Why I didn’t vote for Donald Trump, then I did vote for Trump, and Who I am Voting for Now. If you care.

2016 was the first election in which I did not walk into the voting booth knowing what I would do. As it turns out, I could not bring myself to vote for Donald Trump. Every time we vote, we are holding two things in balance. The first is the character of the nominee, and the second are the policies of the nominee. As a conservative, it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which I would vote for Hillary Clinton, but I really despised everything about Trump’s character. So I voted for whatever sacrificial lamb that the Constitution Party had on the ballot and Donald Trump won the election.

Over the next four years, Trump surprised me by governing conservatively and effectively. Apart from his penchant for borrowing money instead of working towards a budget that was in the black, his policies were actually pretty good. I could live with his cringe tweets because it made the MSM set their hair on fire, and that group of DNC party hacks deserves everything they get. So in 2020, I voted for Trump based on his policy record, and he lost the election.

So here we are on the verge of another contentious election and we are back to those 2 issues: character and policy. Has Trump’s character changed? I don’t think there’s a lot of evidence of that. He does appear to be a smidge more mellow and self-deprecating (just a smidge, mind you), but in general I think the only difference in him is age. Have we learned anything new about Trump? The only issue of significance (despite the lawfare being waged against him) is his reaction to losing the 2020 election. The left likes to use the events of January 6^th to talk about a threat to democracy, but the United States was never in danger of being taken over by a man dressed up as a buffalo. Just wasn’t going to happen. Nevertheless, Trump had a chance to be the bigger man and, as per usual, he did not take that route. So thank God for Mike Pence. In essence, my opinion of Trump’s character is unchanged since 2016, except I might add that I enjoy it a little more now than I used to, especially when he leans into his own caricature. Say what you will about the man, he gets more laughs at a political rally than SNL got for 20 years until Nate Bargatze rescued them.

Which brings us to Kamala Harris. What do we know about her character and her policies? Beginning with character, it is almost impossible for me to evaluate her character except to say that she is the fakest (most fake?)  politician I have ever seen. Usually politicians are good at this (one could imagine Gavin Newsome selling a defective wheelchair to crippled child with sincerity plastered on his face like Elmer’s on my kindergartener’s art project), but her performance is abysmal. Her lack of authenticity visibly shook even Opera and Anderson Cooper, who are about the two friendliest interviewers you are going to get. She has been vice president of the United States for four years and yet cannot answer a straightforward question about virtually anything, which leaves one with the options of believing that she is either dumb or she is hiding something.

But even more troubling than any glimpse of actual humanity lurking in the foliage of her word salads are the actual policies for which the Biden/Harris administration stood, and from which she had doggedly refused to distance herself. It is reasonable to dislike a man for treating people whom he dislikes hatefully, but it is also unreasonable to support a candidate whose policies are hateful to all of humanity. Kamala Harris’ policies, which are the Biden administration policies, are contrary to the flourishing of humanity in the following categories.

Economics – This is an area where I think Trump stumbled as well, but the Biden admin’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act caused the terrible inflation under which American’s are still suffering today. About the only policy that Kamala Harris actually floated during her candidacy has been offering money to first time home-buyers and business owners, as well as implementing some sort of price controls. Besides making the economy worse (which they will do), these policies are contrary to human flourishing because moving money from some tax-payers to other tax-payers is simply theft by government. Or to put it another way: theft is theft, even if it’s the government doing it. These sort of slight of hand tricks are meant to buy votes the same way that student loan forgiveness is meant to buy votes, but it doesn’t actually result in a more robust or productive economy. (It’s also unclear to me that she understands the 50k for new businesses as being a tax deduction and not a handout…or she is being purposefully dishonest about it)

Citizenship – This topic is often categorized under “immigration”, but this is actually a citizenship issue. The policies of the Biden administration minimize the significance of citizenship by not only allowing, but encouraging those who have made no investment in our nation to take part in the benefits of being a citizen. In doing so, they gut the very concept of citizenship. Immigration is woven into the fabric of our nation and it’s hard to imagine any point in my lifetime in which immigration won’t be beneficial to our nation. But those who come into our nation by breaking the laws of our nation are not likely to turn around and then keep the laws of our nation, while those who have sought legal status and worked for it are far more likely to work for its good. The left’s unwillingness to ensure that only citizens vote in our elections by requiring voter ID signals that they either think certain Americans are too stupid and inept to get a valid ID, or that their real agenda is to import voters for the Democratic party in such large numbers that they will flip all elections their way.

Foreign Policy and Anti-semitism – Perhaps it was a Covid anomaly, but Donald Trump managed not to embroil the USA in any wars. The Biden/Harris track record on foreign policy is egregiously bad. Like, if they turned in a test with that poor of a performance, the teacher would call them in and make sure that they weren’t suffering a stroke when they took it. Russia had no respect for Biden/Harris. China had no respect for Biden/Harris. Iran and Israel had no respect for Biden/Harris. There are more dead Russians, Ukrainians, Palestinians, and Israelis then there should be because of the weakness of Biden/Harris. This weakness will only continue and we could see more dead Taiwanese if their policy of “peace through weakness” isn’t stopped.

Human Flourishing in Society – This issue alone would prevent me from being a progressive, even if I believed in a socialistic government structure or Keynesian economics. I think that the progressive left hates the natural family, natural marriage, and the household. The cringe ad with Julia Roberts declaring that the voting booth is the only place where women are truly free is one example, but a far more egregious example is the progressive left’s willingness to sacrifice the unborn on the altar of sexual license. All of this is exemplified in Missouri’s Amendment 3, which would essentially remove parental rights for children, allow unborn babies who are literally ready to be born to be torn apart limb from limb in a gruesome display of “women’s health”, and allow experimental and non-reversible surgeries to be performed on minors with the guarantee to the “healthcare” practitioner that they would face no negative repercussions for engaging in such “gender affirming” care.  I’m trying really hard to be objective here, but I get worked up about this stuff because I know and work with the at-risk kids who are most likely to be targeted by this villainy. And while Amendment 3 is not specifically a Harris policy, we all know that this would be Harris’ policy.

To summarize, there is a 4 year track record of evidence that Kamala Harris’ policies are destructive to human flourishing, while there is a 4 year track record showing that Donald Trump did ok. Sometimes way better than ok, and sometimes a little worse than ok. I will, therefore, be casting my vote for Trump.

But let’s say you can’t do it. Let’s say the case I have laid out here is somewhat reasonable to you, but you hate Donald Trump and you can’t vote for him. Here is my suggestion for you. Go vote in this election for all the other things. If you’re in Missouri, go vote just to vote no on Amendment 3. If you can’t vote for Trump, I get it and I have been there before, but that doesn’t mean you have to vote for Harris, whose policies are more broadly destructive than Trump’s personality.