Monday, August 1, 2016

To Leftists Who Think The Harms of a Trump Presidency Acceptable

(The orignal discussion is here. It is long and horrifying.)

How exactly do you expect Mexico to absorb 7 million refugees? They would end up in camps. Many would die. Many brown-skinned US citizens would be swept up in the wave of deportations and the force which executed those orders would go on to become a brutal internal security agency, putting all US citizens at risk. Likely more and more brutal international wars would follow.

This, about everyone in this discussion willing to use lives as pieces on a Go board: every now and again I learn something new about political thinking. What I learned in this discussion is that some leftist radicals are every bit as willing to sacrifice innocents as any conservative advocate of realpolitik. I had thought that question settled by the horrors of the 20th century, but it seems the lesson is not yet learned; without compassion we are no better than our opponents.

The reality of this election is that if there is a path forward for the left it is through a Clinton victory. There is no reason to believe that a Trump victory is unlikely, or that it would be anything but a global and national disaster, and actions taken that increase the odds of a Trump victory are akin to those of one of those high-flown suicides who want to take others along with them. Survivors of such attempts almost invariably regret them the minute the moment of decision is past. (Which also explains the thinking of many Trump voters who wish to "shake things up.")

No. I reject this.

2 comments:

The Blog Fodder said...

If we look at Mao and Lenin/Stalin as examples, the Leftists (not progressives or democratic socialists) have always been willing to sacrifice any number of people in their search for an earthly utopia.

Raven Onthill said...

Supposedly, though, both left and right have repudiated the insanities of the last century. Much of the US left is pacifist - not so the US right. But it seems that there is a faction on the intellectual left that has forgotten.