Change My Mind: As A Conservative Christian I Should Not Vote For President Trump

When it comes to voting in favor of President Trump, the Christian’s rationale often goes something like this: since there is no such thing as a perfect candidate, voters will inevitably have to wrestle with a lesser of two evils scenario. President Trump certainly exhibits failures of character and competency at times, yet for all his faults, the Left poses a greater threat to American ideals and morality. Therefore, my vote is not cast in favor of the Right’s faults, but is operating on the straightforward calculus of inviting less evil into the world, since I believe that the Right stands, on balance, for more righteousness.

Moreover, I am loathe to engage in a write-in vote because it functionally concedes power to the greater evil. Pragmatism must overrule the high cost (if not foolish cost) of idealism, since such idealism has no real chance of seeing the light of day. We must be realists.

My response:

Let me begin by making a couple fairly uncontroversial comments:

1) Candidates will always be flawed, sinful people. As such, we invariably have to weigh the cost of their perceived strengths against their perceived weaknesses. If, on balance, we think more evil will obtain as a result of their leadership, then we hit the reject button. If not, then they meet the requisite threshold of acceptability.

2) We can imagine scenarios where both of the leading candidates are so wildly incompetent, or immoral, or singularly dangerous to the world, that we would draw a line in the sand and say, “These candidates are simply too reprehensible; talk of voting for a lesser of two evils becomes effectively irrelevant.” For example, imagine if the two leading choices were Hitler and Stalin. I trust that all sensible people would say, “Nope. It is write-in time.”

So here we have two principles. The first is the Acceptable Lesser Evil Principle and the Both Are Simply Too Terrible Principle.

Now if at this point I were to say that I think both Biden and Trump confront us with a Both Are Simply Too Terrible situation, many of my Christian friends would roll their eyes and dismiss me as hopelessly idealistic, if not downright dumb.

So before I say that, allow me to provide but only two reasons why I think this is so.

A) My opposition to both candidates stems from an intense belief that the current state of politics is so manifestly broken, and so wildly dishonest and tribal, that it demands an immediate hard course correction. We must take a stand and say enough is enough and demand higher standards of truth and honesty and transparency, otherwise we tacitly wink at the dissolving standards and thereby accept new lows of acceptability. At some point sin’s corrosive power will overwhelm the system, and I think we are beyond flirting with its feral borders. We speak with our mouths and with our votes, and they have to listen to our votes. The best way to send a message is to quit accepting the junk candidates they hand us.

Take honesty. Trump is wildly dishonest. Biden is wildly dishonest. Most of the leading politicians are wildly dishonest. And we don’t view it as wildly unacceptable and worthy of receiving swift and sharp political retribution. Once something like lying becomes part and parcel of the substructure of political discourse, the whole enterprise becomes fatally compromised. It is irredeemably broken. Like a body infected with cancer.

Let me say it another way. Christians are passionate about pro-life issues. But why should the world value the sanctity of life if they don’t value the sanctity of truth? The truth requires us to say what is real about the infant in the womb. But when we give politicians a pass for lying, even egregious and compulsive lying, we eviscerate the foundation upon which other critical issues are built. They need to fear our vote. That holds them in check. But when we give them a pass for lying, we invite chaos. We are to blame for accepting the declining standards.

B) Let’s talk about tribalism and hypocritical finger pointing. Both parties love to point out the faults of the other. Some are literally professionals at it. But the subterfuge and dishonesty and unfairness of it all is so gross and ubiquitous it defies all norms of common decency and fairness. How can anyone effectively navigate complex issues with any success when both sides are so eager to misrepresent and straw man the other side? It deeply undermines our ability to get things done. It deeply undermines rational discourse. And both President Trump and Biden fail in this area, as do most in both parties.

So there you have it. Two reasons why both President Trump and former Vice President Biden should not receive our vote. They both harbor disqualifying attributes; flaws that carry too great a cost.

What I believe we should do instead is demand with our voices, and with our votes, that we be presented with competent, trustworthy, honest, rational, brilliant leaders who value sensible solutions to complex issues. Groping after anything less in the name of perceived short gains “because this is the most important election of our time” can and has resulted in a quagmire of foolishness, even by modern secular standards, let alone the Church’s.

So by way of summary, Christians who would have me vote for President Trump effectively believe that it is worth compromising X, Y, and Z in order to secure results A, B, and C. The difference between us is that while I likewise desire A, B, and C, I am not willing to compromise X or Y, given the dire consequences that I perceive to flow out of it.

Can you show me why such compromise isn’t woefully deleterious?

My guess is that you would point me again to the simple calculus of voting for a lesser of two evils. But from my vantage point, the lesser of two evils argument harbors a faulty assumption in this context. I am not forced to choose between two alternatives. I have other live choices. So what you are really objecting to here is that I would either “throw away my vote” or effectively concede the election to the greater evil.

But note again that my vote is operating on a greater good axis by aiming at something higher. I’m thinking big picture, long term. I think the better path forward is to send a clear message to the system; to say enough is enough- we want better.

Can you imagine if the Church unified around this message and showed that they meant it by voting accordingly? Would the system adjust to win back our vote?

I would love to see if they would (and I suspect they would). If not, then I am still happy to maintain a higher standard as a pilgrim passing through this broken world.

So in order to change my mind, I would need to be shown the error in my thinking. In particular:

1. That the sins outlined above are not in fact disqualifying. Or,
2. That President Trump does not engage regularly in the kinds of sins charged against him above.