I am not moved by the binary-choice political argument - today's edition

 LTID readers who have been here any length of time know that I am unequivocally opposed to another Donald Trump presidency. I was opposed to the first one. I wrote in Evan McMullen when I voted in 2016, and Ben Sasse in 2020. Donald Trump had established himself as a solipsistic charlatan long before he descended the elevator in 2015. He has transformed the Republican Party into a cult and to a disgusting degree has defiled the worlds of conservative punditry and institutional Christianity.

But the Democratic Party is no alternative. It is too spiritually rotten for the nation to consider for governance.

Today's Exhibit A is the vice president's trip yesterday to Minnesota:

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday toured a health clinic that offers abortion services while she was in Minnesota, spotlighting growing restrictions on women's rights that Democrats believe will animate voters in November.

The visit, believed to be the first of a sitting president or vice president to such a clinic, comes as President Joe Biden highlights abortion rights as a key issue ahead of the November presidential election.

Harris arrived for a tour at Planned Parenthood's St. Paul Health Center-Vandalia facility as some two dozen anti-abortion protesters stood in the street outside holding signs that read, among other statements, "Abortion is not healthcare."

After completing a tour that was closed to the press, Harris said women in the country are undergoing "silent suffering" because of attacks on their health. The clinic in Minnesota's state capital provides a range of care, including birth control and preventive wellness services.

"Right now, in our country we are facing a very serious health crisis, and the crisis is affecting many, many people in our country," the vice president told reporters.

"I'm here at this healthcare clinic to uplift the work that is happening in Minnesota as an example of what true leadership looks like."

Democrats think personal freedoms could be a key issue for women, independents and other key voters after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade abortion rights in 2022. Harris has held more than 80 public meetings on the topic since then. 

This is not the occasion to revisit the entirety of what's happened to Western civilization since Rousseau and up through Shelly, Marx Freud, John Dewey, Hugh Hefner, Gloria Steneim et al. I've done so a few times at Precipice, and it's a subject of great importance. For our purposes here, let me say that what we've done over the last 400 years is jettison something key to human flourishing: acknowledgment of a transcendent order, of the fact that we are designed in certain ways and not others, that female human beings, like females of lower species, bear young. 

And I'm well aware of the very important debates going on within institutional Christianity regarding complimentarianism versus egalitarianism, which plays out in such ways as whether women can preach. I'm well aware of the boneheads such as John McArthur - he who infamously told Beth Moore to "go home" - and the damage they have done to the appeal of the Gospel to the unacquainted.

On a larger scope, I'm aware that there's no turning back regarding the leadership roles women have assumed in business and government. That ship has sailed, and civilization is the richer for it.

But the basic fact to which I allude two paragraphs above will not be disproved. The design of nature, and the fact of a designer who decreed it so, is impervious to the perverse trends by which we attempt to rebel.

To speak plainly, we can call a days-old embryo a pomegranate or a carburetor, but the fact remains that whatever term we use to deny his or her humanity, we each and all were one once.

Vice President Harris may couch her rebellion against the transcendent order in terms of women's health, or personal autonomy, but the Creator will not be mocked. 

Exhibit B is what Senator Chuck Schumer said yesterday:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the highest-ranking Jewish lawmaker, levied some of the harshest criticism yet of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from a top U.S. official, calling on Israel to hold elections for a new government to deal with the threat of Hamas.

Why it matters: Democrats have felt increasing pressure from their left to deal with the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and be tougher on Israel, while also standing with a key ally.

• Schumer had largely stayed away from criticizing the Israeli government and Netanyahu in recent months.
• His remarks come as President Biden and other Democrats are wary of alienating progressive voters who are concerned about Israel's attacks that have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza.

Driving the news: Schumer said in prepared remarks that new elections are the "only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel."

• Schumer criticized Netanyahu for aligning himself with far-right extremists in the Israeli government, saying he has turned away from a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians. Biden supports such a plan.
• "Nobody expects Prime Minister Netanyahu to do the things that must be done to break the cycle of violence, preserve Israel's credibility on the world stage, and work toward a two-state solution," Schumer said.

The big picture: Schumer said the four obstacles to a two-state solution are Hamas, far-right extremists in the Israeli government, the Palestinian Authority and Netanyahu.

The other side: Israel's Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog fired back, "Israel is a sovereign democracy. It is unhelpful, all the more so as Israel is at war against the genocidal terror organization Hamas, to comment on the domestic political scene of a democratic ally.

• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also rebuked Schumer for his remarks, labeling the Democrat's call for new Israeli elections as "unprecedented."
• "It is grotesque and hypocritical for Americans who hyperventilate about foreign interference in our own democracy to call for the removal of a democratically elected leader of Israel," McConnell said.

To reiterate some basics, Israel is the only Western nation in a region hostile to Western values, it has had war waged against it multiple times since the 1947 founding of its modern iteration, the October 7 Hamas attack unified Israeli public opinion, and, yes, the Jews were selected by God to show the world how He wishes humankind generally to relate to him.

For Schumer to speak of a two-state solution before Israel has ended Hamas's existence, and as Hezbollah intensifies hostilities on the northern border, calls into question his understanding of the fundamental dynamics of the Mideast. 

A party whose most prominent leaders are so very much on the wrong side of the truth is no more qualified to steward the United States of America than the one slavishly devoted to the least dignified person to ever enter American politics.

I'm staying home in November.

You should, too.