Getting Some Distance
Let us try to tear ourselves away from the gaudy spectacle that is American politics right now, and work through the theological logic of voting. I know that it is hard to tear ourselves away from the gaudy spectacle, which resembles nothing so much as a circus wagon full of mutant monkeys that is also a helicopter trying to crash-land sideways on a tin bridge. To say nothing of the total effect, the noise is considerable. We are getting lots of excited commentary from the monkeys, mostly on MSNBC.
But let us put that out of minds for the nonce. Isn’t it a shame that nobody says nonce anymore? A sign of our troubled times. Anyway, is it fair to say that a refusal to vote Trump is a vote for Hillary? There are at least three issues tangled up in this. The first is the morality of it, and second the wisdom of it, and the third the accuracy of it.
Where Does It Stop?
The argument is that we have a binary choice, and that it is mandatory for everyone at some point in the electoral process to rally behind one of those two choices. But this is to say that there are circumstances under which you would have to vote for Hillary, right? To say that Trump is appalling but that Hillary is worse is to allow for a future set of circumstances in which Hillary was appalling but that Candidate X is worse. But isn’t there a point in this downward ratcheting process where you abandon both the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, ceasing with the vain attempts to figure out which commie faction is worse, and just go underground to join the resistance?
Dealing With Trump Without Losing Your Soul
What about the wisdom of opposing Trump? Now I happen to believe that Trump stands a very good chance of getting elected. That could be wrong, obviously, but we order our affairs in the light of what we think likely to happen. I am not predicting anything here, just explaining my thought processes and operating assumptions. If Hillary is elected, I and my kind of people are simply locked out of the game anyway. But if Trump is elected, there will be good people scattered throughout his administration that I think real conservatives could appeal to, and could work with. Let us say that the new Secretary of Energy is a good guy, and so this means that he would work with good people on policy and principle, whether or not they supported Trump in the election. But if he plays quid pro quo, and settles scores with people who did not support Trump, then this means that the entire administration has been corrupted, even the ostensible conservatives, and we would officially be in our banana republic phase. Pay to play has become the formal policy, and you have to sell your soul to get in the game. No thanks.
At the same time, I need to make a distinction here. I am among the NeverTrumpers, but do want to mark a difference between conservatives who are obviously holding their nose as they offer qualified support for Trump, and those who have gone rah-rah all-in. I differ with the former, but understand it (e.g. Tony Perkins). I differ with the latter, and don’t understand it at all (e.g. Jerry Falwell Jr.) This latter category is a big part of our problem.
A Two Party System
Third, the accuracy. A refusal to vote for Trump might not be what everybody is thinking. We might be assuming that this election is about whether Trump or Hillary is going to occupy the White House for the next four years. It might instead be about whether one or both of the major political parties implodes. A vote for Trump might be a vote to keep the Republican Party alive, which would be a shame.
Now the United States has had a two-party system from the beginning. This is part of our unwritten constitution, but one that is a necessary result of the written structures that the Constitution put into place. In a parliamentary system, the chief executive is a “congressman.” This cedes a great deal of power to splinter parties, and so it is that splinter parties tend to form. The structure encourages the alliances to form after the voting. Our structure encourages the alliances to form, in the form of parties, beforehand.
In our system, the executive is elected directly, independent of the elections for the legislature. This causes the factions to cluster beforehand, and the alliances come together in major political parties. Sometimes these alliances are pretty stable and at other times they blow apart. When they blow apart, another party forms. I believe the conditions are ripe for this to happen, and perhaps with both parties.
In the history of the United States, all two and a half centuries of it, we have always had two major parties. I think that this is a structural necessity. But those two parties have not always been the same parties—one of the parties can become a smoking crater, and sometimes has. If this were to happen, then that party would soon be replaced by another one. But it is unlikely in the extreme that we could ever have a stable and standing three-party system.
For example, in the era of the Founders, we had the Federalists and the Republicans. Later we had the Whigs and the Democrats. Currently we have the Democrats and Republicans. There is absolutely no reason why one or both of the current parties could not go the way of the trilobite. There are all sorts of reasons for believing that this is actually happening, both to the Democrats and the Republicans. Both parties are deeply divided and/or fractured. This may be a year, in short, when it is possible to vote against the current parties, both of them together.
Donald Trump was nominated on the strength of an infusion of Independents, displacing many conservatives from their own party. Those conservatives need somewhere to go. I am among them. My current plan, unless providentially hindered, is to research my available options, about which more later.
ChristianLibertyParty.org
Today’s hashtag fun. I would be a #BetterFirstWomanPresident
Wall❌ Welfare reform✅ Taxes❌ Prison reform✅ Abortion❌ Free market✅ Amnesty✅ Foreign policy:family&friends
Durverger’s Law is a real thing, unfortunately. It’s not destiny, but it describes a powerful force.
I believe a way to nullify the party system (and the attending finance corruption, buying of influence, and long campaigns) is a final stage involving sortition. Imagine voters presented, at some point, with a ballot for a federal office with potentially hundreds of names (and a place for write-ins). The ten names that get the most number of votes go on to a second round of voting where voters get to vote yes or no for each of the ten candidates on the ballot. All candidates who get a majority of yes votes move on to a final pool. (If… Read more »
I’m open to suggestions consistent with #NeverHillary.
The most realistic, helpful presidential political reform I’ve heard of is the notion of states going to the Congressional District Method when allotting their electoral votes. Nebraska and Maine already do this. It can be done at the state level and so does not require a national constitutional amendment. De facto disenfranchisement happens to liberals in Texas and conservatives in California. This method would alleviate that trend to a great extent. For example, Obama won the Congressional District around Lincoln, NE (held by a Republican) in ’08. Some (mostly liberals) want a one man-one vote/national popular vote system (will never… Read more »
What is your response to the Supreme Court reasoning? The Supreme Court nominations seem far more important than a 4 year election. I understand we can’t trust Trump but there is a chance he will make good picks with the right people around him. There is no chance Hillary will.
The Supreme Court is the one thing that keeps dragging me back to voting for Trump.
Me too John. I hope Pastor Wilson addresses this. I would also like to understand when we should seek the ‘gradual’ approach vs the ‘blow it up’ approach.
You know, I (h/t ashv) think that framing Trump as the “blow it up” approach may be correct in regards to the Republican party, but that is exactly opposite when it comes to national-level politics and civil well-being.
If what we have now after Obama is racial and class harmony, I can only expect that Hillary will continue the “progress” — but with the addition of hundreds of thousands new immigrants seeking “harmony”.
The term that keeps coming back is “realignment”. Every so often the coalitions in the USA political parties change, and this is one of those times.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Party_System
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Party_System
http://tinyurl.com/jov24en “The Supreme Court, and indeed, the entire top-down edifice of central bank/state power is increasingly irrelevant to the truly fundamental forces defining this era– forces of financialization, resource depletion, debt, globalization, automation and the power-law distribution of rewards for innovations in a knowledge-based economy. The Court’s supposed relevance is simply another illusion of a Status Quo that is itself increasingly irrelevant. Everyone looking for “solutions” from centralized state powers is looking in the wrong place. The state can issue another 100,000 pages of statutes and the Court can hand down a hundred more nuanced interpretations of the law, and… Read more »
I’d say “leave the court at eight judges” and keep an equal number of leftists and rightists on it, so that someone has to abandon his ideological side to get anything done.
Congressional grid-lock, after all, has served to protect the citizens of the US from heir own elected representatives Doing Things. There’s no reason why it can’t work for the court as well.
This: A vote for Trump might be a vote to keep the Republican Party alive, which would be a shame. and this: Donald Trump was nominated on the strength of an infusion of Independents, displacing many conservatives from their own party. Those conservatives need somewhere to go. I am among them. My current plan, unless providentially hindered, is to research my available options, about which more later. These two seem to be contradictory. Evidently, a vote for Trump is a vote for not keeping the Republican Party alive. Now, I wouldn’t lump Pastor Wilson (not that I agree with him… Read more »
And if we’re going to complain about the Democrat pastime of tearing down foreign governments and destabilizing regions, it’s an example of the good Lord’s good humor and good Providence that the Democrats be thrown out of office thanks to the Russian government meddling in our election.
“It’s worth noting that the ones being chased out of the R’s are the ones that made the death of the R’s a desirable thing.”
Nailed it. As I’ve often said, coming from the opposite angle, Trump is a reaction to the breakdown of the Constitutional process, not the breakdown itself. In the same breath, Wilson and those like him will decry direct democracy for giving us Trump, and Trump’s autocratic tendencies. This is pure, unadulterated, Orwellian, doublethink.
I’m right in the middle of NeverTrump and voting for Trump while holding my nose. The one thing that keeps dragging me back to Trump is the supreme court. A Hillary win will guarantee that we get 20+ years of the left getting whatever they want without the need for congress to pass laws.
Congress has the power to impeach Supreme Court justices. A number of federal judges have been removed by this process. It’s about the only real check and balance though.
But to remove from office they’d have to have broken the law, right? It can’t be an ideological thing.
And the only other check on a SCOTUS ruling is an amendment, which ain’t gonna happen any time soon.
The wording of the Constitution isn’t really that specific about the nature of impeachable misdemeanors. Who is going to tell the Congress that they are not interpreting the Constitution correctly on that matter? The Supreme Court whose member is about to be impeached? The Supreme Court has already established a precedent recognizing that the Constitution gives all jurisdiction over impeachment to Congress. The safeguard against a reckless Congress is that the Senate needs a 2/3 majority to impeach. My point was simply to note that Supreme Court nominations are not really set in concrete. Activist federal judges, legislating from the… Read more »
I mean, I guess it’s possible, but it’s not something that we should expect. Interpreting the constitution ‘incorrectly’ is not grounds for impeachment, but that is the major reason the leftist justices will be detrimental to the country.
The Congress has the power not merely to impeach supreme (*) Court justices but also to void *any* ruling by the federal courts, including those of the supreme Court. This is because the Constitution gives the Congress the power to determine (aside from a few specifically named items of jurisdiction) the jurisdiction of the supreme Court.
(*) this is the capitalization used in the Constitution
And that’s actually part of the problem — the Constitution does not give the federal Courts the power to “interpret” the Constitution. And, in fact, by the actual Constitution (*), the federal Courts, including the supreme Court are creatures of the Congress: for, aside from certain explicitly named exceptions, the Congress has the power to set and to re-set the jurisdiction of *all* the federal Courts.
(*) as distinct from how the federal government operates today
You may be right, but I must base my decision on the way it actually works today.
Which is essentially Marc Antony’s reply to Brutus.
Yes: we must acknowledge how the federal government actually operates;
BUT: we much always keep in mind what powers the Constitution *actually* gives the government, for the only way to even begin to roll back the over-reach of the government is to know *that* and *why* its acts are over-reach.
I’m more cynical than you are. The way I see it, there’s no hope to roll it back. At this point it’s all about slowing it down.
You want to out-cynical me? Me?! I was *born* cynical.
Ha, yeah, I don’t know if anyone could be more cynical than I am for the future of the US. I can’t see anything but a continuous decline in its future. There just aren’t any leaders left that we can look to.
What are Trump’s ACTIONS? (By their fruits you shall know them). Where have you seen him go to the mat, and expend hard earned political capital for something he believed in? SCOTUS is not final – congress, if it has a spine, can create different legislation if SCOTUS declares something unconstitutional.
Remember – everything for Trump is the beginning of a bargaining chip.
“SCOTUS is not final – congress, if it has a spine, can create different legislation if SCOTUS declares something unconstitutional.”
Indeed, the supreme Court is not the SUPREME branch of the federal government, rather the Congress is.
The supreme Court doesn’t even have the Constitutional authority to declare what is and is not constitutional in the first place. It just happens to generally serve the interests of politicians (and bureaucrats!) to continue the charade that the Court has that power.
It was designed to be the weakest of the three branches. It requires character in our legislators to utilize the checks and balances. Nah, teaching the myth of judicial supremacy is easier.
I always write it as “supreme Court” because —
1) that is the capitalization used in the Constitution
2) I want to emphasize the judicial supremacy it anti-Constitutional
I agree, but Hillary is no different. She about as dishonest as they come.
So, Pastor Wilson, I take it you are proposing that when the helicopter crashes sideways into the tin bridge and all the mutant circus monkeys are tossed headlong into the seething waters below, out of this maelstrom of chaos will step a savior who will lead us out of the political wilderness and into the promised land? If Jesus were not our Lord and Savior I would call you an absolute lunatic, good sir.
I thought he was proposing to add more bananas?! ; – )
There is never a shortage of bananas in America. Ever.
Perhaps that’s a good title for a future blog: “Hip-deep in Bananas.” I can see a vision of Sanders with a bulbous red nose, enormous shoes, and a flower on his lapel that squirts water.
Doug, all this posturing is for naught… http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/21/churchgoing-republicans-once-skeptical-of-trump-now-support-him/ The lay Christian conservative is voting for Trump despite the hysterics of evangelical leaders, conservative media pundits, and jealous Republican politicians. Unlike the people who moralize, opine, or campaign for a living and tend to think of politics in highly idealistic (and unrealistic) ways; the middle-class middle-American is driven by practical matters such as jobs, security, sovereignty, and peaceful social conditions. What’s more important to the police officer who patrols heavily-black neighborhoods–the president’s law and order/pro-cop reflex or the fact he’s had three wives? What matters more to the construction worker in… Read more »
One seldom hears such a careful defense of the principle that principles don’t matter. Ironically, Eagle_Eyed rebukes the Christian electorate for our moralizing, as if it were a moral failing. If we are simply voting for a president who will give us what we want, then the most populist president will do, regardless of his/her arrogance and corruptions. Eagle_Eyed doesn’t seem to have considered that, as a nation and culture, what we need most is something that we want least: repentance. His pragmatism has no answer to this. It takes real leadership and character to get past what the people… Read more »
“If we are simply voting for a president who will give us what we want, then the most populist president will do, regardless of his/her arrogance and corruptions.”
This is a caricature of Eagle_Eyed’s statement, and I think demonstrates the type of attitude Eagle-Eyed was criticizing. Are those concerns he brought up not actually important? Is voting in such a way as to improve the conditions of society, or even save it from destruction, to be equated to simply trying to “get what we want”?
No, I’m simply taking Eagle_Eyed at his own word. He appealed to practicalities and self-interest, rebuking any concern for character and principle. It does no good for Ben to try to smuggle principle in the back door on Eagle_Eyed’s behalf. If principle matters, then the appeal to practicality and self-interest is invalid. I suspect that Ben is concerned about principle over practicalities, but may disagree about which principles are most important. For example, he may rank humility, repentance, integrity and lack of corruption as low priority principles, whereas I believe they are more important than merely preserving jobs. When the… Read more »
Oh yeah, sez who? The window for the continued existence of the USA may be closing, but that’s different.
I don’t understand ashv’s question. Is he suggesting that God will strive with us forever, and the opportunity to repent before being judged will remain open forever? He seems to be saying that the end of the USA is near, presumably because of some kind of judgement, but isn’t that what I was saying? Or is ashv suggesting that the window of repentance has already closed? Ashv’s particular brand of defeatism is hard to get a handle on.
I’m guessing when he reads “our national” he’s hearing it as “the White Nation”
“White Nation” is pretty much exclusively a midwestern US idea, so no I don’t think of that.
I hope that’s not what he is up to. Maybe he will clarify.
I understand that ashv holds to multiple “nations” within the U.S., but unless his intent is to speak in code and merely speak past others, he should address my remarks within the context that they came to him, not as he secretly reinterprets them within his own specialized jargon.
Let’s try again, then: who exactly are you referring to when you say “us”?
ashv wrote:
The context of Wilson’s post, and this immediate thread, is the national election. In that context, when I say “us”, I’m referring to the people of this nation considered as a whole, the U.S.
This is why I reject the conclusion that “the window for national repentance is closing” — the USA is not a nation, it is a multinational empire (and always has been, to one degree or another).
It seems that ashv is acknowledging that he was speaking past me and using his own coded objection, based on his own peculiar definition of “nation”. With that information in hand, ashv appears to be excusing himself because he sees himself as belonging to a separate sub-nation within the U.S. that doesn’t need to repent, or will not be held accountable for the doings of the empire. He seems to be supposing that if God’s judgment falls on the U.S., his sub-nation will be spared any ill affects. I’m not sure how else to take his objection to my statement… Read more »
First of all, God’s judgement has fallen on my nation, and continues to. (I tend to agree with Don Colacho’s assessment: “The modern world will not be punished. It is the punishment.”) My ancestors fought to not be involved in the doings of the empire but lost. We have much to repent of, but chief among those sins is surrender to Americanism. (One that Robert E. Lee repented of not long after Reconstruction began.) Second, I reject the simplistic belief that being guilty is the only reason a person or a people will suffer. The consequences of sin are rarely… Read more »
Well said! I think the most important thing you touched on is the way in which the Christian intellectual/pundit classes simply don’t think like regular people. It’s easy to think in terms of high and lofty principles, and to eviscerate in writing those who don’t apply them as consistently as you do, when you’re sitting in a nice and cozy ivory tower. It makes you wonder how much time the Christian punditry actually spend with lay churchgoers.
Why are we even talking about this instead of Jacques Hamel?
I would politely suggest that Pastor Wilson stop with the John-Roberts-overthought-self justifying-pretzel logic regarding why he is a ‘nevertrump’ guy.
“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
It appears to me that the Lord is preparing to give America exactly the leader it has asked for. Frightening, isn’t it?
Yes.
We need to remember how we got here. RINOs have been campaigning to the right and governing to the squish left since Bush Sr. After decades of this treachery, GOP voters picked a guy who looks like he might step on the faces of the establishment guys who have been running this ruse. Trump’s actual views don’t really matter all that much to those voters. Against all that we have the principled conservatives in the never-Trump crowd. Sorry to put it so bluntly, but these are exactly the dupes partly to blame for the rise of a pol like Trump.… Read more »
True enough about voting for Trump. On the other hand By voting Clinton (I can’t do this very well cause I’m not gonna) the goal is to 1) keep the purely self-aggrandizing and disinterested in actually governing reckless, crudely demagogue-ing crooked as a Clinton con artist out of the White House 2) Deny the craven toady band-wagon RINOs any life support. You know, I wonder if the GOP can be rehabilitated, and which result would make that more likely. If the GOP cannot be rehabilitated, or if that is not even a desirable outcome anymore, would a Trump win or… Read more »
Bro. Steve wrote: Against all that we have the principled conservatives in the never-Trump crowd. Sorry to put it so bluntly, but these are exactly the dupes partly to blame for the rise of a pol like Trump. The longer they supported the RINO class and kept them in power, the greater the pressure became to elect somebody, anybody, who would knock over this festering wagon load of RINOs. The assumption is that principled conservatives are the ones who have been holding their nose and voting for the RINOs for decades. I disagree with that assumption. Wouldn’t it be the… Read more »
I’m also curious how Trump is not a RINO. He is long-time pals with powerful Democrats, doesn’t come from a conservative track record on things like abortion or the pomosexual agenda, and basically ran a coup on the actual Republican establishment. In that sense, it seems we are being asked to vote for a candidate that is flagrantly Republican In Name Only.
Tell us why we should vote for another RINO.
Because he gives the screaming meemees to every conservative who has asked us to hold our noses and vote for the RINO (for the good of the Party) for the last 20 years.
Was Lincoln a RINO? Was McKinley? (What is the essence of “Republican” that makes it more than a name for a particular coalition of the moment?)
The question for you is if Stalin was a Rino. Because Russia is really the model we care about right? Or maybe we should ask his all holiness barthalomew.
In order to avoid acknowledging that Trump is another RINO, ashv seems to be arguing that everyone is a RINO. That’s an odd tactic, but what does it do to Bro. Steve’s argument against dupes who vote for RINOs?
What if the rest of us are simply looking for actual conservatives, regardless of party affiliation?
What Demo D said, but with the addition that I don’t think that “conservative” is virtuous either.
At the risk of coming off as merely pedantic, the error/misunderstanding I believe likely comes from the misapplication of the acronym RINO (i.e. Republican In Name Only). Some of us genuinely conservative (i.e. in the traditional sense) folks have fallen into the error of believing the GOP is, and always has been, the party of conservatism, simply because we in the grassroots are and politicians within the organization have marketed themselves that way. This is simply wrong. While many conservative folk (i.e. we in the grassroots) fled to the GOP due to the Democrat Party going increasingly leftist back in… Read more »
Robespierre was such a RINO.
Trump is not running to the hard right to sucker the red-meat conservatives. That’s how he is not a RINO. But when you think about it, what does the “Party of Lincoln” really stand for? It’s just an urban legend that the GOP is conservative. Ike and Reagan are the only two genuine conservatives they’ve ever elected since, what? Herbert Hoover who sent troops through the protesting WW-1 veterans? John F. Kennedy would be considered way too conservative to get elected in today’s GOP. Besides, the Ryan/McConnell/Bush axis goes primate fecal over him. That’s GOT to be good! And just… Read more »
“Cruz is the first guy in decades who showed any real promise of doing that …”
Sadly, Cruz is no more interested in abiding by the Constitution than the RINOs are.
Abiding by the Constitution requires abiding by *all* of it; and the Constitution forbids the presidency to Cruz.
Hobby Horse Alert!
My hobby horse is insist upon the truth. What’s yours?
At my blog: a short analysis of two supreme Court rulings touching on naturalization and natural born citizenship as relates to DisTrusTed Cruz.
“Donald Trump was nominated on the strength of an infusion of Independents, displacing many conservatives from their own party.” Well, I suspect he was actually nominated on a tsunami of white male rage and a desire for revenge against numerous slights of the last 8 years. So the question is really, do I wish to endorse those who actually believe “bros before hos” is a valid political slogan and support the candidate who appealed to his base by declaring, “broads bleed from the eyes and other parts,” or do I just go with the Clinton machine? At the moment my… Read more »
I really don’t understand how anyone who lived through Slick Willy’s presidency could even consider voting for his harpy wife.
Any bets on how much White House furniture she’ll take with her this time?
Not sure! If Trump gets in there, I’m hoping they don’t redecorate in their tacky Louis XV style. All that fake gold is going to drive me nuts.
XD Would it be better if he used real gold?
It would be better … but it would still be tacky.
I’m disappointed you aren’t reflecting on the DNC. They’re claiming climate change is the biggest moral and safety issue of our time.
As a result of Secretary of State Kerry’s speech, Change. org has a petition up to get rid of all air-conditioning in any building used by the State Department.
https://www.change.org/p/remove-air-conditioning-from-all-us-state-department-property
David had to choose between and plague and a famine. (2 Samuel 24) He threw himself on the mercies of the living God. Our nation has murdered 57,000,000 innocent children, and defiled the marriage bed, and a church culture that is trying to be “relevant” and and we can’t figure out how we got here. Don’t blame the mutant monkeys. They just showed up for the ride.
It is certainly not my standard practice to disagree with anyone carrying the moniker of “Mom” (and I do enjoy a good mango) but I would point out that some of the monkeys have been deeply involved in hastening, encouraging, and even cheer-leading the moral morass you have described. Yes, ultimately, we are all to blame and the real enemy is not the monkeys, but the monkeys are not without personal responsibility–even if they were born into monkeyhood. Err….monkiness?
Good practice ! ;-) Mangos are certainly delicious and worth the work to eat them! I agree that the monkeys helped cheer it on and they do bear responsibility for their actions. The Left started w/teacher colleges precisely to create mutant monkeys. The Church also bears a responsibility for trying to make peace with the culture, and send our children into government schools as “missionaries”. Plenty of responsibility/blame for everyone. Our nation was never perfect – we live in a fallen world – but we squandered a rich Judeo-Christian culture and now have #shoutyourabortion, and Hillary/Trump. Politics comes out of… Read more »
So, true, Mom. With you all the way. Doug ends his post with a hint at the possibility of some form of divine intervention, possibly in the form of a third option. While nothing is beyond God’s ability and miracles still do happen, I have this little voice in my head saying we are getting exactly what we have asked for and God is letting us have it because He knows we, like all the generations before us, will not repent and turn from our sin until the consequences of that sin leave us with no other option. I will… Read more »
AMEN. It would be God’s mercy if we repent FAST!
I agree Cap’n. My first thought when it became clear that Trump had captured the nomination was “God is powerful enough that He could easily provide Cruz with a write-in victory in the general election.” My next thought was “but God will probably give us the President we deserve instead.”
My postmillennial optimism is shaking. But Jesus is hope.
“Anyway, is it fair to say that a refusal to vote Trump is a vote for Hillary?”
No more fair than it was to say that a refusal to vote for McCain was a vote for the Obamanation.
Sometimes, choosing “the lesser of two evils” requires that one refuse *both* evils … and, ultimately, this is between you and God.
Without coming up with any new names, we could end up with the Green party and the Tea party. That should set the pot a boiling.
I have done the “hold my nose, vote the lesser of 2 evils” approach in previous presidential elections. Problem today is defining which is supposed to be the lesser. Him? Her? For the 1st time since voting for Presidents since ’72 I will not cast a vote for either.
If I refuse to vote on the basis that Trump would cut off my leg and Clinton would cut off my head then maybe I deserve whatever I get. And if more Americans are killed by terrorists when Hillary gets elected than would have under Donald – oh well, I voted my conscience.
This sounds very pragmatic, but the issue is a little more complex than Melody has presented it: Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. — Matthew 10:28 Pragmatism/utilitarianism is a deep rabbit hole because it requires that we be able to divine all of the future utility and effects of an action in order to determine its net value today. We are simply not equipped to do this calculus. God doesn’t require us to guess the future… Read more »
The two parties have been pretty stable for a long time now. There haven’t been any whigs or federalists since before the civil war. No one can predict the future, but I would expect further coalition realignments before actual new parties.
Just had a good brother attempt to argue that, “Trump may be ordained by God for such a time as this”. I could only respond If God wants Trump in the White House, He can certainly put him there. He does not require my vote to do it. If He wants Hillary in there my voting for Trump wont matter either. So if its all the same to you, I am just going to go ahead and vote for the candidate who’s worldview most closely aligns with mine. Regardless of what happens after that I can still look my kids… Read more »
#NeverTrump
Pastor Wilson, Perhaps, as I’ve already indicated in another post of yours earlier, you’d be willing to interact with this piece from Wayne Grudem. If you have time, inclination, and believe it would do the church and land some good. Peace in Christ, Jeff
http://townhall.com/columnists/waynegrudem/2016/07/28/why-voting-for-donald-trump-is-a-morally-good-choice-n2199564