know what, told me to hit the brakes.

Which I did.

I came to a stop maybe 20 feet from a car parked in the center lane with several people working on it. They may have been trying to fix it or, given the neighborhood, strip it. The utterly dark space beneath an overpass, on a curve and at the bottom of a small dip may have been an attractive, sheltered place for Midnight Auto Repair, but they hadn’t thought it through.

I drove around the car, continued to work, and called the cops — in those pre-cellular-phone days — to report the hazard. Then I found a quiet place at CBS, and sat down and shook.

It was on my mind for a few days. Clearly, it still is to some extent, along with some other events that leave me terrified if I think about them too much. I was thankful, of course, but wondered as to the reason it had happened, if there was one beyond the obvious. Not that there was a car being taken apart at night on the Deegan, which was remarkably unremarkable, but that I had somehow known to make a panic stop. It certainly felt as if there had been a purpose to all of it.

The first thought, at least my first thought, after that kind of event is that, in the popular semi-poetic idiom, it just “wasn’t my time.” Yeah, but why wasn’t it? Had God singled me out for special treatment? (Or, why not, one of the guys working on the car?) Did I have some task I had not completed? Was I meant to live a while longer?

It wasn’t until much later that it occurred to me that God doesn’t want me to go to Hell, and may from time to time intervene slightly — fire a warning shot — to remind me that if I check out now, Hell will be my destination. A blessing needn’t imply approval but maybe instead another chance to get things right.

As time has unfolded, the warning shot has had to be renewed from time to time. We forget lessons we think we’ve learned.

So Saturday evening, following the event at which Donald Trump’s ear was nicked by a bullet that under very slightly different conditions would have sent him to Judgment Day, I wondered if it would have any effect on him. (The man who was killed, 50-year-old Corey Comperatore, from all accounts seemed someone likely to pass through the Pearly Gates with a fanfare of celestial trumpets.)

For a couple of days it seemed as if perhaps Trump had been introduced to something, faith, to which he had been a lifelong stranger. He was quieter, more somber, acting as if he had discovered that he is not, in fact, the center of the universe. Many people, myself included, who had rejected him because he has been (despite some decent policies) such a self-regarding jerk, might have taken another look.

He was surrounded, though, by the usual crowd of suckups, all of whom assured him that it was a sign of God, and interpreting spiritual things as only professional politicians can, that it was proof that God wants Trump to be elected president. Which Trump was all too willing, apparently, to believe. On Fox News Channel, the ditzy “news” blondes were gushing; the channel’s Gilbert Gotfried wannabe was virtually announcing that the event served as proof that Trump is God.

Maybe these things blinded Trump to the lesson and prevented him from the reappraisal we all should undertake from time to time but which we seldom do and he has never done. In any case, within two days he was pretty much the same old Trump.

This was not just demonstrated but proved by his choice of James David Vance, nee James Donald Bowman (he was briefly James David Hamel; he took his maternal grandparents’ last name, Vance, in 2014), as vice president. Yes, he came from humble beginnings and yes, he accomplished a great deal. But this didn’t happen in a vacuum. We learn good lessons, but we learn bad ones, too, and they’re not always easy to distinguish. Vance has shown a tendency to switch among them as easily as he changes his name.

With the support of $10 million from Peter Thiel (whom I will not characterize — you can figure it out if you like), he ran for Rob Portman’s Ohio seat in the U.S. Senate two years ago. He beat two better men in the primary — they split the sane vote, while he took the crowd that hangs out in parking lots Saturday night drinking beer and getting into fights — and got 53 percent of the vote in the general election. That becomes less of an accomplishment when you consider that Republican Mike DeWine was re-elected governor by 25 points. Attorney General Dave Yost was re-elected by 20 points, as was Secretary of State Frank LaRose. Vance disliked Trump, he said, then went hat in hand begging for the presidential loser’s endorsement. He got it and barely won, compared to the other less-sycophantic Republicans. Portman, a widely respected statesman, would be replaced by the unctuous Vance. (He did do better than other Trump-endorsed candidates, such as the ridiculous Dr. Oz. It was supposed to be a Republican tsunami, but it turned out to be a stagnant Republican trickle.)

The selection of Vance to run for vice president with him can do Trump no good. No one will vote for Trump because of Vance; there are many who will vote against Trump because of Vance. Surely Trump knew this. So why did he pick the slimy senator?

It turns out, he was talked into it by Russian agent (we do not know if it is for money or just his hobby) Tucker Carlson, Putin’s South African mouthpiece David Sacks, and perennial loose cannon Elon Musk. (It could be worse — Trump’s equivalent to Hunter Biden wanted Carlson to be the VP pick!) It has been reported that Carlson told Trump the intelligence community would assassinate him if he didn’t choose Vance, but I have not been able to confirm this and a lot of stuff being reported, though it would not be the first time the (possibly amateur) Russian agent has said something like that. There are no “Death to Ukraine” campaign stickers. Yet.

So in the course of three days Trump managed to gain the nation’s sympathy and a chance for real soul searching but decided instead to fling down and dance upon those things, demonstrating that he is utterly unfit to be followed by anyone.

In response — it really does seem the campaign is not to see who can win but who can lose — the geriatrically crippled Joe “Bugout” Biden proposed national rent control and, when that didn’t gain much attention, last evening he proposed to dismantle the U.S. Supreme Court. Neither proposal will go anywhere, but it shows us that Biden and his handlers have no business near any position of power.

Biden was always a mid-level dimwit, unencumbered by ethics or decency. He would have done more damage by now if he weren’t such a dunce and if the bosses to whom he answered hadn’t told him to sit down and shut up. He is now so senile that he really does belong in a home, or at least under the 24-hour eye of those home-care nurses we see advertised on television. (“Doctor” Jill is not a doctor of anything useful.)

It is impossible for anyone who has any regard for our country or even anything good and right to support either of these dangerous defectives. Neither is qualified, and it’s not even a close call. The polls say that many of us hold this view, which when you think about it is no surprise. Many of us have from time to time voted on the basis of the lesser of evils. This year that no longer works, because there is no lesser among the evils. Neither by any measure is acceptable.

The only third-party candidate capable of causing the needle even slightly to twitch is the croaking scion of an assassinated Democrat of fond memory. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has followed the trend of being stark raving crazy. He attributes this — no, I’m not making it up — to brain worms. Yet it is possible to make the case that he is marginally less cuckoo than the two major party candidates. But surely no one serious can think he ought to head the executive branch of government. In Canada, maybe, but not here.

Enough!

Every presidential election year there is talk of writing in a name, in place of the listed candidates, and some people even do it. Individually, this is a meaningless gesture, no different from leaving the line blank. In 1968, Pat Paulsen, a writer and sometime performer on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, “campaigned” for president on the show and in a few promotional appearances. He might have had some small effect, if his audience hadn’t been stoned and forgot to vote.

I would like here to propose something different. I do this in all seriousness.

On November 5, go to the polls, vote down-ballot races as you are inclined, but in the presidential choice write one word.

No.

It is a way of demanding better. If our political parties can’t provide it, we need new political parties.

It is a demonstration of discontent that doesn’t involve you burning down your town or looting a liquor store. It is a private demonstration in the most public of forums. It is entirely nonpartisan — no one from either party has reason to be happy.

If everyone who tells pollsters that none of the candidates is acceptable chooses to write in “No,” it can’t be ignored.

If we go off on our own and write in, say, Daffy Duck, it will probably be counted as a Biden or Trump vote. But “No” knows no party (alas; both parties would be better if they had said it more, and so would our country).

The decision approaches and despite the message of the slime oozing from our political establishments, it is our decision. Let’s not have it taken from us and let’s not fritter it away.

Let’s put our collective foot down.

Let’s just say “No!”