These kids are smarter than the Tribune editors. Photo by Considered Sources, CC BY 2.0

What do you make of the Chicago Tribune’s endorsement of Gary Johnson? The Tribune is the only important newspaper in the country to endorse Johnson.

The Trib’s editorial board argues the nobility of supporting Johnson to oppose unprincipled Clinton.  The Tribune says voting for Johnson is the courageous stand,  “the principled option,” while it is clear to fools that not voting for Clinton only helps Trump. The Tribune wants to make it respectable not to vote for Clinton.

It is telling that their editorial makes no effort to argue against this obvious response, that supporting Johnson in effect supports Trump. They have no argument – they only say, “We reject the cliche that a citizen who chooses a principled third-party candidate is squandering his or her vote.” It is in fact true, that this noble stand against clichés does not squander a vote — because it is in effect a vote against Clinton and therefore a vote for Trump.

Johnson: not a cliche!

These are among the most highly paid newspaper editors in the country, and they are  smart enough to understand the consequences. If they are enabling a Trump victory, that must be what they really want. Sure, they’d rather have an establishment Republican. But what they want, now and always into eternity, is someone who will cut taxes on the super-rich. If you read their editorials over the years, this is their most constant theme, their love song to accompany any policy that actually costs money.

They put on progressive editorial tie dyes when it comes to racism, sexism, opposing homophobia and Islamophobia … but they don’t mind that Johnson’s website doesn’t even mention racism and sex discrimination. To them he is “principled” because he wants to cut taxes, cut Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security benefits, and eliminate regulation, even to the point of abolishing the Department of Education and keeping the EPA from messing with corporate polluters (global warming … “probably” is happening, says Johnson). Their columnist Eric Zorn gives some of the details the editorial leaves out.

Wait — maybe this stand for principle and against cliche is  not really so courageous. They want Trump but they don’t have the nerve to come out and say it. Of course; they better not endorse an open racist in a city that is historically Democratic, with a population that is 60% black and Hispanic. But Trump will give the Tribune and the Republican establishment their tax cuts and deregulation.

For the Tribune editorial board, Trump is the love that dare not say its name.

If this be hypocrisy, let’s be forgiving; lovers get a pass.

Your reward for reading this far is this cartoon by El Machete, Eric J. Garcia.

Eric J. Garcia, Trump tapping racism.