Quote of the Day – Hunter S. Thompson’s Prescient 1972 Warning

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While on the campaign trail in 1972, Hunter S. Thompson issued a dire warning that is more true today than it ever has been.

He warned us about what would happen to the country if we continued along the destructive path he noticed nearly 45 years ago. He observed that if Americans continued to accept “lesser of two evilism” the only thing we’d end up with would be increased evil.

He was right.

Here’s the quote:

That’s the real issue this time,” he said. “Beating Nixon.  It’s hard to even guess how much damage those bastards will do if they get in for another four years.”

The argument was familiar, I had even made it myself, here and there, but I was beginning to sense something very depressing about it.  How many more of these goddamn elections are we going to have to write off as lame, but “regrettably necessary” holding actions?  And how many more of these stinking double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils?

Now with another one of these big bogus showdowns looming down on us, I can already pick up the stench of another bummer.  I understand, along with a lot of other people, that the big thing this year is Beating Nixon.  But that was also the big thing, as I recall, twelve years ago in 1960 – and as far as I can tell, we’ve gone from bad to worse to rotten since then, and the outlook is for more of the same.

—Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72

This above quote came to my attention courtesy of an article published at Counterpunch titled: Stop Trump! Stop Clinton!! Stop the Madness (and Let Me Get Off)!

Wish you were still with us.

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In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

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11 thoughts on “Quote of the Day – Hunter S. Thompson’s Prescient 1972 Warning”

  1. The good thing about elites is that they are so greedy they tend to destroy the system themselves.

    1920s/2000s – high inequality, high banker pay, low regulation, low taxes for the wealthy, robber barons (CEOs), reckless bankers, globalisation phase

    1929/2008 – Wall Street crash

    1930s/2010s – Global recession, currency wars, rising nationalism and extremism

    Time for a “New Deal”?

    Inequality kills demand.

    The world is swamped in investment capital and you have to pay people to take it off your hands, no one wants it as there is nowhere to invest.

    We removed free and subsidized services to those at the bottom, wages now have to be spent on these rather than other products and services in the economy.

    We raised the cost of living through ever rising costs of housing, healthcare and student loans, wages now have to be spent on these rather than other products and services in the economy.

    Supply never did create its own demand.

    Time for a “New Deal”?
    .
    A Keynesian “New Deal” with plenty of redistribution is what is needed.

    Reply
    • Yup. That’s why Henry Ford said he paid his workers decently–so they could afford to buy the products they were making. Anyone who has been in a town or city where there are depressed economic areas, will see the kinds of stores found there–few products, many storefronts just boarded up, etc., since the residents can’t afford much, because their employers refuse to pay them decently, and their local governments either don’t care or are complicit or incompetent, or all three.

  2. Sorry, this election is different in that one of the choices is a non-politician. I rarely vote (exceptions being Perot and Paul), but given a choice of someone who is possibly outside of the system I’m compelled to lend support. It’s clearly a long shot, but there is some hope that Trump will do some good, even it only involve changing the narrative.

    By definition, one candidate will always be “the lesser evil” since nobody is without sin. Therefore it always comes down to degrees.

    Reply
    • When the political narrative has been like a play with bad reviews, the solution isn’t to change the narrative to one in which the actors on stage come into the audience and punch everyone in the face.

      If you look at what Trump has been saying during his whole candidacy, no thinking person would conclude that he might do some good just because he’s “different”.

    • Hmmm, so many responses… I’ll go with logical with just a dash of snarky.

      An intelligent person knows that this is unanswerable because we can’t know what would have happened if Clinton would have won. Someone who is both intelligent AND imaginative should have zero difficulty picturing a far worse outcome with Clinton. In fact, even an idiot should be able to imagine how we could have been much worse off in that scenario.

      Dies that help, Mr. Combs?

  3. Sweet Mother of God- another stinkfest with the first debate narrative like schoolchildren in a playground. Trump stinks so badly and he’s a knee- Jerk narcissistic monkey. He scares me worse than Nixon. And that’s not saying much except that he’s so crooked he’s got to screw his pants on in the morning. “Global Warming is a hoax?”- maybe if we saw that famous hair sweep running naked in front of a wailing Santa Ana wind with a 90 foot wall of flame roaring behind him, he might even ask his secretary for a ride out. Those Republican jammers had eight years and this is the best that they can do…? Shame Shame Shame! Makes you wonder how much single malt Scotch it requires them to listen to his unmerciful hubris?
    Selah & Hold on tight!!!

    Reply
  4. The election of 1960 wasn’t a choice between evil and less evil. Nixon was a terrible choice, but Kennedy was a decent choice.

    And another thing: if in every election where it HAS been a choice of the lesser of two evils, if the voters had consistently chosen the lesser evil, we’d be a hell of a lot better off now. When you elect the worse of two evils, it increases evil. If you always choose the lesser of two evils, the degree of evil tends to gradually decrease. In 1968, it was Nixon vs. Humphrey (because Robert Kennedy had been assassinated). Say what you want about Humphrey, if he had been elected, the US would be much better off today. In 1980, it was Carter vs Reagan. With Reagan’s trickle-down economics and other terrible ideas having lasting negative impacts, we’d have been better off with Carter, even though he was criticized as the “malaise candidate” (and “evil” wasn’t really an issue with Carter in the first place). In 2000, it was Gore v Bush–though Gore wasn’t perfect, if the Supreme Court had allowed the recount in Florida to continue, there’s a pretty good chance Gore would have won, and we’d have won too. And so on.

    Reply
  5. Anybody who thinks that ‘it doesn’t matter who’s President’ has never been drafted and sent off to fight and die in a vicious, stupid war on the other side of the world–or been hounded by the IRS for purely political reasons…That is when it matters who is President or Governor or Police Chief. That is when you will wish you had voted.

    Hunter S. Thompson

    We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear—fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a terrorist sympathizer.

    — Hunter S. Thompson

    Reply
  6. Hunter S. Thompson was one of the most astute journalists to ever publish a column.
    With incredible acuity and accuracy he predicted the future of America: a nation horribly twisted and sick, where only the worst of humanity get into public office. Where the American people are fed a daily barrage of propaganda, lies and deceit. Where honesty is a crime,and those who expose criminality are either sent to prison or exterminated.
    Cazart! The evil bastards have won again! Nixon and Agnew have both been re-animated !
    Living in America is like being on an LSD laced hell ride into the heart of what’s left of the rancid American dream. A nation state that is careening out of control like a booze ladened teenager, headed for that big oak tree in the middle of the road.
    A nation so consumed with its own delusion of exceptionalism that it refuses to see the havoc it has created around the world. A people living one lie after another.
    They are getting exactly the government they deserve.

    Reply
  7. While visiting a right leaning site and reading the comments forum one commenter said…druggies always have filthy sweatpants.
    I laughed out loud and immediately thought of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
    My sweatpants are a little dirty but I wish I had some drugs.

    Reply

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