Kansas Caucus

There's a litany of reasons I find Trump alarming, and I won't get in depth here, but besides the fact he only relates to women on the basis of whether he can dominate them sexually, besides the fact he introduced penis size into Presidential debates, besides the fact that he's a repudiation of libertarianism in Republican politics...

Bottom line, temperament matters. This is a guy who says he'd give unlawful orders to the military and expects they'd be followed. When 9/11 happened, the Oval Office was occupied by a guy who really lacked judgment. If W. had been in office when the Cuban Missile Crisis went down, he would have taken the advice of his military advisors and ended civilization in a nuclear holocaust, I have no doubt. Except with him it'd have been a 'nukular' holocaust.

My contempt for W., who took 9/11 as the cue to get the United States involved in an endless and counterproductive war in Iraq, is Texas sized. I consider George W. Bush to be a war criminal who should hang from the same gallows as Saddam Hussein. And Trump makes him look like a reasonable guy.

If Donald Trump is the Commander in Chief when 9/11 happens, we don't get a war in a third world shit hole we can't get out of. Because if Trump is there on 9/11 there isn't a September 12.

So here I am, a Libertarian since the late 1980s. Capital L because that's how I've registered to vote for all those years. And the Kansas Caucus was Saturday, and honest I'd have gone to the Republican one and just voted against Trump. Probably for Rubio, he's the least obviously evil and/or stupid one left standing now that Rand Paul is out. I think a President Rubio is a terrible idea, but think if it like chemotherapy: Rubio is the medicine that makes you puke and lose your hair, Trump is the tumor.

Alas, you have to register as a Republican a month before the caucus to participate on that side. The Dems are a bit more inclusive, you can register to vote at 2:59, the caucus starts at 3:00. So here I am, a Libertarian cum libertarian (small L since I changed my voter registration) caucussing for Bernie Sanders.

It's okay if you just did a spit-take. I disagree with Bernie about more things than probably any other candidate. Free trade, tax policy, the free college bullshit (why not free ponies?), single payer healthcare, he's the anti-libertarian. He's made statements to the effect that some cranky bastard from Vermont knows better than the market what the appropriate number of brands of deodorant on a store shelf are.

I'm probably closer to with him on unions, gay marriage and the drug war. But first off, even the things I disagree with Bernie on, I feel like I'm at least disagreeing with him about. I don't feel like he's just been paid off to take a stand on behalf of someone with a vested interest. Maybe I've been fooled, but he doesn't seem like someone who is going to do what he was paid to do and then spin it like it was on behalf of the common man or some moral principle.

Hillary on the other hand, as far as what she believes, I've never seen that she's ever believed anything so much as that she wants to be President. So given the choice between an honest pinko I disagree with and a slippery sociopath who robs me of that because she has no convictions, I'll take the crusty old socialist. And in terms of that nuclear launch capacity, that ability as Commander in Chief to commit us to anything from the Iraq war to World War III with nukes flying, I'd take Bernie over any of the jackasses left on the Republican side.

Bernie didn't win at my caucus site, though he did win Kansas. Our site, there were a lot of noisy young folks for Bernie and a lot more quiet old folks for Hillary. And a lot of those Hillary supporters had been bussed in by black churches—I guess they'd been 'brought to heel.' I remember back in my Nadler days, Rich talking about this phenomenon of what amounted to really conservative black folks in the urban core, sober, hardworking, fundamentalist Christians who would cut off a finger before they voted for a Republican. Not just for a Jack Kemp, but even for an Alan Keyes or Ron Freeman or Ben Carson.

Anyway, we had fun. Corinna came, I saw Ben and Sofie and Kimberly and Michelle and it occurred to me that I have an awful lot of liberal friends. Mo had fun, she even passed up the opportunity to go home early with Corinna, I think she was digging the chants and the noise of the place. They'd start chanting 'Bernie!' over and over and I'd catch her clapping.

Come November I really probably will still write in Vermin Supreme. Unless I think Trump is still a threat. I'd vote for Hillary before I'd let that scabby, wart encrusted, malodorous cunt take up residence in the White House.