Author Topic: Trump vs. Hillary: November’s Grim Choice for Conservatives  (Read 476 times)

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Offline sinkspur

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Trump vs. Hillary: November’s Grim Choice for Conservatives

by RAMESH PONNURU   
June 2, 2016 4:00 AM

    Say what you will about Donald Trump, but he has never lied to the families of dead servicemen. He has not committed himself to appointing to the Supreme Court left-wing justices who would protect a right to abortion found nowhere in the Constitution. He is not promising to raise taxes, or endorsing President Obama’s unconstitutional amnesty and pledging to expand it.

And say what you will about Hillary Clinton, but she has never mocked someone’s disability, or tried to link a political rival to the JFK assassination, or encouraged political violence. She has not promised to launch a trade war. She has not said she would order troops to commit war crimes against innocent people.

Trump vs. Clinton is a dismal set of election choices for Americans and especially for conservatives. So it is not surprising that conservatives are divided about what to do. Most are backing Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. Others — especially among conservative writers, activists, and think-tankers — say they will never vote for him. This minority is further divided: Some say that they will vote for the candidate of a third party (maybe the Libertarians, or a new party), and some even say they will vote for Clinton.

This debate splits people who have heretofore been friends with similar views on almost all issues, and who on each side have reasonable arguments to hand. It is therefore being conducted in a spirit of mutual rage, bitterness, and contempt.

 Trump supporters cannot believe that some conservatives would rather see Clinton in office than support the Republican nominee — and that they deny that their lack of support for him amounts to effective support for her, and all her prospective works. These supporters admit, many of them, that Trump has serious flaws. But their uncertainty about what he would do in any given situation translates into a certainty that he would do better than she.

They allow that Trump’s promise to appoint conservative justices to the Supreme Court cannot be wholly trusted. Getting them confirmed would take a fight, and he has shown very little interest in the issues, from the protection of religious liberty to the restoration of democratic authority over abortion, that it would involve. But any Clinton nominees, they note, are guaranteed to be left-wing activists.

Anti-Trump conservatives, on the other hand, argue that a President Trump would do more profound and long-lasting damage to conservatism than a President Clinton would. Her liberal initiatives would elicit nearly uniform opposition from Republicans; his would split them. He would make the Republican party less conservative while simultaneously discrediting conservatism with large portions of the public, possibly for many years.

For many of Trump’s critics, though, these concerns are not the decisive ones. If they merely disagreed with him on trade and entitlement reform, they would still strongly favor him over Clinton. But they think his morals and personality make him not merely flawed but unfit for the presidency. He is cruel, impulsive, petty, and insecure; he admires dictators; he undermines standards against political violence and bigotry.

Some conservatives who work in foreign policy have already declared a preference for Clinton. In part that is because Trump sometimes makes Buchananite noises. But even people who disagree with Pat Buchanan on foreign policy have to admit that he has given some serious attention to the topic, as has Clinton. Trump acts as though bluster is all a president needs.

For many conservatives, then, the choice of which candidate to put in the Oval Office — Trump or Clinton — is a difficult and painful one. What might make it easier is that individual voters are not really in the position of having to make that decision.

When John Bolton endorsed Trump, he said that the election presented voters with a “binary choice.” That may be true for them collectively. Barring a strong third-party run, which is not showing any sign of happening, the next president will be either Trump or Clinton. But from the standpoint of an individual, conservative or otherwise, the choice in the ballot booth is not nearly so fraught.

Arguments over whom you should vote for usually ask you to picture yourself as the deciding vote: to imagine that your vote will swing your state and the election. It is a useful exercise of the imagination insofar as it encourages you to take your vote seriously. But the imagined picture is obviously false: The probability that your vote will determine the winner cannot meaningfully be distinguished from zero. (And that probability diminishes still further if any candidate has a wide lead going into the election.)

Political theorists have had a hard time coming up with convincing explanations for why people should vote given that fact. Any explanation has to start with the idea that voting is, first and foremost, an expressive act. It expresses what the voter values and prioritizes; what he wills for his country.

The fact that individual voters have almost no effect on the outcome of an election should make anti-Trump conservatives feel less pressure to vote for Clinton, and anti-Clinton conservatives less pressure to vote for Trump. They may accept that one of them will be president. But in the special, and, let’s hope, not to be repeated circumstances of this year, they may reasonably decide that they will not join their will to either outcome: that if either one of them will be president, they at least will not be formally complicit in elevating one of them.

No voter is under any moral obligation to judge whether Trump or Clinton is the lesser evil.

Refusing to vote for either one of them — by writing someone in, voting third party, or voting only for other offices — need not be an evasion of reality or a shirking of civic duty. It may be the right choice, at least if it is combined with tolerance for conservatives who make different judgments in this dismal year.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/436103/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-conservatives-grim-choice?utm_source=NR&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=June2Ponnurru
Roy Moore's "spiritual warfare" is driving past a junior high without stopping.

Offline GAJohnnie

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Re: Trump vs. Hillary: November’s Grim Choice for Conservatives
« Reply #1 on: June 02, 2016, 08:50:10 pm »


Trump has a number of Conservatives like Session and Gingrich advising him.

Clinton is 100% opposed to everything on the Conservative poltical agenda.

It is a slam dunk to all Conservatives except the few hundred “DC Conservatives” who are behaving like petulant children because their candidate lost a primary.

Offline EasyAce

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Re: Trump vs. Hillary: November’s Grim Choice for Conservatives
« Reply #2 on: June 02, 2016, 10:36:12 pm »
Just further evidence that, if you live in a state with the "none of the above" ballot option
for the presidency at least, "none of the above" is indeed the most viable option, if you
have no wish to choose between arsonists for fighting the fire burning the house.


"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

Fake news---news you don't like or don't want to hear.

Offline sinkspur

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Re: Trump vs. Hillary: November’s Grim Choice for Conservatives
« Reply #3 on: June 02, 2016, 10:43:52 pm »
Just further evidence that, if you live in a state with the "none of the above" ballot option
for the presidency at least, "none of the above" is indeed the most viable option, if you
have no wish to choose between arsonists for fighting the fire burning the house.

Trump might get a few conservative Democrats here in Texas, but he'll probably win here anyway, so they do him no good. But, even if it were close here, I still wouldn't vote for Trump.  He's simply not acceptable completely apart from what he advocates.
Roy Moore's "spiritual warfare" is driving past a junior high without stopping.

Offline INVAR

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Re: Trump vs. Hillary: November’s Grim Choice for Conservatives
« Reply #4 on: June 02, 2016, 10:44:54 pm »
Trump and his horde of worshippers have repeatedly said they do not need or want the votes of principled Conservatives.

They said they plan to "win" the White House without us.

So good… "Win" the White House without us.  We're voting elsewhere in November.

Stop with the "petulant child" bullssheist.

Trump and Hildabeast are both big giant Northeastern Liberal Statists in their own image.

No thanks.
Fart for freedom, fart for liberty and fart proudly.  - Benjamin Franklin

...Obsta principiis—Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers and destroyers press upon them so fast that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachment upon [the] American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour." - John Adams, February 6, 1775

Offline Machiavelli

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Re: Trump vs. Hillary: November’s Grim Choice for Conservatives
« Reply #5 on: June 03, 2016, 05:11:13 pm »

Offline EasyAce

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Re: Trump vs. Hillary: November’s Grim Choice for Conservatives
« Reply #6 on: June 03, 2016, 06:23:45 pm »


"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

Fake news---news you don't like or don't want to hear.

Offline Stosh

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Re: Trump vs. Hillary: November’s Grim Choice for Conservatives
« Reply #7 on: June 03, 2016, 06:32:29 pm »
Just further evidence that, if you live in a state with the "none of the above" ballot option
for the presidency at least, "none of the above" is indeed the most viable option, if you
have no wish to choose between arsonists for fighting the fire burning the house.

Nevada does, and I have a "None of the Above" sign in the back window of my car....

Offline EasyAce

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Re: Trump vs. Hillary: November’s Grim Choice for Conservatives
« Reply #8 on: June 03, 2016, 06:37:11 pm »
Nevada does, and I have a "None of the Above" sign in the back window of my car....

Howdy, neighbour!

(I've been living in Las Vegas since 2007 . . . )


"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

Fake news---news you don't like or don't want to hear.