Why This Right-Winger Is With Her

My conservative credentials are pretty good. I’m a converted Democrat, but I converted a long time ago. I survived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan as a supporter of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. I was appointed by a Republican governor to New York State’s highest court, where I took some flak for voting in favor of capital punishment and against gay marriage. Romney’s defeat in 2012 broke my heart.

This year, I’m going to vote for a Democrat for president — the first time I’ve done it in 36 years — and I think the decision is easy. Hillary Clinton is the only responsible choice, and I don’t understand why so few of my fellow conservatives see it that way.

Of course I know she has more than her share of faults. She lies more than most politicians, and that’s a high bar. She’s cynical and ruthless, and she thinks that as a member of a royal family she can get away with anything. And on top of that she’s what Americans call a liberal — meaning a believer in the disastrous idea of an ever-expanding state, with ever more regulation, ever more taxes, ever less freedom.

But we’ve survived worse. In fact, we are surviving worse right now. The incumbent President isn’t as untruthful, as ruthless or as cynical, but he is even more liberal, and worst of all, when it comes to foreign policy he’s weak. The most vicious tyrants in the world know that they can do anything they want while he’s president. Anyone who thinks that about Hillary Clinton will learn to think again. She’s tough, and she knows what she’s doing. She’s been around the block a few times.

And she’s a patriot.

Is that a rare thing in a president? Not at all. Literally every president we’ve ever had deserves that label, even the three between Eisenhower and Ford. One was a sexual compulsive who rented a woman from the Mafia, one was a drunken, corrupt bully and one was a vindictive paranoid, but they all cared — cared a lot — about doing the right thing for the United States. I would have said a year ago that I couldn’t imagine a president who didn’t.

But I can imagine it now.

Donald Trump is a liar on a scale that makes Hillary Clinton look like George Washington. He’s also a crass, bullying, ignorant, impulsive demagogue who stokes people’s hates and fears. But that’s not the worst of it — those are just the symptoms.

I don’t know how anyone can watch Trump on TV for ten minutes without seeing that he’s pathetically insecure, and that the insecurity generates a grotesque egomania. He is consumed by his longing for adoration and power. When I say he’s not a patriot, I’m not implying he would knowingly betray his country. I’m saying he wouldn’t know what that means. He is incapable of recognizing any value, patriotism included, except the nourishment of his ego. He doesn’t really understand that those other values exist.

Maybe I’m a coward, but I’m not ready to face a world in which an egomaniac with impulse control as weak as Trump’s is in charge of the United States. I don’t think he’ll start a nuclear war or destroy our freedom. I think our institutions are strong enough to survive him. I think so. But I’m one of those cautious guys. I don’t want to take the chance.

So I’m with her.