Which Party System Would You Prefer

[KaiserDave]

The first one. Very easy choice for me considering I have always favored Trump over Romney and obviously massively prefer Sanders over Clinton.

Why the bolded, if I may ask? They are both equally economically plutocratic (Trump actually arguably even more so), but Romney has the advantage of at least showing a modicum of respect for democracy and the rule of law.

Trump is much better on trade. He killed TPP. I don't think Romney would have done that.

Besides, I don't care a farthing (and never have) for any of this Lincoln Project "our dear institutions!" nonsense. The institutions in this country are rotten to the core and have been for a long time. Many of them are rotten by constitutional design. So Romney, McCain, Liz Cheney or any other "good guy" Republican who liberal Democrats fawn over as the beloved purveyors of the "edifice of democracy" don't cut it with me. Especially since most of them are nearly identical to Bush Jr. "on the issues," when it comes to foreign policy in particular.

Caring about the public trust, the rule of law, and corruption is not a "Lincoln Project" belief.

[KaiserDave]

The first one. Very easy choice for me considering I have always favored Trump over Romney and obviously massively prefer Sanders over Clinton.

Why the bolded, if I may ask? They are both equally economically plutocratic (Trump actually arguably even more so), but Romney has the advantage of at least showing a modicum of respect for democracy and the rule of law.

Trump is much better on trade. He killed TPP. I don't think Romney would have done that.

Besides, I don't care a farthing (and never have) for any of this Lincoln Project "our dear institutions!" nonsense. The institutions in this country are rotten to the core and have been for a long time. Many of them are rotten by constitutional design. So Romney, McCain, Liz Cheney or any other "good guy" Republican who liberal Democrats fawn over as the beloved purveyors of the "edifice of democracy" don't cut it with me. Especially since most of them are nearly identical to Bush Jr. "on the issues," when it comes to foreign policy in particular.

Caring about the public trust, the rule of law, and corruption is not a "Lincoln Project" belief.

If you care about public trust, the rule of law, and corruption, then Senator Mitt Romney is about the last person you should think highly of. Twelve years ago, the Mitt Romneys of the world nearly brought about our entire global economic and financial ruin due to their extreme neoliberal greed at private equity firms like the one Romney was heading up.

When Romney was CEO of Bain Capital he did this all to make a handsome profit for himself & his buddies over at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup while the American people were suffering during the worst economic recession of modern times, which was in fact caused by the business activities of Bain Capital & others who pioneered the leveraged model that created the Great Recession. Do you think he earned the "public trust" when he did that?

Romney neither cares for the rule of law, as is obvious when you look at his offshore accounts, fraudulent business practices. And corruption? I remember in 2012 when he was called "King of the Super PACs"...

So Trump, is he corrupt? Yeah, sure. Maybe he got some shady deals to put up a Trump hotel in Moscow or something. That's bad, but quite frankly it doesn't even really register when you just look at the general nature of corruption of all mainstream politicians in this country. Something like that compared to the 30+ years of corrupt careerism of the Bushes, the Clintons, the Kennedys etc., to say nothing of even just your average everyday House legislator.

And then you look at the thoroughly corrupt nature of the entire political system in this country, how every election is bought and paid for by large corporate donors (campaign financing has been shown to be the single most predictive quality for electoral outcomes), each of whom has elaborate business ties to a multinational organization which is responsible the world over for untold miseries such as over-exploitation of natural resources in developing countries, child labor, starvation wages, illegal suppression of unions etc. etc., and you really just kind of care less and less about what this one man (Trump, or Romney) "shady business dealings" they've done. They're all corrupt and evil, so it seems like moot and this point. Any talk of "democracy" or "public trust" when all your elections are bought by corporations is meaningless.

I don't think highly of Mitt Romney at all for many of the reasons you listed, it's merely a question of preferring Trump to Romney, which I do not.

[KaiserDave]

In the end of the day there's no ideological consistency or logic to it. The left wing people who prefer Trump to Romney do this because of pure style- Trump is cooler and saying you prefer him makes you feel like a down to earth populist. Even if it requires ignoring that he tried to destroy democracy.

Actually if you read my post you'll see the one thing I listed that made me prefer Trump to Romney was a difference in policy. It is distinctly policy and substance, and not rhetoric, which makes the decisive difference.

Such is not the case for centrist Democrats. They will eat up any talk of Romney and John McCain being Never-Trump Republicans "saviors" despite the fact that, policy for policy, Romney and McCain are nearly identical to Trump, who himself is identical to nearly every other Republican. The so-called "moderate" Republicans who get championed by the media for stepping up to "Trumpism" are only opposed to Trump on the grounds of decorum (e.g. his "mean tweets," for being unpresidential, for saying things openly rather than being concealed, etc.). When it comes to actual policy (tax cuts for the rich, environmental regulations, Wall Street etc.) they are perfectly lined up. On only a few issues (e.g. trade) do they differ at all

I agree with you, but I contend that President Trump acted with far more criminality and gross abuse of power than a hypothetical President Romney would have. They'd both be terrible, of course.