Does Donald Trump have small hands? Is Ted Cruz a wimp (this is a family-oriented column, so I’m using that term instead of the word Trump used)? Are progressives who don’t support Hillary Clinton misogynists if they’re men and traitors to their sex if they’re women? The 2016 presidential race is a bumper crop of insults, with the usual accompanying cries for a “return to civility.”

Reality check: There’s no era of civility for American politics to return to. It’s always been a rough and tumble sport. Election campaigns have never consisted of  the candidates holding hands and singing “Kum Ba Ya” with an occasional break for  sober issues discussions.

In 1800, presidential challenger Thomas Jefferson’s supporters described sitting president John Adams as possessed of a “hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman. Adams’s supporters retorted that Jefferson was “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.”

Andrew Jackson’s wife, Rachel, was the target of personal insults intended to politically damage him from well before his presidency. Jackson killed one critic, Charles Dickinson, in a duel after Dickinson insulted her and accused him of cheating in a horse race.

In 1836, Martin van Buren’s opponents spread a rumor that he was the illegitimate son of former vice-president Aaron Burr, who had also famously killed someone (Alexander Hamilton) in a duel and had been tried for treason.

In 1884, supporters of Grover Cleveland chanted “Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, The Continental Liar from the State of Maine!” Blaine supporters responded with “Ma, Ma, where’s my Paw? Gone to the White House, Haw, Haw, Haw!” referring to the (true) rumor that Cleveland had fathered a child out of wedlock.

If you’ve been around long, you may have heard that George W. Bush was a cocaine fiend with a suppressed arrest record, that John McCain’s adopted kids are actually the children of his affairs, that Al Gore got preferential treatment in Vietnam because he was a Senator’s son, and that Barack Obama is from Kenya.

It’s ALWAYS been dirty, folks. Like Finley Peter Dunne said, “politics ain’t beanbag.” Why? Because politicians want to win. There’s an apocryphal tale of Lyndon Baines Johnson, in a pre-presidential campaign, suggesting that a press release be put out accusing his opponent of having sex with pigs. When a staffer objected that it wasn’t true, LBJ supposedly replied “I know … but let’s make him DENY it.”

I’ll be the last person to suggest that there are no real scandals  to be considered when evaluating candidates for public office. There certainly are. So pay attention. You may learn something important.

But when you’ve cleared the deck of the rumors and insults, what’s left is what matters. Do you agree with the candidate’s positions? Do you trust the candidate to tell the truth about the issues and to have the backbone to do the right thing? Choose carefully and vote accordingly.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “Mean-Spirited, Low-Lived Fellows Are Nothing New in American Politics,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 03/19/16
• “Mean-Spirited, Low-Lived Fellows Are Nothing New in American Politics,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 03/19/16
• “Mean-spirited, low-lived fellows are nothing new in American politics,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Newberry, South Carolina Observer, 03/21/16
• “Mean-spirited, low-lived fellows are nothing new in American Politics,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Davenport, Iowa Quad-City Times, 03/22/16
• “Mean-spirited, low-lived fellows are nothing new in American Politics,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Muscatine, Iowa Journal, 03/22/16
• “Mean spirit nothing new in American politics,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Sonoran News [Arizona], 04/06/16

With large blocs of Republican and Democratic voters vowing to abandon their parties rather than vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in November — and in the GOP, even some party establishment figures mulling an alternative ticket if Trump takes the nomination — the “wasted vote” argument is peaking earlier than usual this year.

We hear it every election cycle, all cycle long, but the heat wave of patronizing rhetoric usually crests in early October as the poll numbers of third party and independent candidates evaporate beneath its glow. It goes something like this:

“A vote for anyone but the Republican is a vote for the Democrat!”

“A vote for anyone but the Democrat is a vote for the Republican!”

“A vote for any candidate but my candidate is a vote for the candidate who’s worse than my candidate!”

“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good!”

“Don’t be a spoiler!”

“Don’t waste your vote!”

The subtext of this line of campaign propaganda is actually pretty ugly. The people telling you to vote for a candidate you don’t prefer rather than for the candidate you do prefer are telling you that your vote really belongs to the candidate THEY prefer. Third party and independent candidates “steal” their votes from the big dogs, with you, the voter, as their accomplice.

Seems pretty arrogant when you look at it that way, doesn’t it? Well, it doesn’t just seem that way. It IS that way.

I suppose there’s a case to be made for strategic voting. If I think that Candidate A is just a wee little bit not as bad as Candidate B, I might decide to vote for Candidate A instead of Candidate C who “can’t win.”

Or maybe not.

Maybe I’d rather vote for what I want instead of voting against what I fear.

Maybe I’d rather not vote at all than choose from among a gang of grifters I wouldn’t leave alone in a room with my wallet or my daughter, let alone the codes used to arm nuclear missiles.

The candidates don’t own your vote. The parties don’t own your vote. Until you cast your ballot and give that vote to the candidate or party of YOUR choice, it’s YOURS, not THEIRS.

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Not now, not in November, not ever. Vote your own conscience and let the chips fall where they may.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “Election 2016: They Don’t Own Your Vote,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 03/19/16
• “Election 2016: They don’t own your vote,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Oberlin, Ohio News Tribune, 03/21/16
• “Election 2016: They don’t own your vote,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Wellington, Ohio Enterprise, 03/21/16
• “Election 2016: They don’t own your vote,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Amherst, Ohio News-Times, 03/21/16
• “Election 2016: They Don’t Own Your Vote,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California News Journal, 03/21/16
• “Election 2016: They Don’t Own Your Vote,” by Thomas L. Knapp, CounterPunch, 03/21/16
• “They Don’t Own Your Vote,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Orangeburg, South Carolina Times & Democrat, 03/23/16
• “Election 2016: They Don’t Own Your Vote,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Pahrump Valley, Nevada Times, 03/23/16
• “They don’t own your vote,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Columbia, South Carolina Panorama, 03/24/16
• “Election 2016: They Don’t Own Your Vote,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Key West: The Newspaper [Florida], 03/25/16