A case for McCain

Sam Raymond writes:

I’m hoping McCain can still pull it out. I was reading there’s a chance he could win the electoral vote, and lose the popular vote. As an aside, it was really foolish for the Republican Congress of the 1950s to grant Washington D.C. three electoral votes. (If McCain loses by that amount, perennial GOP short-sightedness will be to blame). Yes, McCain is pro-amnesty, pro-war, among many, many other faults. It’s bitter gruel for Republicans to have come to this. At the same time, the right is partly to blame for dividing its vote among so many other candidates (Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney). Also, McCain will likely only serve out one term (as he has hinted). He is already quite old, and the WH will age him even more. Serving for one term would still be a great “honor” for him, and it also will allow him to hand the baton on to Palin (who will hopefully then be in a good position to retain the WH). The amount of damage McCain can do in one term is very limited compared to the amount of damage eight years of Obama and a Democratic Congress will likely do.

And yes, I do think if Obama wins, it will be eight years of him coupled with a Democratic Congress. Especially if the Democratic Congress has a filibuster-proof Senate, with 60 Democrats in the majority. I think that if Obama wins, the game is over. [LA replies: Then what are you going to do if Obama wins—commit suicide? Or fight? By your own argument conservatives ought to do a Jim Jones on November 6 if Obama wins.] Palin will not come roaring back. Republicans will be buried. Pretty much like they have been here in Illinois. And no matter how incompetent or unpopular the new executive is.

There are a number of political factors in play. If McCain wins, even if he only blocks the Democratic Congress half the time, that will be half the time more than Obama will. McCain will administer the Census Bureau, which means they’ll likely keep “sampling” out of the mix for the upcoming 2010 Census, and legislative redistricting that follows afterwards.

Obama, by contrast, will likely bring in ACORN advisors to handle the Census bureau. The legislative redistricting at the state and federal level will all veer to favor Democrats. We’ll have a socialized health care, whereas at least McCain will try to block it with his more market-oriented version. The Obama Justice Department will look the other way for the next eight years at all Leftist election fraud, so long as it helps the left. Democrats will have learned to quietly “slip” their next Amnesty plan as an amendment to some non-controversial bill, which Obama will sign in to law.

The GWB administration has finally gotten around to enforcing the borders. McCain would likely maintain this. Under Obama, it will almost certainly stop.

This will also be “revenge” time for the left, and they will try to bury the country to ensure that Republicans can’t ever get control of a single branch of the federal or state government again. They will go after right-wing radio with the “Fairness Doctrine,” hound FOX News, investigate Matt Drudge’s tax returns, etc. Union goons will rough up people who vote against “organizing” their companies (and, in typical Third World fashion, union thugs will have carte blanche to rough up anyone who disagrees with the Enlightened One, a la Joe the Plumber, or the female reporter who asked Biden tough questions). The “mainstream media” will have officially become, as Rabbi Mayer Schiller noted, like “Pravda Media.” Whatever the Enlightened One utters is instant Gospel, whoever disagrees with him is an instant “heretic” and racist. Negative stories about Obama, like this LA Times video that’s out there, will get spiked. [LA replies: To me, these arguments bespeak a fearfulness and lack of will to fight. We know the left wants to do these things, and the leftist desire to do these things is not going to go away. We will have to have it out with them at some point. Why is four years or eight years from now better than now?]

Note, the blacks like Jesse Jackson (who wanted to cut Obama’s you know whats off) and Al Sharpton’s will not withdraw their racial grievances after Obama is elected (they’ll argue he doesn’t have “slave” blood, and that he’s half white, so he is not really the first black president). [LA replies: I’ve heard that that argument has already been made.] They will likely get some kind of reparations through, with a sympathetic and racially conflicted Obama at the helm. Obama’s indicated he’s open to reparations. On that Chicago radio interview they dug up from 2001, where he says the Civil Rights movement didn’t go far enough by getting the courts to administer “economic justice.”

Obama’s administration will likely be staffed with the most left-wing, anti-white lesbian-types, etc. imaginable. And the next branch of government to lurch to the left will be the Judiciary, as Calabresi notes in this scary column here.

While McCain-Palin may have moderate Republicans at the helm, at least they won’t be anti-American, anti-white picks. [LA replies: What about my argument that McCain, trying to appease the furious left and blacks, will adopt a left-wing program himself?]

The future of Republican fundraising for all other GOP candidates is also at stake here. If McCain wins, he’ll be able to use the power of the presidency to coax Republican donors to write big checks. Without the WH, we will have no big elected GOP officials who can do that. Lobbyists will write all their checks for the Democrats from now on, because there won’t be a single Republican-controlled branch of government to lobby. [LA replies: This is really small potatoes, Mr. Redmond. I thought the issue before us was whether Obama will cause existential damage to America, not whether Obama would be able to raise more money than Republicans.]

Also, long-term Republican candidate recruitment is at stake here. With McCain in the WH, he can (and will) lean on good Republican candidates across the country to run, saying “I need you in there to help me.” And good candidates who might otherwise have chosen not to run, will “answer the call.” Without McCain in the WH, for the next four years, good candidates will choose not to run because they won’t have either a WH to work for if they get to Congress, or a GOP Congress to work within. [LA replies: Again, this is an incredibly “small-change” argument compared with the issues of life and death which are supposed to be the factor that compels all conservatives to vote for McCain. Arguments like this could be made in reference to ANY Democrat. I thought the point of the Vote-for-McCain side in this discussion is that the reason Obama must be stopped is that he is of a different order of magnitude of badness from any other Democrat. With these small-change arguments, Mr. Redmond weakens that assumption.]

Also, for Palin to win in 2012, she needs to have had four years gestating as “Vice President” to be seen as the credible American “Maggie Thatcher.” If McCain-Palin lose in ‘08, she goes back to Alaska a laughing-stock. [LA replies: Now the fate of the Republic depends on Shatter-the-Glass-Ceiling, Legalize-the-Illegals-Because-They-Like-to-Be-Here Sarah Palin? And purely speculative discussion about Palin’s future after Nov. 5 becomes a decisive factor in our deliberations? Please.] And there will be a crowded Republican field starting out in Iowa. She’ll be one among many candidates. By contrast, if she’s the Vice President running in 2012, the chances of her facing a crowded primary field will be a lot less, and she’ll likely wrap up the nomination very quickly. Which will help increase her odds of winning the general election.

If Obama wins in ‘08, whoever emerges to run against Obama in 2012 will probably lose, because the Democrats will have had four years to rig the system by then, not to mention continual demographic shifts. The weekend Wall Street Journal (Nov. 1-2, 2008) notes this trend. They write on page A6:

Between 2000 and this year, the Hispanic electorate will have doubled, to 12 percent of voters, according to Census data and NDN, a Democratic group that studies the electorate. That growth has been concentrated in once-Republican states, not only in the Mountain West but in the South….

The growth of professional havens in Northern Virginia, the Research Triangle in Raleigh-Durham, N.C., and the Boulder-Denver corridor of Colorado may also be contributing to the changing electoral landscape. Voters in such places tend to be younger, more ethnically and racially diverse (emphasis added), and less interested in social-conservative issues, such as abortion and gay marriage.

It’s like a friend of mine was saying before, that we’re on the Titanic, and it’s slowly sinking. Do you really want someone who will punch more holes into the floor? Obama will do that. McCain-Palin won’t reverse the sinking, but at least they’ll slow it down, extend it out by another eight to 12 years. [LA replies: Ok, this is not a dismissible argument.]

With Obama in the WH, it sends Islamic jihadists and the Third World a message of white capitulation. I don’t want Palestinians in Gaza rejoicing at the election of Obama. I want them and the Euro-socialist weenies cursing and scared out of their minds over a McCain administration. That goes for Hollywood, Academia, and the Media too.

The President is also a ceremonial office, with state dinners, photos of the First Family, the Christmas tree lighting ceremony, etc. Having the Obamas in the WH, instead of the two, handsome, McCain and Palin families, will send a subtle message to the next generation of Americans growing up. Exactly the signal the left wants sent. Multi-culti is normal, white European-Americans are on the outs. Rather than creating a “backlash,” it will just soften the terrain of white America for further Third Worldization. [LA replies: Very possibly. But if Obama is too much of a race man or his supporters get very racial, Seeing the Real Them At Last could also trigger a healthy backlash.]

Now, granted in Illinois, our votes don’t make a difference. But they may make a difference if the popular vote goes for Obama and the Electoral Vote goes for McCain. And if it turns out Obama wins, we can at least say we voted for the only credible alternative to him. And if McCain wins, we can say we voted for Palin. I think that voting for the Constitution Party or Libertarian Party candidate at this point is just throwing away your vote at best. At worst, it’s an indirect vote for Obama.

If this were any other election, a “protest” vote might be worthwhile. If we were facing from the Democrats, a Sen. Evan Bayh and a Sen. Jim Webb, while Republicans still controlled both branches of government, and the Republicans had, say, nominated McCain-Huckabee, then it might be worth considering a protest vote for one of the third parties.

Unfortunately, that’s not the kind of election we face. Instead it’s a choice between a moderate one-term Republican with an attractive, conservative female running mate or a lurch to the hard, hard multi-culti Left with Democrats controlling all branches of government from now on.

LA replies:

In summing up, I agree that Sam Redmond makes some good arguments. But I am disturbed by the defeatism that underlies his entire case. Mr. Redmond has set up the situation such that if Obama wins,—which he may very likely do, even if every conservative in America including me had passionately campaigned against him—then there’s no hope for us, we might as well give up. In order to fortify his case for McCain, Mr. Redmond is required to argue that if Obama wins, it’s all over for America. But since Obama is in fact very likely to win, Mr. Redmond is in effect arguing that we will very likely have to commit mass suicide—or move to Canada—on November 6. By contrast with Mr. Redmond’s despairing case, the arguments I’ve offered against a pro-McCain vote set up a hopeful basis for conservative life and resistance after an Obama victory.

- end of initial entry -

Nov. 2

Sam Raymond writes:

Glad you liked the comments. Naturally, I’m going to disagree with you on some points. I don’t think fundraising/candidate recruitment are “small change.” These are very real issues in our messy political process. If the focus is on philosophical consistency, I agree they may seem like small potatoes. My point is that collectively all these things matter: philosophical consistency, as well as, the political nuts and bolts of the process.

I think Obama is altogether worse than other Democrats we have seen. As I argued, if this were a Bayh-Webb ticket versus a McCain-Huckabee with Republicans safely in control of Congress, than maybe a protest vote might be in order. This is not the case, though. I also think you’re stretching my argument by saying I’m suggesting we all kill ourselves if Obama is elected. Nowhere do I say this, nor do I think that my argument leads in that direction. I don’t think that when Mandela was elected in South Africa the whites should have started committing “mass suicide,” but I do think it was pretty clear at that point the game was over.

LA replies:

I meant that they were small-change in relation to what is for me the decisive issue: does Obama represent an existential threat to America as we know it?

You write:

“I think Obama is altogether worse than other Democrats we have seen.”

Of course, we all think that. My point was that you made an argument in terms of which Obama is like any other Democrat. I thought you weakened your pro-McCain position that way. I thought you should stay with the arguments that show Obama as altogether worse than other Democrats.

When I said “killing ourselves” I was referring to your statement that it’s all over with America if Obama wins, a statement you repeat here by saying the game is over if he wins. Since Obama is very likely to win, your argument is tantamount to saying that next Tuesday America as we know will very likely be finished, doomed. I reject that very idea. You’re setting yourself up for despair that is unwarranted. South Africa had a one-fifth white population in 1994. We have a 65 percent white population. I think that it is illogical and defeatist to equate the situation of the two countries. Further, Obama if elected will be president for four or eight years. After that we will have more white presidents. He does not represent the end of white America. When Dinkins was elected mayor of New York City in 1989, people said there would never be a white mayor again. Dinkins served one term, and since 1993 New York has had two white mayors, and no nonwhite mayors, and the current white mayor is considered so effective he is probably going to be elected to a third term.

LA continues:

There’s a further point. Many people on our side fear that once we have a nonwhite president, America’s self-understanding, its symbolic identity, will have changed irreversibly to a nonwhite identity and it will henceforth become impossible to defend or seek to restore America’s historic majority culture and identity.

However, as is constantly being pointed out, Obama is not black. He’s half white, his personality is basically “white” rather than “black,” and even black spokesmen are now saying that if he’s elected it doesn’t prove that America’s beyond racism, because Americans were only willing to vote for someone who doesn’t really seem nonwhite.

So, hey, we can use that argument too. We can point out that America has NOT embraced nonwhiteness. Obama was electable only because his personality is “white” and his nonwhite features are so mild that he doesn’t strike people as truly physically nonwhite. Which means that the America still thinks of itself as a basically white country and is not embracing a nonwhite identity in electing Obama.

Sam Raymond replies:

I think I illustrate perfectly well how Obama is an existential threat to America. You ignore my argument about the impact he will have on younger generations of Americans, softening them up for more multiculturalism. [LA replies: but they’re already very softened up! They’ve been softening up, under Democratic and Republican white presidents, for 40 years. They will continue to soften up. For them to stop softening up, something different must happen. One possibility is suddenly making the water very hot instead of slowly heating it. My instinct votes for threat, fear, struggle, and life rather than continual slow death under a liberal Republican.]

If Bayh-Webb were the Democratic ticket, and blocked by a Republican Congress, the Democratic ability to create an “existential” threat to America would be quite limited in that case. As it is, Obama and the Democrats are poised to take a filibuster-proof Congress. Nothing will check them. [LA replies: I don’t dismiss that argument, and that is why I don’t dismiss those who urge a vote for McCain. But—no disrespect—my instinct tells me to go with the people who are ready and wanting to fight rather than those who are so defeated in their minds that they are convinced that a single election next Tuesday means the end of America.]

I think comparing Obama to South African electing Mandela is apt. It is a sign of things to come for America. We may not descend straight into South African Third-Worldism overnight, but certainly—as Sam Francis once remarked—into a much more Brazilianized America. [LA replies: Why should that happen differently or faster under Obama than under McCain? We already have very high nonwhite immigration. Is that immigration suddenly going to increase under Obama? We all know that McCain is far more passionate about that issue than Obama. So you want to elect the most passionate and convicted open borders president ever, thinking that this will save America from Third Worldism!]

Now, there is a substantial white population in the Southern portion of Brazil, and Brazil is not quite so bad as other South American countries, but the trends are there. Would you concede we would at least become much more like Argentina? That has a more white demographic to it, coupled with the Socialist policies an Obama/Pelosi/Reid politics would bring.

LA replies:

That is already steadily happening. Remember the question that for me must be answered in the affirmative to make me vote for McCain: Will Obama cause existential/permanent/grave damage to America that McCain would not cause? On the immigration issue, I can’t see Obama causing more damage than McCain. Yes, McCain said he would seal the border before amnesty. Yet after he clinched the GOP nomination six months ago he immediately let on that amnesty would be the top priority of his Administration starting on January 20. So his promise of enforcement first is already dead letter. It is impossible to be a bigger liar than that in terms of a campaign pledge. Let’s tell the tale again. His candidacy was dead, he put on his modest/manful act and said he had been beaten on immigration fair and square and said he would secure the border before seeking amnesty. He repeated this pledge throughout the primaries. Yet the moment he had clinched the nomination he let on that amnesty would be the first priority of his administration. McCain was thus openly announcing his TOTAL BAD FAITH in regard to the immigration control supporters. He won’t be any better than Obama. He likely will be substantially worse.

Sam Raymond replies:

Re your further point, above, about Obama’s not being seen as “really” black, no one is going to follow that line of argument. Whites will see Obama as non-white, which he clearly is when you look at him. (Another article could be written tangentially on this note, about how the “one-drop rule” actually helped white America, as opposed to the sliding scale rules of Latin America). Blacks are racially for Obama, because they see him as black. White liberals are for Obama because he’s nonwhite, and they feel it will somehow exonerate them from America’s “original sin”, etc.

Eventually, if he is elected, the ardor will wear off. The situation for most blacks will not improve after eight years of Obama. They will resent being compared to him. The fact that Detroit, St. Louis, South Side Chicago, the Bronx, etc. are filled with people very unlike Obama after eight years, means they’ll simply come up with new excuses and whites, on average, will buy them. As I argued elsewhere, NYC, Chicago, LA, Washington D.C., Detroit, Atlanta, etc. have all had black mayors. It has not changed the racial dynamics, debate, or black behavior in those cities. Gang bangers do not say to themselves, “Gee, maybe I should behave and try to become like Harold Washington or David Dinkins.” And whites don’t suddenly say to themselves, “Gee, blacks had these great role models as mayors, why can’t they shape up? I guess as a group, they are not up to it.” Most whites simply won’t come to those conclusions and admit the harsh racial realities of life.

November 2

Sebastian writes:

In one of your answers to Sam Raymond you mentioned that we still have a 65 percent white population. So what? Even if we had an 85 percent white population, the education system is an assembly line of politicized, brainwashed, radicalized students. Dennis Prager may be a bit windy but he coined an excellent phrase: “college makes you stupid.” Europe was until very recently almost all white, with high IQs mind you, and look what the socialist, Gramscian education system did to them, especially in the more “advanced” societies like France, Britain and Scandinavia. It was this system that produced the leaders who are now creating Eurabia, selling their countries and incarcerating fellow countrymen on racism charges. Their conditioning preceded the immigrants arrival. All of these people are white.

The United States is not far behind. Many of Obama’s supporters like him precisely because his name is Hussein and Obama. Putative conservatives now tell us that though Obama is not a Muslim, it would not matter one bit if the president of the U.S. were a Muslim. The only thing standing between an EU-style state here are the millions of blue-collar voters in the south and Midwest. In time some of their children (the bright ones, actually) attend college up north, move to Chicago or NYC and become the casual, multicult socialists who welcome Obama and the whole spectacle. The ubiquity of once radical thought is alarming. The other day I overheard some articulate white Starbucks employees lamenting that Columbus had come to America and committed genocide and how Obama would it make it right and how they hated Boston because its lack of diversity. Consider, btw, that Boston really is very white and completely leftist.

I have friends with Ph.D’s who speak three or four languages well, have command of ancient Greek or Latin, a semblance of wisdom for our age (we’re all in our 30’s), who are being passed up for jobs at top colleges that go to flaky, ignorant, politicized, monolingual feminists, racists, deconstructionists and the like. Until something is done about the education system and the success of the long march through the institutions, the demographic composition of the country will not save it from destruction.

LA replies:

Ok. Where does that leave us then? This problem transcends Obama vs. McCain. Let’s face the fact that what you’re saying could happen. The worse could happen. Meaning, America could become like Europe—meaning, a leftist, statist, thoroughly politically correct country with no conservatism.

If that happened, then America really would be over. It would leave us with the option only of withdrawing into separate communities for ethno-cultural-political survival, or pursuing some kind of individual and internal non-cooperation with the powers that be.

But I don’t believe it will happen. I believe in God, I believe in life. And therefore I do not believe that the complete destruction of America that you speak of will happen.

Sebastian replies:

I’ve never said America will be destroyed. What I was saying is that demography alone is not the problem but rather education and the institutional entrenchment of a certain ideology. McCain will not reverse that but Obama will likely accelerate it. I realize this transcends ongoing political battles. It’s a cultural issue that needs to be worked out for many years or decades. I was not despairing. I love my life no matter who wins.

And I don’t think Europe has been destroyed either. Some countries are still very viable, in some senses superior places. I often feel freer in Italy than in America actually.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 01, 2008 02:09 PM | Send