The farcical side of lesser evil & realpolitik

Carter (AP)

There’s a farcical side to lesser evil politics & you gotta find it or you’ll need medications to get through the election campaign. Jimmy Carter (former US Commander in Chief of monstrous human rights crimes now born again as some kind of human rights guy) provides some needed comic relief. He told Britain’s House of Lords (a real venue of democracy) that he’d choose Drumpf over Cruz, “which may surprise some of you.” That’s like saying he’d choose beheading over hanging; diphtheria over cancer; waterboarding over electrocution. And the same is true of the choice between Clinton & whoever.

Well it may surprise that gathering of stiffs but it’s of a piece with Carter’s political resume. He brokered the Camp David Accords which armed the Egyptian military against its own people in return for abandoning support for Palestinians. He maketh protest about Israeli human rights crimes & occupation whilst publicly opposing BDS, the only weapon Palestinians can wield in self-defense. Is there some lesser evil involved here that the rest of us can’t discern? Or is it Carter’s realpolitik dressed up in double-talk?

Carter’s vision of options is not a good guide to political action. He’s been dead wrong most of his life & caused a lot of human suffering for a lot of people in a lot of countries. That’s where lesser evil takes you. It ain’t good enough for working people.

(Photo of Carter by AP)