By chance (I just added the term "malignant narcissism" because I wrote about it on Daily Kos yesterday to my Google news search which sends articles with key words or phrases to me via email) I found this OpEd from The Tampa Times: Why this former Republican voted for Joe Biden | Mac Stipanovich
I think the author of this OpEd makes good points from someone who has the perspective of a moderate former Republican about why Joe Biden would make the best Democratic candidate.
Mac Stipanovich is one kind of independent voter who the Democrats need to beat Trump.
He describes himself as a “center-right conservative in self-imposed exile from the Trump GOP.” No matter whether Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders wins hopefully all Democrats will vote for him.
We are faced with a cruel political mishigas in that to win we must assure that not only do anti-Trump Republicans, independents, unaffiliated moderates, and (here’s the crazy cruel part) disaffected Democratic supporters of one of our own, all vote for the Democratic candidate.
If it’s Biden I can’t see Bernie making anything but a truly sincere whole hearted effort to put their anger aside and wholeheartedly work for Biden. But he need more that words directed to his disappointed, in some cases bereaved, supporters.
It will be up to him to make sure his more ardent and single-minded supporters don’t sit out the election. He just convince them to work to elect Biden as hard as they did for him in the primary. It will be a hard sell to some of them but if Trump beats Biden and polls put the blame at Bernie’s doorstep he will end up in the history and political science books an example of how inflexible progressive dogmatism among a small group of Bernie Sanders zealots led to a Democracy destroying eight years of Trumpism.
Consider, NPR reported that 1 in10 Bernie supporters voted for Trump.
Here’s how Newsweek put it:
Bernie Sanders supporters switched their allegiance to Donald Trump in large enough numbers last November to sway the election for the real estate billionaire, according to an analysis of voter data released Tuesday by the blog Political Wire. Since Trump's shock victory over Hillary Clinton, much discussion has focused on the degree to which passionate Sanders supporters' refusal to embrace Clinton led to the Republican winding up in the White House.
According to the analysis of the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Survey, fewer than 80 percent of those who voted for Sanders, an independent, in the Democratic primary did the same for Clinton when she faced off against Trump a few months later. What's more, 12 percent of those who backed Sanders actually cast a vote for Trump.
The Bernie issue aside, here’s why I think the opinion of a former Republican in Florida, the state that could swing the election as it did in Bush v. Gore is particularly important.
Stipanovich should know about the significance of Florida. A quick look at Wikipedia tells us why:
He may be best known for his role in the 2000 Florida election recount, in which he helped advise Katherine Harris.[1][2][3]
In a swing state like Florida the headline of the Tampa Bay Times send a message to its many readers. It has the largest circulation by far in Florida. It is number one beating out the somewhat better known Miami Herald which is number four.
Here are a few excerpts from his OpEd which he begins with the sentence “the search for an antidote to the poison in the body politic that is Donald Trump has come to Florida.”
Here are some bullet points about why he supports Biden:
- I was able in good conscience to vote for a man eminently qualified to be president of the United States, liberal enough to hold the Democratic base and moderate enough to appeal to independents and anti-Trump Republicans...
- It is easy to overlook the depth and breadth of Biden’s résumé… (which he goes on to describe)
- Character is Biden’s trump card, pun intended . He is a thoroughly decent man: honest, loyal, and grounded, a good husband, father and friend. And unlike Trump, he is not compelled by malignant narcissism and rampant insecurities to want to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding and the baby at every christening, as Alice Roosevelt Longworth said of her father, Teddy.
- Affable, witty and engaging, nobody dislikes Joe Biden… it is easy to picture a President Biden giving Ronald Reagan’s Challenger speech to comfort a grieving nation but hard to imagine him bragging about crowd size when visiting the scene of a tragedy.
- Then there is Biden’s demeanor. His calmness is reassuring, the lack of bug-eyed anger refreshing. (I think he is referring to Bernie Sanders rather thanTrump.)
- We are caught between the rock of the passionate reactionary populism of Donald Trump and his MAGA myrmidons and the hard place of the passionate revolutionary populism of Bernie Sanders and his Bernie Bros. A pox on both their houses, I say.
- What is wanting is not passion but a cool hand, not self-righteousness but the Right Stuff. When I think of Biden in this moment of crisis, I think of the three words that built the British Empire on hundreds of lonely battlefields around the world: “Steady, men. Steady.”
The author concludes listing what he believes are Biden’s imperfections as a candidate saying that his senior moments and verbal gaffes are legend, and noting the votes he regrets and policies he supported but now rejects. He thinks that they are the inevitable “artifacts” of his long career in politics and are not disqualifying. He concludes: “If Joe Biden is not a man for all seasons, he is certainly the man of this hour.”
More on Trump’s dangerous narcissism:
Warnings about Trump May Be Influencing Voters, Mar 4, Psychology Today
The Media Still Won’t Address Trump’s Unfitness for Office, Mar 5, Washington Monthly
The Nunce and Future King— Perhaps the Nation’s Greatest Existential Threat?, Mar. 5, Resilience
Of over 1000 diaries this was by far the one that received the most recommendations (451) and comments (783). It was from May 2, 2016. It also generated more negative comments personally directed at me than I’ve ever received.