As I said on-air yesterday I am beginning to despise this election. I am growing to resent what it is doing/has done to our nation. And I am now all-out hating what it’s doing to friends and family in my life.
(An aside: If you’re one of my liberal friends who was always going to not vote for the GOP anyway then you’re exempt from this conversation.)
And here’s why I’m growing to despise it so much: I’m not that convinced that politics holds the real answers to life.
I believe they are important. I believe they are something we are required to deal with.
And I do hold this thought to be especially true: they do give us a measure of who and what we are as a nation.
Politics reveal our appetites, lusts, and cravings. And this year they have revealed some disturbing things.
This year we are more angry than able. We are more uninformed than unintelligent. We are more demanding than discerning. We are more exhausted than excited. And far lazier rather than laboring.
In short we’re spoiled children, who’ve eaten too much candy, sitting in the middle of our own stomach ache demanding it go away while refusing to eat our veggies.
The passion behind Bernie is driven by what America “owes” this selfish generation. The driving force behind Trump is driven by the idea that someone else “screwed us” and we won’t do the hard work of working for what we believe in but rather we want someone to wave a magic wand. In doing so we–the lazy electorate–expect him to make it better.
I see a LOT of heartache for us as a nation ahead. Because the front runners of the two parties are so much alike–no matter who we elect–disappointment is due to rain down.
Sadly I’m left with no great options. Only very flawed ones. Here they are.
1. Choose not to participate. In my past I have railed against this option, even condemning it from scripture. It is something I’ve never invoked. Even still, I believe the same things I have believed for the course of my life. To not be involved violates my obligations and responsibilities both as a man of faith and as a citizen of a nation where self determination is one of the sacred moral components of the blessings we enjoy. I have never advocated for anyone to “sit one out.” So to exercise this option would make me hypocritical. Integrity in all things is still a goal for me… Even though I muck it up pretty good from time to time.
2. Vote for Trump. As I typed the words I felt a bit sicker to my stomach. His estimation of people, his treatment of the disabled, his view of the people on his own side, his incapacity to admit wrong, his pride, his near deity like belief in himself, his complete and utter lack of understanding on policy, his willingness to destroy things grassroots non-establishment groups have fought for decades to reform, his inability to have empathy, his almost wholly incapacitated state of paralysis from the truth. To cast a vote for him is to be the hypocrite that I’ve been telling others you truly aren’t when invoking the “lesser of two evils” theory.
3. Vote for Hillary. This is anathema. It can not happen. It violates everything I believe on a set of core moral beliefs, but it further goes against every political principal I have and will ever advocate on-air. She will ruin our courts for 40 years. She will butcher more unborn children. She will advance the “crazy” when it comes to our hyper sexual society. She will abuse the powers she holds. She will brazenly work against the good of the American people. And she will leave our bravest behind, and blame it on others, or even worse a fictional video. She is an idiologue identical to Obama and in no way a more moderate democrat like her husband was forced into becoming. I literally would burn the polling place to the ground, cut off my own hand, or move to China before casting a vote for her.
4. Vote 3rd Party. There is talk like I’ve never seen about running a GOP alternative against the two front runners. The people now convinced that they can pull this off were the same ones telling us Trump would be stopped in the primary and wasted literally millions maybe tens of millions of dollars in a futile effort to do so. Many of these folks should have coalesced behind Cruz in New Hampshire and South Carolina. By not doing so because of some lame reasons like not liking Cruz’s commitment to his faith, or his drawl, or their belief that they were smarter… They created Trump, and once he realized their play he believed for the first time that he could now do it. These same geniuses in their vain attempts are now convinced that they can raise $250,000,000-$1,000,000,000 to best him. Good luck with that. The very best people you could put up are not interested and it is a suicide mission.
I have said repeatedly that Trump’s position with me has room to grow. Because while I don’t like how he’s run his race I’m willing to concede that he may just be ignorant on process. But every time I wonder if that’s the case he will do something even more offensive and unnecessarily stupid. His zeal for a statist, nationalist, vision for America rings both insincere (he ships jobs out of the states for his products, and hires foreign workers), and historically dangerous. His lack of any awareness of the constitution is profoundly disturbing. His level of cruelty to those beneath him is breathtaking. And his ability to turn on a dime and say, “Oh I didn’t mean any of that… This is what I think now…” is hauntingly scary.
So what is a true option for a person of conscience?
This is the question I have wrestled with since Trump won South Carolina and (as I predicted before Carolina) became the eventual winner.
I had hoped he might improve in his weaknesses and shore up on genuine strengths. Sad to say the first 100 days or so of this year appeared to be the opposite.
Sadly none of the four options I’ve listed above give me a moral outcome I can live with. None of them do.
It is just as evil to watch a reprobate statist progressive assume power and do nothing to stop it, as it is to discouragingly watch the party that traditionally stands in opposition to the progressive cause and wonder at the cuckholding about to be done. But voting third party will in essence have that same effect. And not voting will not only have that same effect but be in direct disobedience to my conscience as a man of faith.
In all likelihood I will never publicly reveal what my actual decision will be in the ballot box this year. Hopefully my children never ask me, and even at dinner parties I will very much avoid answering the matter.
But there are some things I can do. And these I commit whole heartedly to:
1. Whoever does win can and should be held accountable by the Congress we send them. We will need strong Constiutionalists holding the executive branch responsible for their actions, investigating their wrong doing, and being a check and balance for the survival of the Republic. It appears that neither front runner of either party seems committed to this cause so if you have angst about the Presidential race, join the fight to put the best Congress in place that we can possibly get.
2. I can without hesitation point out the long litany of reasons voting for Hillary Clinton is perhaps the worst of the four options above. GOP friends will immediately say, “Perhaps? Kev did you see your own words about her?” I did. But the nature of Trump is such a question mark and so akin to her the question could be asked, “Could he be worse?” And I believe the depravity of man’s heart–especially when unchecked and unbothered with God–contains within itself the possibility of equal or worse evil. But that has not been revealed per sé so we stand at a cross roads. And while I am unsure of his direction, I can see where she’s been.
3. Lastly I can take significant comfort in knowing I fought the fight as well as it could have been fought. And this is my ultimate surrender, “Ok God… I told them the truth… I was faithful to YOUR calling on why I am here… And for that primary cycle I didn’t leave anything on the bench–every ounce of what I had got used in the field of battle.” There is a freedom there.
So to my Trump supporting friends, I can’t promise I won’t be tempted to make any more new memes but I will fight the temptation to make them often. To my #NeverTrump friends I respect your courage and I can never tell you what to do.
To my listeners and readers I will do my best to tell you the rock bottom truth and continue to attempt to obliterate confusion. And it’s my prayer that we can continue to provoke each other to think.
Lastly I commit that I will be on my knees in the early morning praying for our nation–regardless of the outcome. For unless we are His children these elections just turn into modern day “towers of Babel” thinking ourselves so wise that we can outdo God.
Here’s to our journey together!
