The No-Win Election: America’s Kobayashi Maru
Wednesday, September 7th, 2016
By
Quote by a Smart Person: “You get what you put in, and people get what they deserve.” Kid Rock/Only God Knows Why
Welcome to the American Singularity.
It’s on. We’re past Labor Day and now begins the final seven week spring to Election Day on November 8th. We’ve already seen the traditional heightening of rhetoric and attacks by both the Trump and the Clinton campaigns. We’ve seen the polls tighten as voters turn away from summer vacation and toward the biggest no-win scenario in recent American political history: Donald or Hillary. Either way, America comes up snake-eyes.
Author’s note: In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, a crew of Starfleet cadets must complete the “Kobayashi Maru” simulation — in which there is no way to win. It is revealed as the movie progresses that when Admiral James T. Kirk (ably portrayed by an uber-80s Bill Shatner) faced the same test as a student, he reprogrammed the computer to allow for a winning outcome. “He cheated!” Chortles Kirk’s son David. “I don’t believe in the ‘no-win’ scenario.” Kirk retorts.
Unfortunately for American voters, it is likely much, much too late to reprogram the 2016 presidential cycle to achieve a different outcome. Regardless of who garners 270 Electoral Votes (no one will “win” this election) they will take office highly damaged, deeply distrusted and seen by far too many citizens and patently illegitimate. Both major-party nominees have proven themselves unable to run a campaign with any sort of positivity — because they can’t possibly overcome their own innate negativity.
To call Trump a political amateur is an insult to political amateurs. He is a chaotic force of nature, not unlike Hurricane Hermine — keeping us constantly guessing where he will next make landfall and therefore keeping us glued to the softly glowing screens of our smart devices. Day-in and day-out able political correspondents stand on the political waterfront as Typhoon Donald whips up the surf and sand around them — trying their best to stand upright.
Hillary Clinton, like her husband before her, has squandered decades of public service, good works and reputation in return for a dozen smashed Blackberries, near-continuous questionable judgement and the nagging, and magnetic perception that she a) doesn’t believe the rules apply to her and b) is well aware she’s going to get away with it. This week’s release of her FBI interview from July displayed another now too-common trait among politicians, elected leaders and the government writ-large: They’re either too stupid to hold the positions they do, or their perfidy is breathtaking. Neither is good, but straddling the middle ground between incompetence and malfeasance seems to get them off the hook every time.
When the Americans held hostage by the Iranian regime were released, and there was a corresponding $400 million payment (in cash) that arrived prior to their being let go, President Obama went before the world and told us it wasn’t a ransom payment. A week later the State Department tells us that transferring the money to Tehran was contingent on our people being let go. President Obama is an objectively very intelligent person. So was he lying or was he using some governmental double-speak that no-one, even those of his own party, believe? This is inherently the issue: The White House convinced itself that what they did was acceptable, so by definition it was.
Hillary Clinton is no different. She wanted private email, therefore it was an acceptable course of action. Donald Trump is no different. He wants to throw out the Mexicans and the Muslims, until he doesn’t. Because, you see, it wasn’t working well with suburban women. He changed his mind on a dime, and therefore it was alright that he changed his mind. But then he changed it back, and back again. And why does he do it? Because what Trump says, goes and he watches from the rostrum as his people let him get away with it.
We ask little of those we elect to lead us and expect less. My father, a long-time operative, always said there is something inherently different in a person willing to put their name on the ballot. Not necessarily good or bad, but certainly different. They have a different genetic make-up from the rest of us: one willing to suffer the nastiest slings and arrows that modern American politics — from County Commission to Congress — has to offer. Even accepting that, we as voters have decided it is not just okay for them to be different, but too often wholly unworthy of the job.
Either they hew too closely to some rigid political orthodoxy or they’re for sale to the last lobbyist in the door. What once was seen as public service — something you did because you were a local leader, or well thought of, has become an industry in which you throw a wrench in the gears to make noise or you grease the skids to pad your future. Neither is worthy of the Republic, but too often that is what we accept.
We got it wrong in 2016. Democrats allowed the coronation of a nominee who was by any other objective standard far too damaged to adequately compete in a General Election. The Republicans did them one better: They nominated someone completely unqualified for the most important job in the world and they continue to throw gasoline on his dumpster fire of a campaign hoping it will catch the Clinton campaign on fire. What a mess.
2018 is likely too soon to be able to achieve any real change to whom we’re electing and why we’re electing them. But either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton is going to carry the mantle of the Presidency for four years. Let’s all of us work together to find a better option, or better yet, options for the highest office in the land come 2020. Our country, our Republic and the path of future American generations depends on it.
Copyright 2016. Jedburghs, LLC.
