Is There a Case for Trump?

Just to get it out of the way, the answer to the question posed in the title of this post is No, probably more accurately Absolutely Not. But in the spirit of inquiry, is there a case to be made that a rational person should vote for Donald Trump for President of the United States? Probably not, but we’ll give it a shot.

Assuming that all the (almost always incorrect) arguments against voting for a third party have swayed a hypothetical voter, they will likely be faced with the choice between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton. I can only imagine three reasons to vote for Trump over Clinton.

First, a single-issue voter might favor something that Trump supports that Hillary does not. I find this unconvincing. Neither candidate, especially Trump, is particularly principled. Outside of vague generalities and a distaste for outsiders, it’s hard to figure out exactly what Trump stands for except for Trump. Someone who feels very strongly that Mexicans are a problem or that American companies should be harshly punished for foreign trade might favor Trump. But Trump is so flexible in his beliefs and new to politics that it’s difficult to imagine him actually sticking to any of his campaign promises or being particularly capable in making them into effective policy.

A subset of this argument is straight party-line voting, a voter who might dislike Trump but would rather the Republicans put judges and administrators into office rather than a Democrat. But to what extent is Trump actually a Republican? Could you feel safe about Trump nominating, say, a Supreme Court justice? He would probably nominate his daughter, or himself. And rational voters might worry how much a Trump presidency, even more than just the Trump candidacy, will hurt the long term prospects of the Republican Party. George W. Bush cost the Republicans dearly; the impact of Trump might be generational.

Second, a hypothetical voter might believe that there is something so dangerous about Hillary Clinton in particular that she must be stopped at any cost. People very concerned about Benghazi and general conspiracy nuts fall into this camp. Clinton definitely seems disagreeable to me – evasive, hawkish, a friend if not tool of Wall Street, and a mushy centrist whose main principle seems to be a commitment to government technocracy itself. But there’s no reason to think that Clinton is particularly dishonest or dangerous, compared to any other politician, especially the shamelessly dishonest and generally unhinged Trump. Clinton is bad, but her badness is an embodiment of conventional wisdom – if Clinton is a problem, it’s because Washington is a problem.

A third reason, and what appears to drive most of the Trump support, is a desire to stick it to the establishment. Washington, liberals, cosmopolitans, smug intellectuals, or whoever it is you don’t like – Trump is a way to stick a thumb in their eye. The flaws in this are obvious: Trump is a rich guy who was born rich and got richer mostly through luck or by doing things that made the economy, society, or both worse off. Trump is of the establishment, if not the exact part of the establishment that some voters find so objectionable. And electing Trump, perhaps the least qualified person (in both experience and personality) ever nominated by a major party for president, would be a particularly harmful form of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. There are much easier, not to mention less destructive, ways to stick it to the establishment than by voting for a vulgar, off-brand Mussolini.