Spoiler alert! This post will disclose my political affiliation, not that I believe most long term readers will find it a surprise.
I grew up as a Democrat. My first vote was in the Presidential election of 1976. I was a registered Democrat and had spent the summer working in the office of a Democratic Congressman. I actually met candidate Jimmy Carter in my office building on Capitol Hill. But that fall I cast my vote for Republican Gerald Ford, and against the candidate of my own party. I thought Jimmy Carter was a fool, and his foreign policy positions a collection of self-righteous platitudes.
Events proved me correct. Carter won the 1976 election, announced that the United States was “at long last free of our unreasoning fear of Communism” and then pronounced himself astonished at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. At that point in Carter’s single Presidential term, I switched parties. By 1980, I was a Republican, because it was the party of free trade, a strong military, and robust leadership in the international struggle against totalitarian Communism.
In the 1990s, I watched as the Democratic Party tied its fortunes firmly to the coattails of the Clintons, nominating for President in 1992 and then re-nominating in 1996 a man who was clearly a sexual predator, who abused his office to suppress legal scrutiny, whose campaign took money from foreign interests including the Chinese military, and who lied carelessly and deliberately about both issues of public policy and personal transgressions. Since their Arkansas days, the Clintons have been unable to differentiate their personal political, financial, and legal interests from those of the nation. Indeed, by using the Clinton Global Foundation as a personal piggy bank, they have conflated their personal finances with those of global progress itself.
In the 1990s, I gave meaningful dollars to the Republican Party. I attended both the 1996 and 2000 conventions. I’ve met the last three Republican Presidents, all but one of the last four Vice Presidents, even every failed Republican candidate for President except Mitt Romney. Heck, my oldest child’s middle name is Reagan. So an election between any Republican nominee and Hillary Clinton should be a slam dunk decision for me. Easy and obvious.
Except it’s not. In 1996, I said the Democrats had made a deal with the Devil in re-nominating Bill Clinton, definitively decoupling the Democratic Party’s fortunes from historically progressive principles–that public service is a higher calling, requiring the highest standards of integrity to command the nation’s allegiance to our shared purposes.
Now the Republicans have done the same thing.
Donald Trump, like Bill Clinton before him, and like Hillary Clinton today, has personal qualities that clearly disqualify him from holding high office. He is an habitual liar. He is a gross, childish bully. He has been entirely unprincipled, both in his past business dealings and in his recent political campaign. He is less intelligent than any other major party Presidential candidate of at least the last half century. He has less impulse control than the typical adolescent male, and he appears to be impervious to advice, instruction, or any form of self-correction. And at age 70, none of this is remotely likely to change.
I spent the first year of Trump’s campaign in denial that he could secure the nomination. And then got stuck there, as he won primary after primary and walked out of Cleveland as the standard bearer of my party. Like so many of my conservative friends, I’ve been confused and conflicted about what to do. Time and again, I’ve watched Trump give another speech, or lead another rally, hoping against hope that he’ll somehow rise to the occasion, always disappointed.
It might be tempting to overlook Trump’s character flaws if he was sound on policy. After all, Lyndon Johnson was one mean SOB. Richard Nixon was a paranoid tough guy, surrounded by similarly ruthless partisans. FDR and John Kennedy were both notorious philanderers. If being a nice guy was the criteria for occupying the White House, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush would be among the great Presidents.
But Trump’s policy positions are a confusing and incoherent mash-up. The defining principles of Republican domestic policy since Reagan has been an informed skepticism about the effectiveness of larger government, coupled with an understanding of the Constitutional limits on executive power. There is no indication that Trump even understands that we have a Constitution, and every indication that he believes the President has the same kind of autocratic power as the owner of a non-public company.
On foreign policy, Trump is a protectionist and a quasi-isolationist. He has aligned himself with Vladimir Putin, who has stolen tens of billions from the Russian treasury, murdered hundreds of journalists within Russia, assassinated his political opponents overseas, and invaded two neighboring countries. Putin has been clear about his desire to revive the Cold War, and his belief that the United States remains Russia’s principal enemy.
Trump is not qualified to be President.
I remember when the racist David Duke secured the Republican nomination for governor of Louisiana, and the national Republican party endorsed the candidacy of corrupt Democratic Governor Edwin Edwards, launching the slogan, “Do the right thing. Vote for the crook.” Edwards won, and later went to prison.
I’ve always said that I am a Republican third, a conservative second, and an American first. So must I vote for the crook, Hillary Clinton, to keep The Donald’s hands off the nuclear codes?
After months of struggle, I have decided that rejection of Trump in no wise justifies a vote for Hillary Clinton, an individual herself disqualified on personal character criteria from the Presidency, even if I agreed with her policies (whatever they actually turn out to be), which I do not. (I will note in passing that Hillary Clinton is smart, very hard-working, and supremely disciplined, all fine qualities. Plus it would actually be nice to see a woman occupy the highest elected office. Just not this one.)
Fortunately, the range of possible choices does not stop with two lying, unprincipled, self-centered, super-rich liberals from New York.
For the first time in my adult life, I will be supporting someone other than the Republican nominee for President. I will vote for the Libertarian candidates, Gary Johnson and William Weld, for President and Vice President. As soon as I get a chance, I plan to put a Johnson-Weld sign on my lawn.
For all of my conservative friends still struggling with the Hobson’s choice of Clinton or Trump, let me offer you some hope. Once I made my choice, my despair and confusion vanished, replaced with relief, optimism, and even excitement. I believe this is much more than a lesser-of-three-evils choice or protest vote. It is, at a minimum, a vital next step in an overdue national conversation. More on this later.
On this post, more than any other I’ve ever written, I’d welcome your comments.
The Glass Half Full 