Nelson: America’s ugly election – how did we get here?

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It has been an ugly presidential election. For many of us Americans, neither of the frontrunners is an attractive option. So, it comes down to voting for the lesser of evils – or for neither. If either party had selected a better candidate, that party would be cruising to victory.

When Joe Biden (wisely) withdrew from the race, the Democratic leadership had the opportunity to select a more substantive and politically mainstream candidate. But the Democratic apparatchiks couldn’t wean themselves off their cult of identity politics. So, they had to choose the candidate standing in the wings whose extant credential is that she is not male and not white. For Democrats, this was preordained. Before his nomination in 2020, Biden made the ugly pledge to pick for a running mate not the best person, but one not male and not white.

The Democratic Party has thus demonstrated to the American people that it will continue to push its woke agenda, subordinating merit to the religion of diversity, equity and inclusion. In college admissions, employment hiring, job advancement, and even in the military, the mandate is to select not the best, but the “DEI-est.” It is a derogative policy increasingly disfavored by the American people.

As vice-president, Kamala Harris was generally regarded as unimpressive and slightly clownish, with her banal repetitions and too-frequent outbursts of too-exuberant laughter. Since her nomination, her image has improved, but doubts linger about her gravitas as the potential leader of the free world. Her handlers have shielded her from open press conferences, and the prospect of her confronting the leaders of China, Russia, or Iran is cringeworthy.

On a recent TV show, Harris was asked whether she would have done anything differently from Biden. She paused, then replied “Not a thing.” Nothing? No reconsideration of the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, no policy change to fix the chaos at our southern border and the migrant problem, no different strategy to address inflation?

Harris is a weak candidate, but she has something going for her: she is running against Donald Trump.

Except for abortion, on all the key election issues – the economy, immigration, crime, foreign policy – public opinion favors the Republicans. Most Americans feel they were economically better off four years ago, a key voting motivator, and they are dissatisfied with the Biden-Harris handling of the festering border/migrant problem.

Had the Republicans nominated a “normal” candidate, they would be leading by 20 points and on their way to also winning both Houses of Congress. But Trump is a divisive, polarizing candidate. He excites a cult-like following among some of his supporters and an intense repudiation, to the point of revulsion, among his detractors.

Trump’s supporters focus on policy matters and downplay his personality issues as merely an irritant. But Trump’s major personal deficits loom large and are a dominant feature in the election calculus. He deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for the Abraham Accords and advancements toward peace in the Middle East during his administration. But he undoubtedly wasn’t even considered because of his perceived loathsome persona.

Domestically, Trump has been political poison. He lost in 2020, then waded into the Georgia senatorial races declaiming the “stolen election” canard, costing Republicans both seats and denying them control of the Senate. In 2022, his candidates spouting the same fake claim did so poorly that the vaunted “red wave” of 2022 never materialized. The Republicans failed to take the Senate and eked out a bare majority in the House.

The claims against Trump’s character are not groundless. Trump is boorish, narcissistic, and mendacious. He articulates at the level of a fifth-grader. He can also be vulgar and recently degenerated to using verbal filth at the podium when referring to Harris – hardly a presidential exemplar.

Trump frequently proclaims outright falsehoods, but when confronted with the errors, he just regurgitates them. In Dec. 2022, Trump actually called for the termination of the Constitution so that he could be reinstalled as president. Such megalomania has caused many to conclude that Trump has authoritarian motives and, being vengeance-minded, will retaliate against those he perceives as opposing him – present, past, and future.

From a US population of over 340 million people, it is disgraceful that the best our nomination system could produce are these two badly flawed candidates. Our electoral selection process needs modification. But that can’t help in 2024.

Voters still undecided are agonizing not over the virtues of the candidates but over their shortcomings. It is an ugly choice between the inadequate and the authoritarian. America is a resilient nation. We will survive irrespective of the result. But it has been an ugly election.

Avi Nelson is a Boston-based political analyst and talk-show host.

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