by This presidential election may be historic if for no other reason than both presumptive nominees are grossly unpopular. Now if you like Donald Trump or you like Hillary Clinton and you object to that statement, then you are probably in the minority. Both candidates had unfavorability ratings of over 50% as of late June. Frankly, I don’t see that changing.
I’ll admit right up front that Donald Trump was not my first choice. Heck, he wasn’t even my fourth choice. At the start of the primary season, I considered Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz as potential recipients of my vote. I added Carly Fiorina to that list after I saw how she handled the press.
As to Hillary Clinton, oh, please. Her primary qualification to me seems that she married the right guy to have pulled her along with him to national prominence. Without Bill Clinton, she’d be just another Yale educated lawyer with political ambitions. It is doubtful that she would have ever been elected a US Senator from any state especially given she had held no prior elected offices. She would never have been Secretary of State as she wasn’t one of the “wise old men” like a Warren Christoper, a college professor specializing in foreign policy like Kissinger or Madeleine Albright, or a general like George Marshall.
To those who would say I’m forgetting about Gary Johnson, I’m not. While he has gathered more support than prior Libertarian candidates, his role in this election is that of a spoiler. He will either take just enough #NeverTrump Republican votes from Donald Trump for Hillary to win or he will take just enough Bernie supporting Millennials from Hillary for Trump to win. I’ve participated in every election since 1976 and have studied American presidential politics at the graduate level. Gary Johnson being elected President just isn’t going to happen.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was interviewed by the New York Times on Friday. What she said should clarify for any gun owner or any Second Amendment supporter what this race for President is really about. This holds true for both the deer hunters in Gun Culture 1.0 with their .30-06 Remington 700s and the non-hunting concealed carriers in Gun Culture 2.0 with their Glock 19s.
This election is about the Supreme Court which now stands in a four to four split between conservatives and liberals. Another way of putting it is that neither the Originalists nor the Living Constitutionalists hold a majority.
Justice Ginsburg was asked whether there were any cases of recent memory that she would like to see overturned. Here is what she said:
Asked if there were cases she would like to see the court overturn before she leaves it, she named one.
“It won’t happen,” she said. “It would be an impossible dream. But I’d love to see Citizens United overruled.”
She mulled whether the court could revisit its 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which effectively struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act. She said she did not see how that could be done.
The court’s 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, establishing an individual right to own guns, may be another matter, she said.
“I thought Heller was “a very bad decision,” she said, adding that a chance to reconsider it could arise whenever the court considers a challenge to a gun control law.
Should Judge Garland or another Democratic appointee join the court, Justice Ginsburg will find herself in a new position, and the thought seemed to please her.
“It means that I’ll be among five more often than among four,” she said.
Rest assured that Michael Bloomberg would spend big bucks to get a gun control case before a Supreme Court in which Justice Ginsburg was now among the five who believe there is no individual right to own a weapon of any sort (firearm, knife, sharp stick). The Wall Street Journal noted yesterday in an editorial that Justice Ginsburg thinks the Second Amendment obsolete and that there isn’t even a need for the militia anymore.
So unless something untoward happens this week or next at the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump, warts and all, will be the nominee. He is on record as supporting the Second Amendment as an individual right and is on record as opposing gun-free zones.
The coronation of Hillary Clinton will take place in Philadephia the following week. She is on record as saying she’d “change the gun culture”. To think that a President Hillary Clinton would appoint anyone to replace Justice Scalia that believed as he did that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right is ludicrous.
I still don’t really like Donald Trump. However, I am adult enough to realize that stomping my feet and saying I’m not going to vote or that I’ll vote for Gary Johnson is giving aid and comfort to Hillary. This election has become a zero-sum game for the Second Amendment. If Hillary wins, we lose.
I’ll boil it down to the essentials: If you are #NeverTrump, then you are #NeverGuns.
I agree with this. I was for Paul and voted for Cruz in the primary. It's now Trump or die.
Hey, I wonder if you could put some sort of generic image at the top of the blog. While I certainly don't have a problem with Lucky Gunner's ad image appearing int he FB when I add your blog post as a link, is large and distracting on the feed.
However, as to the content of your post, you are spot on. I will vote libertarian on the ticket where ever a candidate appears, but until Mr. Johnson is POLLING at 50% his chances with the general populace in the electorate are just not good enough to WIN, which at this point is what really matters if the US citizenry wants to retain the right of self defense. If it was to be Trump, so be it.
Conservatives who oppose Trump are goofy.
Hillary could have moved to the center, where we would have a corrupt centrist. Bernie could have been the nominee, where we would have an honest socialist. Instead Hillary moved to the left so we get a corrupt socialist.
Worse, Ginsburg has signaled the court will rubber stamp Hillary's corrupt agenda. Hillary will appoint judges that rubber stamp executive authority.
With the media, Congress, and courts working against Trump I think he will accomplish 33% of what he promises.
So it boils down to whether one wants 33% of Trump or 100% of corrupt socialism rubber stamped by the courts, along with a generational shift expanding executive authority.
I'll say it again, conservatives who oppose Trump are goofy. People who vote for Hillary (directly or by supporting a third party) are goofy.
And if you look back on my comments, about 3 months ago I was never Trump. He was my 17th choice.
Trump is an utter buffoon that will likely have trouble working with congress and accomplishing anything he hopes to achieve. My only hope, should he win, is that he may actually utilizes his team building skills he theoretically learned during his various business ventures to create a cabinet and administration that actually works…instead of choosing from friends and donors and putting complete incompetents in place based merely on the size of their checkbook.
Opposing Trump is opposing the Second Amendment. We stick together or we die. It's really that simple.
"We stick together or we die. It's really that simple."
Yes, indeed it is. If the Hildabeast stacks the Supreme Court and they all get dyslexia and cannot read the plain language of the Second Amendment we will have the Second American Civil War with blood and death galore.
When the government says I can no longer have weapons to replace a bad government they have proved it is time to replace that same bad government!
Best short I've heard is 'Trump can't be counted on to do the right thing but Hillary can be counted on to do the wrong thing'.
Hold your nose and vote.