There is no meaningful difference between Clinton and Trump.<\/p>\n
Both are narcissists.<\/p>\n
Both are habitual liars.<\/p>\n
Both are corrupt.<\/p>\n
Both have a tendency to blame others for their failures instead of taking responsibility for their own actions.<\/p>\n
Both treat the people underneath them poorly or with outright contempt.<\/p>\n
Both think they are above the law, and seek to use the law to put down those who stand in their way.<\/p>\n
Both are masters of saying what their audience wants to hear without saying anything of actual substance.<\/p>\n
Both have flip-flopped 180 degrees on major national issues.<\/p>\n
Both want to accelerate the same fiscal irresponsibility that got us into the Great Recession and prolonged it for so long.<\/p>\n
Both are perfectly willing to order the military to do things that violate their sacred oath to defend the Constitution.<\/p>\n
Both believe in an authoritarian government that violates constitutional principles and the basic rule of law.<\/p>\n
I cannot, in good conscience, vote for either of them.<\/p>\n
My greatest political fear is that our Republic is about to be overthrown and transformed\u00a0into an Empire. We have a system of checks and balances to prevent that from taking place, but that system has been steadily eroded ever since the New Deal (or arguably the Civil War).<\/p>\n
Eight years of economic stagnation have created a tremendous amount of restlessness. Looking at global trends, it seems that things are going to get worse before they get better.\u00a0Historically, this type of chronic restlessness tends to lead to war, as leaders seek to either deflect it toward an outside enemy or channel it for\u00a0their ruthless ambitions.<\/p>\n
And both Clinton and Trump are nothing if not ruthless.<\/p>\n
Everything old is new again. The authoritarian ideologies of the 20th century have resurrected and taken on new forms. Every day, I hear echoes of the deadly drumbeats\u00a0on social media and the news.<\/p>\n
Fascism is back. Communism is back. The 21st century equivalent of bookburning is taking place on campuses across\u00a0the nation. The class warfare that started with the Occupy movement has taken on some decidedly racial undertones. If we’re following history’s playbook, a strong leader will soon emerge, promising security and prosperity at the cost of liberty.<\/p>\n
Both Clinton and Trump\u00a0promise to be that strong leader.<\/p>\n
There’s a long tradition of doomsday predictions among political commentators in this country. At the risk of sounding paranoid, I’d like to chime in with some of my own. After all, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that everyone isn’t out to get you.<\/p>\n
First, the gobal economy is about to suffer a massive downturn. China, Russia, the Eurozone crisis\u2014it’s all headed toward collapse. The US will come out on top, but only because we won’t fall as hard as everyone else. We’re still going to take a fall.<\/p>\n
Healthcare in this country will continue to be broken and unaffordable for the next four years. Best case scenario, Obamacare collapses and the gridlock in Washington prevents us from replacing it with anything else. Worst case scenario, socialized medicine stiffles\u00a0innovation, costs and inefficiences skyrocket, and committees are formed to decide who lives and who dies, just like every other nationalized\u00a0healthcare system.<\/p>\n
The originalists on the Supreme Court will be replaced with activist judges who will dismantle the checks and balances of the Constitution, causing it to hang by a thread. Frankly, this is the thing that scares me the most. It’s\u00a0already starting to happen with the controversy surrounding Scalia’s replacement, and he won’t be the only Supreme Court justice who passes\u00a0in the next four years. This will be the ultimate legacy of whoever wins the presidency in 2016.<\/p>\n
The world is about to get a lot less safe for Americans abroad. It’s already a lot more unsafe after eight years of Obama, but it’s about to get worse. The chaos in the Middle East will spread. Terrorist attacks will accelerate, both abroad and at home. The wars and rumors of wars will increase.<\/p>\n
There are a number of unlikely but plausible scenarios I’ve been mulling over. The most frightening of these involves a second American civil war, in the form of an insurgency, and the true nightmare begins when the UN sends a peacekeeping mission into this country much like Lebanon or the Balkans.\u00a0Like I said, I don’t consider it likely. But it’s just plausible enough that it would make an excellent novel\u2014the kind that later generations laud as being written before its time.<\/p>\n
In short, I predict another four years of economic stagnation, fiscal irresponsibility in Washington, cronyism, corruption, and collapse.\u00a0If America becomes “great” again, it will only be the Empire at the expense of the Republic.<\/p>\n
So what am I doing about it?<\/p>\n
Stocking up on food storage. Growing a garden. Learning how\u00a0to be a responsible gun owner. Striving to be as independent and self-sufficient as possible.<\/p>\n
And you can bet that all of this is influencing my writing. There’s a war of ideas\u00a0that’s raging right now, one that may\u00a0influence the ultimate outcome of our era more than any elected official. As a writer, I see it as my responsibility to play a role in that battle, not through message fiction per say but through stories that reflect truth. I have no idea if any of my stories\u00a0will be as influential as\u00a01984<\/em> or\u00a0Les Miserables,<\/em> but I intend to write them as if they could be.<\/p>\n It appears we’ve been cursed to live in interesting times. Let us rise to the occasion and write timeless and interesting stories.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is no meaningful difference between Clinton and Trump. Both are narcissists. Both are habitual liars. Both are corrupt. Both have a tendency to blame others for their failures instead of taking responsibility for their own actions. Both treat the people underneath them poorly or with outright contempt. Both think they are above the law,… Continue reading A political rant<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[457,1050,414,599,232],"class_list":["post-10561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-current-events","tag-liberty","tag-politics","tag-thoughts-reflections","tag-why-we-write","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-2Kl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10561"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10574,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10561\/revisions\/10574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}