From March 8 up to the national conventions, I wrote eleven articles dealing with primaries, conventions, delegates, and stuff like that there. All but one ran at American Thinker. My positions on these matters, however, seem to be minority opinions, as I’ve taken a fair amount of abuse in the comments areas. And that’s fine, because I’m a big boy. In fact, I recently began wearing my “big boy pants,” which I wear right over my PJs, hiding my shame that my jammies have feet.

The main thrust of my eleven articles was that the national conventions of both major parties should be open, i.e. contested, so that the delegates could choose the best nominee from the pool of all 300 million Americans. That, I’ll have you know, is a fairly subversive idea, as it entails breaking the law, specifically state laws that command convention delegates to vote for particular candidates. Because I believe those state laws are unconstitutional, I enjoined delegates to be “faithless” and to vote their consciences. I hoped that such voting would spur the states to sue, which might bring about a constitutional showdown that could help us fix our abysmal primary system. So I wrote: “let the lawsuits fly.”

Nonetheless, I repeatedly wrote that I would support the Republican nominee, Trump or no Trump. Once I allowed that were the Democrats to come to their senses and nominate someone decent that I might consider voting for that Democrat nominee. I was hypothesizing some “black swan” event for the Dems, like the Second Coming. But, as we all know, when the Nazarene returns He’ll run as a Republican, (no doubt as an “outsider.”)

July 31 on Fox News Sunday, anchor Chris Wallace and Julie Pace had this exchange concerning Mrs. Clinton:

WALLACE: […] she is trying to reach out to independents, she is trying to reach out to Republicans who may be disaffected or uncomfortable with Donald Trump. How much is the Clinton camp counting on that?

JULIE PACE, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: Well, I think that they look at this election and there's no doubt that when it comes, particularly to her domestic policies, that she is much more in line with the Obama coalition than she would be with some independents and Republicans. But you hear this phrase from the Clinton campaign a lot and it’s “permission structure.” They feel like there are independents and Republicans out there who are just unnerved by the idea of Donald Trump being commander in chief, but they’re not going to suddenly wake up one day and like Hillary Clinton or align with her on most policies, but they want to give them a permission structure to line up with her.

Does “permission structure” sound like psychobabble or what? What it does sound like is that progressive Democrats are still treating Americans like children; they seem to think that voters not only need permission but a whole structure in order to make the “correct” decision. At Reuters we read:

The term “permission structure” has been around for years, in politics and marketing. It was once defined by a marketing executive as pushing “the proper buttons that need to be pushed” to get people to purchase a product they otherwise would shun.

The American voter doesn’t need “permission” for diddly. What I’m going to do is give folks a “reason” to vote for Trump that they may not have thought of yet.

Although it’s a quite long article, try reading the first three or four paragraphs of Jonathan Rauch’s “How American Politics Went Insane” in the July/August issue of The Atlantic. It’s a zany extrapolation of the dysfunction we’ve had over the last few years and it imagines what our politics will be like in 2020. And it’s the future we’ll have with Hillary. That’s because Hillary’s coattails are unlikely to be long enough to replace both houses of Congress. The House will probably remain Republican, and perhaps the Senate, too. Hence more gridlock, more paralysis.

With a Trump victory, however, it’s likely that both houses would remain in the Republican camp and therefore more likely that things would, at long last, get done. But a Trump victory also offers a second big plus. Even so, Trumpians may need to put on their “big boy pants” to fully understand this plus.

The only party that has any stomach for impeachment is the GOP. Republicans demonstrated their willingness to use that instrument not only with Bill Clinton, but with their own: Richard Nixon. Without GOP defection, Nixon would have finished his second term unmolested. Instead, Republicans had a powwow with Nixon and informed him he must step down or be forcibly removed.

So, all you NeverTrumpers, voting for Trump and for a Republican Congress is voting to retain the possibility of impeachment; it’s voting for retaining the ability to correct a mistake of the voters. But a vote for Hillary is a vote for four to eight years of her, as the Democrats will never ever impeach and remove one of their own. If Democrats had this in them, they would have done it with Bill and Barack. Instead, they stood by their man, even after Bill and Barack had cost congressional Democrats historic losses.

If you’re seeking a “permission structure” to do something you ordinarily wouldn’t dream of doing, something vile, like voting for a pathological liar, then you must avoid watching the video of Chris Wallace’s interview of Mrs. Clinton. Though Wallace is ever polite and respectful, the interview is a masterful takedown of a congenital liar, and he did it all with a velvet touch. It’s doubtful that Hillary has ever been so utterly exposed. Glenn Kessler, the Fact Checker at the Washington Post, gave Mrs. Clinton Four Pinocchios, the gold standard in lying, for the statements that Wallace teased out of her. But the New York Times didn’t find this remarkable interview to be worth covering. Which pushed the Times’ public editor, Liz Spayd, to write: “The Clinton Story You Didn’t Read Here.”

If Clinton really believes what she told Wallace, then she is delusional, and there’s something missing in her psyche that doesn’t allow her to recognize the truth. Or it may be the case that she’s like former French president Jacques Chirac, who ran for reelection to escape prosecution. In any case, Wallace’s interview shows that Mrs. Clinton is unfit for office.

NeverTrump people might consider that the most important thing in this election is limiting “down ballot” losses, keeping Congress etc. in the right hands. To do that, NeverTrumpers need to “suck it up” and give themselves permission to do something they think distasteful -- vote for Trump.

But I’m not suggesting that we elect Trump only to turn around and impeach him. Congress should give him a chance to keep his job. Let’s see how he’ll balance the budget and repair our fractured foreign relations. Let’s see who he’ll appoint. Who knows, Trump might just work out. If not, then Congress can show him the door. But with Hillary, we know what we’ll get, and we’ll get it for four long years.

Jon N. Hall is a programmer/analyst from Kansas City.