My endorsement goes to the man who can make coercive state work

By David McElroy · November 13, 2011

Much to my surprise, people sometimes send me email to ask who I support for the Republican presidential nomination. I can only assume those people don’t read the site thoroughly, but I’m going to make an endorsement today — just for them.

What is it we want in a president? We want a person who will respect individual liberty across the board, someone who will end government intervention in the economy, someone who will pull U.S. troops back to our own states and use them only to defend that territory, and someone who will dismantle the social welfare state that has been built for the last 80 years or so. There are other details we want, but those are some broad strokes.

Taking the requirements of the job into account, I’m throwing my complete support behind that great, patriotic American named Mr. Nobody. That’s right. Without question, Nobody gets my endorsement.

Since Congress controls the laws that decide how much individual freedom we’re allowed to keep, the other candidates won’t respect our freedom. They can’t. They don’t make the laws. Nobody will respect our freedom.

Because Congress mandates that the executive branch control more and more aspects of our personal lives, the president isn’t allowed to decide to let the economy operate on its own. Obama can’t do that. Romney can’t do that. Not even Ron Paul can do that. Nobody can.

Because wars and the use of the military are so popular, Congress is going to insist that U.S. bases around the world continue to operate — inevitably angering someone in the countries where they’re located. Because building expensive weapons puts massive amounts of money into the pockets of the military-industrial complex — and employs a good number of people doing it — Congress will continue to buy that equipment. No president is going to be allowed to cut military spending. Obama doesn’t want to and couldn’t if he did. Romney and the leading Republican contenders are chomping at the bit already to invade Iran. They aren’t going to stop the foreign adventurism. Nobody can.

Since the programs of the “social safety net” (such as Social Security and Medicare) are so popular, Congress is going to continue to fund them. It’s not only going to continue funding them, but it’s going to pile on additional programs, no matter what the economic conditions are. Obama is dying to keep adding programs, so he’ll co-0perate in adding them. Romney and the other Republicans who have a chance of winning will give lip service to ending a few programs, but they don’t really want to end them. (Remember that Romney is the architect of RomneyCare in Massachusetts, which was the blueprint for ObamaCare.) None of the other candidates will end the social welfare state. Nobody can.

So now you know. The candidate to support is 2012 is Nobody. Let me spell it for you. That’s N-O-B-O-D-Y. If someone asks you who you’re for, just give them that one name and then realize that you’ve said all you need to say.

I’m voting for Nobody. I suggest you vote for Nobody. It’s the only pragmatic and moral choice.

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It’s something I wrote four and a half years ago — in the desperation of loneliness — and it’s become my most popular article. It’s not my best writing. It’s raw and unpolished. But it seems as though a lot of people can identify with it. It’s called Missing someone creates intense physical sensations in my heart. Just to give you an idea how many people still read it, I had 11,586 people visit the page last month — from 2,907 cities and towns around the world. London sent the most readers for it, followed by New York, Westminster, Los Angeles, Chicago, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne, Sydney, Toronto and almost 3,000 more. I’ve noticed something interesting. It always gets the most hits from an area of the world in the late hours, right after midnight, and that breaks my heart — because I understand why. All these people are so lonely and are missing someone so much that they turn to a search engine looking for answers, so they stumble upon this piece. I wrote this late at night on the day after Christmas because my heart was breaking. I needed to express how much I missed someone, and a lot of people seem to identify with it. If you’re one of those people, I have no way of knowing who you are, but I empathize with you. I know why you hurt. I wish I could do more to help. I hurt with you, because after all this time, I still feel the same way.

I just found out that a long-time Facebook friend died a few days ago. I never met Tom Ender, but reading his posts and interacting with him over the years made me feel as though I knew him. He was a kind and gentle man who was also a fierce and principled individualist. When his long-time wife, Julie, died several years ago, it broke his heart. About a year ago, he posted an old photo from their wedding long ago and wrote, “18 months ago, Julie passed from this world. I believe we will meet again, though I don’t know details of how.” As I mourn the death of this gentle and brilliant man, my fondest hope is that he and Julie are together again by now. Goodbye, Tom.

When Francesca Montanaro’s school shut down in March due to fears about the new new coronavirus, she had nowhere to go. Francesca’s mother is a nurse working long hours in New York City. The grandparents who would otherwise have provided child-care were old enough to be vulnerable to the bug, so they were out. That meant Francesca has spent the last few months with her dad at his pizza shop in the Bronx. In this six-minute piece from Radio Diaries and NPR, we take a look at what it’s been like to be a bright and typical 11-year-old thrust into a completely different world. She puts pizza boxes together and answers phones. She’s even learned to make perfect pizzas. I found the story touching. It reminds me of the degree to which children used to learn more about the real world than they do today. Even though she won’t follow in the pizza-making footsteps of her father, I’ll bet this will be one of the defining experiences of her childhood, one that she will treasure for years to come.

I noticed three instances over the weekend of people talking about Donald Trump’s “campaign of hate.” I wanted to correct them — because they misunderstand this narcissist — but I knew they wouldn’t get my point. It’s not that I’m defending him, because what he does is worse than hate. You simply have to understand the way narcissists think to understand him. Trump doesn’t hate. It’s worse than hate. He’s indifferent and angry with anyone who doesn’t obey him and worship him, those who don’t give him what’s called “narcissistic supply.” People believe that Trump hates blacks or Hispanics or foreigners or whatever group which he’s seen as hating. It’s true that he experiences rage at people who will not give him what he wants, but he’s not in touch enough with his real self to feel real hatred, much less to feel real love. He’s like a vampire who sucks all the available praise and adoration from any group of people — any way he can get it. He doesn’t love rural, blue-collar white folks, but their adoration gives him what he craves. He’s not emotionally mature enough even to hate. For a narcissist, people are simply objects to manipulate, depending on what he can get from them. Trump’s indifference is far worse than hatred. This isn’t ideological or political. It’s pathological. He’s not mature enough to hate.

The decline of modern culture can be seen clearly by looking at what passes for public discourse. There was a time when people who wanted their ideas accepted made rational arguments. It was assumed that most people were bright enough and rational enough to evaluate those arguments — and a surprising number of them really were. Today, the arguments are made in the form of irrational and simplistic graphics called “memes.” Because these graphics can’t convey complex or nuanced information, they present dumbed-down presentations of positions which are stunningly juvenile and seem designed to offend rather than to convince. We have regressed from books and dense pamphlets to a level more like that of angry kindergartners making crayon-scrawled hate notes to send to other children. Reason no longer plays a role in public discourse, and this signals the coming fall of this society.

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