By Scott Tibbs, May 2, 2016
My opposition to Donald Trump is not and has never been about purity. That meme is both childish and false.
I have made it very, very clear that I am firmly in the #NeverTrump camp in the 2016 election. I voted against Trump when I voted early on April 15 and I will vote against Trump in the general election this November if he is the Republican Party's nominee. I have serious and substantive policy and strategic reasons for doing so.
But while I will never vote for Trump, I do not judge those who will hold their noses and vote for him in the general election. This is one of those times where people can argue for the lesser of two evils. I vehemently disagree with that decision, but I can respect those who take that position.
With that, I want to address something that was said to me about my opposition to Trump:
| There's no point in being *quietly* holier-than-thou. One needs to broadcast their moral purity far and wide. Especially when they have traded the future of their country for it. |
As I said a few months ago, voting is always a compromise. I have voted in sixteen general elections. Over the course of those twenty years, with all of the races for city, county and township government as well as state and federal races, there have only been two times that I have ever voted for someone in the general election that I agreed with 100% of the time. Both of those times, I voted for myself. If I was committed to maintaining my "purity" I would have never voted at all in any election unless I was running in the general election.
This childish taunting needs to stop. First, it does not work and will never work. It may serve to make the taunter feel better, but it is a failure as a method to convince anyone. There will always be candidates some voters will not support, even if they are normally loyal to one political party or another. Yet, those same voters will support candidates they disagree with on some issues. That is the case with almost every voter. Taunting and berating those voters to support your chosen candidate is a poor excuse for offering policy or pragmatic reasons to vote for that candidate.
Finally, this represents everything that is wrong with politics. We can disagree on policy or strategy without personally attacking those who disagree with us. While there are some people who are genuinely corrupt, many simply have disagreements (or different convictions) on policy or strategy. We should have enough humility to recognize others can disagree with us (especially those in our own party) without being morally deficient in some way.
Previous editorials here:
♣ - Donald Trump's war against private property rights -- April 28, 2011
♣ - I will never vote for Donald Trump! -- June 19, 2015
♣ - Why is Donald Trump so popular? -- July 13, 2015
♣ - Donald Trump is not qualified to be President -- July 31, 2015
♣ - Conservatives need to stop this stupid celebrity worship! -- August 17, 2015
♣ - Donald Trump is a pathetic crybaby, wimp and coward -- September 3, 2015
♣ - Republicans must not nominate Donald Trump! -- September 22, 2015
♣ - Republican hypocrites for Donald Trump -- October 7, 2015
♣ - Donald Trump is wrong on immigration and September 11 -- October 27, 2015
♣ - I absolutely will not vote for Donald Trump! -- January 8, 2016
♣ - Who would be worse: Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump? -- February 9, 2016
♣ - Yes, I do blame Trump's voters -- February 12, 2016
♣ - Just how stupid is Donald Trump? -- April 8, 2016
♣ - Revisiting "party unity" again -- April 22, 2016
♣ - If Donald Trump loses, the only one to blame is Donald Trump -- April 28, 2016
