Since you can’t vote for both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the Washington Post‘s Robert Samuelson (10/23/16) urges you to do the next best thing and vote for Clinton and a Republican Congress.
Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson (10/23/16) has an idea for how to cast your vote:
To bring this nasty and bizarre campaign to a meaningful conclusion, what this country needs is an outburst of ticket splitting. Republicans should vote for Hillary Clinton, and Democrats should back Republican House and Senate candidates. This will strike most people as counterintuitive, if not foolish, but there are three good reasons for doing so.
I’m going to go with “foolish”—based on the reasons Samuelson offers.
First, he thinks it will “make a statement about the outcome”: that “neither party deserves complete victory.” As evidence, he notes a recent poll in which “only 40 percent of respondents viewed Clinton positively; a mere 29 percent felt that way about Donald Trump.” So, on the basis of this, we’re supposed to vote for congressional Republicans, who have a 20 percent approval rating? OK.
Then it will “avoid misinterpretation”—you should vote for a GOP Congress to show that Clinton does not have “a compelling agenda,” and vote for Clinton to show that the Republicans’ control of Congress does “not signal the popularity of their political philosophy, whatever it is.” Hard to see how that could be misinterpreted.
Then Samuelson’s real point: “Divided government, driven by ticket splitting, might actually produce better government.” How so?
Clinton, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) are all “transactional politicians”—they want to get things done—as well as fierce partisans.
Reflect on the fact that Robert Samuelson is paid to write about politics for a living. Then consider that perhaps the most famous statement ever made by McConnell is, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” He didn’t get that thing done, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.
Meanwhile, Paul Ryan also has something he wants to get done: He wants to cut the budget of the entire federal government—aside from Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the military—to zero. (He doesn’t say that that’s his intention, but that’s the clear implication of his budget numbers, which are frequently praised by corporate media for their wonkery.)
But these aren’t the things Samuelson has in mind when he pines for a “revitalized centrist politics.” He gives his wish list:
There’s a huge backlog of undone legislative business: immigration, corporate tax changes, military spending, climate change, Social Security and Medicare, to name a few.
I’m glad, truly I am, that Samuelson (7/9/97) is no longer writing in regards to climate change, “It’s politically incorrect to question whether this is a serious problem that serious people ought to take seriously.” But if he’s not in denial about climate change, he’s in denial about denialism: Ryan says “I don’t know” whether humans are warming the Earth’s climate, “and I don’t think science does either.” He does know whether the federal government can do anything about climate change, though: “I would argue the federal government, with all its tax and regulatory schemes, can’t.”
As for McConnell, he says that “for everybody who thinks [the planet is] warming, I can find somebody who thinks it isn’t.” His own position? “I’m not a scientist, I am interested in protecting Kentucky’s economy, I’m interested in having low-cost electricity.”
These are the people that Samuelson suggests will do something about the climate catastrophe if you make sure they don’t lose control of Congress.
Finally, a historical note: Setting up his argument, Samuelson notes, “At its peak in 1972, ticket splitters represented 30 percent of voters.” Hmm—why do you suppose that 1972 was the peak of ticket-splitting? While the parties on the presidential level had definitively switched sides on civil rights by 1972, with Democrat George McGovern an ardent advocate and Republican Richard Nixon pursuing his “Southern strategy,” congressional representatives throughout the South were still overwhelmingly Democratic—mostly the same people who had been fighting civil rights for years.
It made a great deal of sense for people who missed segregation to split their vote between Nixon and their local Democrat. What makes much less sense is Samuelson presenting that era as the good old days.
Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org. You can follow him on Twitter: @JNaureckas.
Messages can be sent to the Washington Post at letters@washpost.com, or via Twitter @washingtonpost. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.
The USA is not advancing, the rest of the world is, so following Samuelson, USA will be soon irrelevant, that is what the rabble, de deplorable and despicable deserve.
Absolutely NOT. Voting Dem for Clinton and then GOP of the rest, puts us right back where we were with Turtle Face McConnell blocking everything he can.
We must at least have the Senate so we can get SCOTUS filled out – or did Samuelson sort of forget that little matter? Recall “Citizens United” and “McCutcheon”
and the damage to Voting rights by Scalia, Thomas plus 3 other heroes living in the 19th Century?
We might make a little progress in the House but with so many cretins elected there by cretins, I expect little progress.
Art Wegweiser, PhD (Geology)
Allison Park, PA
Mr Wegweiser your PhD gives your Liberal ideology away. Your side doesn’t care what the electorate wants as a whole; only the Liberal agenda matters. Let’s have balance in the government, even though I would have to say, the Republicans did little to stop the Progressive spending agenda of Obama. We need more Ted Cruz types who will have the courage to stand in the way the foolish spending. The media has demonized this man, but he is fearless and no doubt could defend his behavior if given the chance.
Yep. What have we done to deserve this US election, which will also affect us?
Even if Ms Clinton wins, it will be in spite of what she is and stands for, and thanks to rescue interventions by Michelle & Barack Obama, Elisabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Al Gore and yes, even Donald Trump, being an still worse option.
Wonder how it feels to become the most impopular president of the US that way? What is sure, is that she will be laughing stock among her powerful competitors Putin, Xi Jinping, Shinzo Abe, Teresa May and smaller fry like Rodrigo Duterte, and therefore can be expected to be even more hawkish than before. As for Trump, having a loose cannon psychopath ruling the world is beyond my imagination.
Reflect on the fact that Robert Samuelson has for years been a serial liar whose dishonesty extends to basic arithmetic.
Not complicated maths, nor arcane rules of accounting. Simply arithmetic.
Yet not only does he continue in his well paid position at the Washington Post, but his columns appear in newspapers all around the country.
Anyone still wondering why trust in the news media is at an all time low need look no further than people like Samuelson and his employer..
I’ll be voting split ticket – Greens and Independents (or whatever 3rd party candidate is running) ALL the way down the ballot. No more Ds or Rs, ever. The Establishment is done!
I also advocate a split ticket: half of one’s vote for Jill Stein and the other half for Ajamu Baraka.
Republican leaders in the Senate and House have failed to fulfill their obligation to vote on a Supreme Court nomination. They should be impeached, not just voted out of office, and anyone who still supports them should not be writing a political column for any media outlet, much less a major U.S. newspaper.
I like your lack of tolerance for these reptile — way overdue. In a similar vein, have often thought that in a rational world, they would round up all the US/UK hyenas that voted for Bush/Blair attack on Iraq, and put them in the dock for war crimes. That would include the putative next President of the United States. Oh!
If the shoe was on the Democratic foot, you think it would be different? Of course they wouldn’t consider a nominee for a lame duck Republican President.