While I was on the plane to Houston and hooked into Delta’s Internet this morning, I made the case that, when faced with the reality of a binary choice for president, either Republican or Democrat, to not vote for the Republican candidate equals a vote for Democrat and their policies, which, in this case, is a decrepit old man named Joe Biden.
Based on a distaste for Trump, it is clear some Republicans will make a choice not to vote for him, to withhold their vote because as someone said, they are “through with Trump and only mentally deficient Republicans will vote for him”. My response to the comment was that was a choice, but it seemed to me that it was a “mentally deficient” choice to choose NOT to engage to avoid the policy outcomes we have been witness for the past three years. You don’t have to vote for something, your choice not to do anything is also a choice and the lack of that opposition facilitates more of the bad situations we already know about.
I wanted to explain how I got to where I am because I haven’t always been the biggest Trump fan – I wrote numerous posts arguing against him because I was a Ted Cruz supporter – but during Trump’s first couple of years I came to some realizations that led to me casting my vote for him again in 2020.
First, I recognized that my vote for him said nothing about my principles. Voting or not voting for him did not change the way I live my life; the way I love my family and I didn’t go out and start doing Trump imitations or decorating my house like Mar-A-Lago. So, I asked myself, was I really taking a principled stand not voting for him because I just wanted others to see me as as principled and virtuous or because I really didn’t like the outcomes of his policies? And what right did I have to push my standards of virtue on anyone else?
I have come to realize that I was simply “taking a stand” that was of no real value to anyone but myself because my refusal to engage helped no one, but on the other hand, my inaction certainly could harm people.
In my mind, I set up this philosophical model about principle and virtue to reason thorough it for myself:
Suppose you are in a mysterious facility and are introduced to a guy who is in charge of everything, let's call him the HGIC (Head Guy in Charge). You are told the HGIC has the power to start or end everything that is about to follow. You are also introduced to a New Guy who is HGIC's second in command. New Guy can do anything the HGIC can do, but not unless HGIC isn’t around.
Now suppose the HGIC escorts you and New Guy to a two-way mirror looking into a room and there, on the wall beside the mirror, there are two buttons – one green and one red. You are told that if the HGIC pushes the green button, something will happen and if he (or someone else) pushes the red button, the thing will stop.
Now imagine looking through the mirror and seeing your wife (or husband) tied to a chair in the middle of the room. HGIC looks over at you and says, “Here we go!” and pushes the green button, opening a door through which a couple of starving, rabid wolves are released into the room, and they start circling your wife (or husband), then without warning, one bites her arm, and she screams.
The HGIC looks you in the eye and does nothing to stop it. You look at New Guy, but he says he can’t do anything because he isn’t in charge. HGIC is telling you without telling you that his intent is to let your wife be maimed or possibly killed. He sees your look of panic and in a cold voice, he says, “You will have to kill me to make it stop.” At this decision point, you know nothing about the HGIC, he’s just in charge. He might have a wife and family, too. Maybe he is being forced to do this, you just don’t know. Prior to him pushing the green button that released the hungry, rabid wolves, you had no reason to talk to him, much less kill him.
We all know that murder is a bad thing and there is real possibility you will face some sort of penalty for killing another person, and even if you don’t get penalized, you will still need to deal with the fact you killed someone and everyone knowing that you did – but if you don’t your wife will continue to be harmed and eventually killed by the wolves.
So, the question is this: are you morally justified in killing HGIC so New Guy can put stop to what is going on in that room or will you not kill him because to kill another human being is against your principles?
Most people I know would not hesitate to kill HGIC so that New Guy will hit the red button and save their loved one. They would not let anything stand in the way of saving her or him.
If you haven’t figured it out, in this analogy the HGIC represents Biden, Trump is New Guy, you are the voter, and the wife/husband is the American people.
I know this is extreme, but it is entirely relatable. Biden’s policies are bad for the American people, even for those who support him. Trump may be reprehensible in your eyes, but we know his policies were objectively better than Biden's, that people were not getting hurt, but were getting helped by them. There is even polling evidence now that shows a majority of people, Democrats and Republicans, believe they were better off during the Trump administration.
I have come to understand that in relieving the pain, a vote for Trump is morally justified regardless of my like or dislike of his personal qualities.
I just want him to hit the red button on Biden’s policies. I don't really care about anything else.
Trump's personal qualities? WHAT personal qualities? What on earth is there to stipulate, let alone disavow?? Good Lord, I'm sick beyond words of the idea that anyone should have to qualify his support or feel it necessary to distance himself from Trump.
He was self-evidently a better choice in 2016 given what a ridiculous and hopelessly insane grifter Hillary is; this was obviously true in '20, and given what an unmitigated shit-show the country has become since that election, anyone hesitating in casting a vote for Trump cannot be taken seriously as an intelligent and informed person.
Trump does not conduct press conferences on the toilet; he does not pick up dogs by the ears, expose surgical scars, fiddle around with interns in the Oval Office, or throw a leg over anything that would hold still for a few minutes.
He does not sniff and grope children in public; his children are not as bag men; he does not carry on as though the office is his for the asking; and he does not gratuitously insult half (or more) of the population despite their purple-faced, idiotic, and irrational hatred of him, nor does he threaten them with staging reminiscent of "Triumph of the Will."
He must certainly qualify for Most Investigated Man in History™ after being a public figure for 40 years and yet all his enemies are left with nothing but their little ***** in their hands
There is no reason to run and hide. This election needs to be either (a) a runaway mandate for Trump to abolish departments wholesale or (b) so obviously stolen that it can no longer be denied.
The moral case for Trump was summed up best by Lincoln, regarding Grant: “I can’t spare this man. He fights.” Like Lincoln, we've been in search of a man who will fight and recognize the nature of the fight he's in. Trump is that man. Like Grant, we're not nominating him for Pope, we're setting him loose on the enemy.