A cheap date

Vote bots and things that bother me

I think I might have voted for Mike Dukakis if he had run in 1984. He was from Massachusetts, where I was born, and—Jay can verify this story—my dad briefly dated his wife Kitty (yes, before she was married) because her dad was the first violinist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra and also my father’s violin teacher. And family: if you cut my mother, she’d bleed Democrat, plus I kind of liked Neil Diamond. What can I say? Non-political me at 20 years old was a very cheap date at the polls.

Of course, Duke didn’t run in 1984, and I don’t think I voted at all in that election. In 1988, when Duke did run, my chance meeting with George H.W. Bush when I crashed his New Hampshire primary victory party sealed my ballot choice. A few free drinks and cheap hors d'oeuvres bought me. Like I said, I was a cheap date.

Here’s some stuff that bothers me. Joe Biden is not rich, but plenty of people want you to think he is. Donald Trump is not nearly as rich as he wants you to think he is, but even if he were, somehow the rust-belt blue collar folks think he understands them.

In 52 years, Biden spent 48 (all but the four years Trump was in office) as an elected official, first in the senate, then as VP and now POTUS. He is worth about $10 million. In 1972, senators made $42,500 a year; in 2008 when Biden left the senate the salary was $169,300. Between 2008 and 2024 (not counting his four years as a private citizen), Biden earned a total of $3.38 million—nearly half the $7.1 million he earned in his entire government career. I actually did the math and have a spreadsheet to prove it.

Now I suppose living a frugal life, saving, and making wise investments (you know, like Paul Pelosi) could make anyone in Biden’s position worth $10 million. In fact, the average net worth of everyone serving in the 113th Congress (2014, ten years ago) was just over a million dollars. In 2011, the average net worth of senators was over $14 million. Compared to Mitch McConnell and many others in the senate, Biden is not particularly wealthy. Yet Republican mouthpieces continue to ask where he got his “great wealth.”

Donald Trump was literally born with silver spoon in his mouth. He is the rich scion of a wealthy family—his father Fred Trump built a real estate business and handed it over to young Donald, who at 28 became the darling of New York gossip columnists. If Trump had simply invested his money in the market, he’d rival Warren Buffett today. But Trump valued the “art of the deal” (shorthand for “bulls**t”) over simply making money. It’s not the money that Trump craves, but the chase.

It’s not the depression, the lure of drugs, and the lack of money that Trump understands, but the dreams and fantasies of the people who have those problems, and the ease with which they are wooed to blame “them” for their ills. They are cheap dates at the polls.

President Biden floated a proposal on Monday in Wisconsin to end-run the Supreme Court ruling that killed his prior plan to cancel student loan debt. The new proposal uses the administrative procedures of the Education Department under the Higher Education Act, to waive certain student loan debt. Yes, there’s details, but who cares about the details? Youngish college grads and 40-somethings who owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in high-interest education loans are cheap dates.

Even voters who might not agree with all the Biden administration policies on, say, Israel, might somehow overcome their reticence at the polls if it netted them cash in their pockets. Pure politics.

Trump’s statement on Monday, that he was really pushing for federalism and state’s rights when he packed the Supreme Court and took credit for overthrowing Roe v. Wade, was also a play to keep the vote bots, who call themselves pro-life but are not above paying for an abortion for their mistress, in his cheap date cult.

In a video he posted on Truth Social (his newest piggy bank), he said “My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both.” So if California wants abortion up to the moment of birth, so be it for Trump. “And whatever they decide must be the law of the land — in this case, the law of the state.”

And apparently, if a Congress controlled by Democrats passes a law forcing states to offer abortions, and a Democrat president signs it into law, well that would be the law of the land for Trump, who was just fine calling for the suspension of the Constitution because every court laughed his election conspiracies out of the building.

As a history nerd, I don’t think there’s been a worse lineup for president, like ever. Even 1876, where Republican Rutherford B. Hayes lost the popular vote, but beat Samuel J. Tilden by one electoral vote after four months of congress playing footsie with counting and fraud charges, is not worse than the current lineup. Hayes was 59 when he left the White House, but looked 81. Tilden was stung by actual election fraud uncovered by the Potter Commission (which ironically was looking for Republican rigging), and published by the New York Herald Tribune. Neither of them ran again in 1880.

Now imagine Hayes and Tilden ran again in 1880, but Tilden won. Then imagine they ran again head-to-head in 1884. It would still be better than what we have today.

Of course, the obvious: both our candidates are old, decrepit, and in mental decline. Both President Biden and former President Trump can’t stitch six sentences together without devolving into word salad, dressed with provable lies. Neither candidate running for president in 2024 is worth a shovelful of what horses leave in the stable.

But they both understand the value of buying dinner off the dollar menu for their cheap dates. I am beginning to agree more and more with my brother Jay that this election will be determined by reverse turnout—how many people will stay home? The 1876 election had—and still holds the record—the highest turnout in history. The 2020 election, with 66.6% turnout, had the highest since 1900.

The election of 1976 had one of the lowest turnouts at 54.8%—Watergate and Vietnam took their toll. The 1988 election, the one where Dukakis and his running mate Lloyd Bentsen suffered a crushing loss to George H.W. Bush and Dan Quayle, generated the lowest turnout since 1924, when Calvin Coolidge beat John W. Davis in a landslide. Maybe landslides demotivate the cheap dates, since why bother voting when the result is so lopsided?

If that’s true, then the 2024 election, despite being the worst in history, will have a very high turnout. All the cheap dates will be there ready to surrender their dignity at the polls. I don’t know what that portends, because the race is close. David Thornton thinks it’s trouble for Trump. I am not so certain.

There are a lot of cheap dates in swing states. I’m sure by November we will have far from exhausted the bad pickup lines and offers of fast food dinners these two campaigns will spew in their never-ending effort to insult our intelligence, but win our votes (or at least get us to show up).

You are not a vote bot. Don’t be a cheap date like I was.