Fans of “Annie Hall” will remember the scene in the bookstore in which the character played by Woody Allen explains that life is divided into two categories: the horrible and the miserable. The horrible, according to him, consists of dreadful deviations from the norm, like children with cancer and victims of natural disasters; the miserable is everything else. And so, as his line of reasoning goes, we should be grateful if we are merely miserable.
That is essentially how I feel about our choices tomorrow.
Hillary Clinton is not a miserable candidate. She stands for continuity with policies that have brought us a 4.9 percent unemployment rate, the DJIA at 18,000, very low inflation, reasonable gas prices, and no large scale involvement in land wars anywhere in the world. Her election will almost certainly be met with the usual tools of GOP vandalism, however: government shutdowns; impeachment threats; frivolous investigations; debt crises; obstruction on nominations; and the like. Add sporadic right-wing violence, talk of secession, and incessant complaints about a “rigged” system, and you have the next four years in front of you: a reprise of 2011 and 2012, only worse.
And that, barring a split in the GOP, is the best case scenario. The alternative is an ignorant, bumbling, would-be autocrat who will cause a market crash, threaten our liberties, start trade wars, destroy our reputation abroad, and seriously consider the use of nuclear weapons on a regular basis. He promises “change,” but what we will get is chaos, pure and simple.
I will be watching the returns tomorrow with my heart in my mouth. I am terrified of what a Trump presidency would mean for our country, and for the entire world. Please choose misery over potential annihilation and vote for Clinton, for your sake and mine.