Odyssey of a NeverTrumper
I was all in for Ted Cruz. When he failed to win a single county in South Carolina,
in hindsight, red flags should have been raised high and warning alarms sounded loudly. Super Tuesday should have increased the foreboding, as Cruz won Texas only.
I'm not sure of the exact timing, but, as Glenn Beck became a prime surrogate, my feelings of ultimate failure increased exponentially. Wisconsin was a temporary shot in the arm and I thought, “Well, in this crazy environment, maybe there's a new paradigm still forming that Ted will figure out.†Of course, that was not to be, as his last ditch effort in Indiana was unsuccessful.
On one level, I understood why things were proceeding as they were. There is no shortage of analysis and commentary for all that. Regardless, the defeat of my Conservative champion left me with a welter of emotion. Probably the dominant one was disgust for the buffoon who had vanquished my champion, followed by a certainty that he would lose in a landslide; so, “to hell with the whole kit and caboodle.â€
But, “Fine,†I tried to rationalize the situation.., “The primaries are always nasty affairs. Surely there will be a Trump 2.0, who will mend fences, focus his message and basically grow up.†To this day, August 3 , 2016, I see no evidence of that happening.
But, as more time has passed, my thoughts then began to turn to all the fathers' sons, and even more sadly, daughters, whom the next CinC will potentially send to war. Then came the infamous display of July 5 by FBI Director James Comey, which basically put the FedGov stamp of approval on identified criminality.
It happens that my odyssey has coincided with my reading of Richard Weaver's “Ideas Have Consequences.†Early in the introduction he writes of “the appalling problem, when one gets to actual cases, of getting men to distinguish between better and worseâ€
Eureka! There's a concept I had somehow excluded from my thinking, although in my non-political life, I distinguish all the time. Maybe eating a piece of pie is not all that good for me, but eating one slice is better than eating the whole pie. So, how to relate that to politics?
Making a political choice based on better or worse does not sully my soul, provided that I have a proper understanding what politics actually is, and that my expectations for it are clear. I must reject the messianic pretensions that so easily attach to ideology, regardless of its substance, be it Liberal or Conservative.
From: Conservatism and Ideological Politics
http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2013/10/conservatism-ideological-politics.html“The problem of ideological politics is typified by certain factions of the Tea Party who, although espousing principles congenial to most conservatives, highlight the dangers inherent in excess each time their self-appointed leaders claim the exclusive right to set the “conservative agenda†and excoriate those who refuse to adopt their policies in whole. “Be my brother or I’ll kill you†was the Jacobin creed, yet the contemporary heirs of Edmund Burke dangle perilously close to adopting this as their motto each time they endeavor to attain ideological uniformity. Such an embrace would amount to a total abdication of the very principles conservatives seek to exonerate. “
Therefore, if I am to participate in political life, I must first be clear and realistic on the actual choice I am making, as it has boiled down.
Do I like my options? Not much.
Shall I stand firmly on the belief that the lesser of two evils, being an evil, forbids me from exercising a prudential judgment based on better and worse? I think not. I must find another way.
I start with the understanding that this world is a fallen place and that men are fallen creatures. There is no political system that will restore the world and men to the pre-fall state. However, there are things that I can do, both in my public and my private life, that will better or worsen myself, and by extension the sphere in which I live and act. With this as a basis, I then understand more clearly, the validity of “The perfect is the enemy of the good.â€
I need to be reminded that there is a distinction between moral judgment (good and evil) and prudential judgment (applies to tenable options that are not intrinsically evil.) With that distinction established, my odyssey can continue with a different way to think than before.