Canadian Andrew Coyne — writing about undecided Clinton Trump voters — may have missed a point

© 2016 Peter Free

 

28 September 2016

 

 

What sane people abroad seem to be thinking

 

Canadian Andrew Coyne noticed that logic has nothing to do with Donald Trump's solid standing in the 2016 presidential election race. Some people in Germany (where I am stationed) agree. Trump's boorishly ignorant performance during the first presidential debate, they think, should have put him on the canvas.

 

Coyne summarized the perception:

 

 

Trump was . . . clueless.

 

[H]e had no good answers on the economy, no good answers on race, no good answers on security or defence or pretty much anything.

 

He was by turns irritable, shifty, arrogant, unctuous and ill-informed, while Clinton was unflappable, good-humoured, well-briefed, always in command. Logically, she should be the winner.

 

You could drag 10 guys out of a bar on Third Avenue and nine of them would be better presidents than Trump. And yet he’s within another Clinton coughing fit of the White House.

 

What sort of voter is still wavering between Trump and Clinton?

 

[T]hey must be an especially confused bunch.

 

"I'm undecided: on the one hand, I kind of want a candidate who is knowledgeable, experienced and sane; on the other hand, maybe I want a candidate who is ignorant, unqualified and out of his mind. Toss a coin, I guess."

 

© 2016 Andrew Coyne, If logic had anything to do with the U.S. election, it would not be a close race, National Post (27 September 2016) (extracts)

 

 

Mr. Coyne's dissection makes vote waverers look foolish — yet . . .

 

Why wouldn't a "whom to vote for" struggle (like the one he imagines) make logical sense?

 

 

On one side, we have Hillary Clinton — quintessential representative of the warmongering, wallet-stealing status quo.

 

On the other, we have Donald Trump — whom Coyne labels "a nine-year-old boy in the body of a 240-pound man."

 

 

Given this unappealing spectrum, why might not a few sane people be torn between:

 

 

holding their nose and voting for a system that enslaves and cannon-fodders the world's publics

 

or

 

wanting to rip angrily random chunks out of the nasty edifice that Secretary Clinton represents?

 

 

The moral? — When anger surfaces in impossible situations, it is not always illogically expressed

 

Between two noticeably bad choices, I can see why people waver. Hillary Clinton may exude competence and Donald Trump not — but that is not the point.

 

The point is that we live in a system that many people despise. And there is nothing on the horizon that appears likely to change it.

 

Ergo, the logic of voting for the feces-throwing proto-ape named Donald Trump. Perhaps his uncivilized lack intelligence and self-restraint will knock a few bars of our cage down.

 

I cannot say that I have the stomach for voting this way myself. But I understand the motivation.