The Eleventh Reason is that I started feeling like I was drawing things out and avoiding being honest with myself, while also acting like my decision should matter enough to keep anyone in suspense. Nobody should vote for a candidate because of what anyone else does or thinks. One is obligated to use ethical principles and sound, unemotional reasoning to make decisions that become part of the course of our republic, but it must be a personal decision. It must also be made according to what a citizen really believes is in the best interests of the nation, society and culture in which he or she lives, not personal best interests, or according to what vote will permit you to deny responsibility for a choice that has to be made.
To hell with it. The vote in 2020 is important, and needs to be made for real reasons, not symbolic reasons, not reasons rooted in ego or professional ethics or what your Facebook friends will say or other irrelevant factors and considerations. All of us can keep our votes secret, but that choice isn’t open to me, really. I’ve written too much about the Trump Presidency and the election. Telling inquirers, “That’s for me to know and you to find out!” at this point would be cowardly; so would telling people what I think they want to hear.
There is only one question to answer: which candidate is the most responsible and ethical choice?
On that basis, the decision is easy and obvious—not pleasant, but easy and obvious.
I will be casting my vote, in the Commonwealth of Virginia, for President Donald J. Trump.
I’ll have the details in the post to come.
Ethics Alarms 
To make you feel better, I’ll post shortly why I voted as I did and it wasn’t without painful introspection and internal turmoil.
I just posted why i did too! 🙂
I think your follow on posts pretty much parallel my reasoning.
1) Biden personally is probably fairly moderate in ideology, but he’ll govern exactly as the radicals in the house want him to govern, so a vote for him is a vote for them. He will NOT check their excesses.
2) A vote for him, is a vote to validate the republic-killing treachery of the media-big-education-big-business-pop-culture-DNC cabal. And that is just ONE short sentence to describe 4 years of outright insurgency, combined now with 12 years of outright running interference for all Democrat miscreance and combined with easily 20-28 years of intentionally framing all misconduct as GOP in origin, which history shows time and again it’s really the DNC engaging in the destructive and nefarious conduct described by the accusations leveled at Republicans.
3) Trump, despite his flaws and in the face of an insurgency within his own branch, has managed to push policies good for this nation. And as one person mentioned “I’m not electing a pastor”. If we were voting on pristine character alone, over half the presidents would never have taken office. This was the hardest one for me. In 2016 I couldn’t put my name to a ballot voting for him and voted 3rd party for President and Republican the rest of the way. But then the recognition that it’s not about how I feel about the man but the overall preservation of the Republic…it became a lot easier.
Jack,
I commend you for your honesty.
It has been too many presidential elections where I am left with choosing the lesser of two evils. The corrupt politician vs the corrupt businessman is again a terrible decision to be forced to make. But it was much easier this time for two major reasons: We already know how Trump is likely to perform in office, he’s not likely to make an edict that people over fifty are to give their hard-earned family homes away, and more importantly, he has NOT indulged in any kind of Constitutional end-runs in his first term despite all the wailing we heard four years ago. Chicken Little, how do you explain why he didn’t, even as a trading ploy? I’m really ticked about the huge inroads on free speech, and right to assemble lately. And how much do you want to bet major candidates and celebs doing the current rah-rahing have armed bodyguards, when little oeople aren’t supposed to be armed against nutjobs and criminals??
The major corrolary of the Golden Rule is the ‘sauce for the goose is the sauce for the gander.’ If an ‘influencer’ wants the public to do X, they should live under those restrictions too. How many politicians and celebs cannot even manage that, whether it’s shutdown shopping/services to throwing stones in the glass houses of ‘Me too.’ I can live with limitations, health is a huge one, but those boundaries of every stripe are for all. While greed is more open on the right side, it doesn’t hunt me down or track gaffes like ‘Big Brother.’ Anyone who manages the money can buy what makes them happy, but you cannot out-nag the condescending. That old Apple ‘1984’ Superbowl ad is now depressing because the the hammer weilding athlete became part of the ‘Big Brother’ problem intead of the freedom fighter… A problem we congratulated ourselves in 1990 that we safely missed.
I already did, and I think I’ve explained the reasons why. The choice is pretty clear: freedom over tyranny, prosperity over crushing tax and regulation, law and order over lawlessness, equality over special interests, love of country over hatred of country, and having a competent if overly strait-laced VP ready to take the reins if necessary rather than a far-left kook.
The salient point is which candidate will protect and defend the Constitution.
There is no doubt that Biden will make decisions based on the least path of resistance within the party.
The path of least resistance is always predicated on spending money to placate the special interests or submitting to the will of the mob.
Neither of the above suggest the mark of a good leader no matter how flowery the rhetoric.
It is my belief that a Biden Presidency would precede a post-Constitutional autocracy where American oligarchs such as Stier, Bloomberg, Zuckerberg, Schmidt and Bezos, decide who shall be elected to vote for their preferred futures.
For those who believe our Constitution is a living document to be interpreted by woke justices, why have a Constitution in the first place. A Constitution is the bedrock of principles upon which our society operates. If it can be changed by a group of unelected political appointees based on ideology then it is not a Constitution.
For me there is no choice but Trump.
Thank you for confirming my thought process, belief, and practice. I have always felt that one should be voting in the best interest of the country and not in their personal best interest. This concept seems rather simple and evident to me. However, in today’s environment of identity politics, every man for himself, and “what is in it for me,” the concept to so many voters is not even considered or thought of as completely nuts. It troubles me greatly to see how many people vote their own best interest or those of some group in which they have placed themselves. I just want to shake them and say, “it’s not about you!” Instead, I find myself having to defend the fact that I vote for, in my estimation, the greater good.
I love this blog. Please never feel your work here is in vain. It is one of the tools I use to calibrate my moral compass. It makes me a better person and citizen.
PS. As far as who I am voting for this election, I came to the same conclusion as you did.
I would suggest that voting for what is in the best interest of the country is in everyone’s personal best interest. Voting to appease, reward, or benefit one segment of society at the expense of another segment is divisive, and “a house divided against itself, cannot stand”.
Politicians of both parties stoke division so you vote against their opponent rather than for them. Highlighting their opponent’s negatives allows them to avoid having to explain why you should vote for them.
Incumbents should be held accountable for their record of delivering on their promises. If you voted for them based on what they were going to deliver and they don’t deliver, why vote for them again? I believe in paying for results, not just good intentions.
In business, I always take the position that I don’t have to like you to do business with you. It would be nice if I did but it is not necessary. I view my vote for President Trump the same way. I do not like his personality but I am voting for him anyway because of his ability to deliver results despite unprecedented opposition from career politicians, bureaucrats, media, and big tech. I cast my vote for President Trump even though I did not vote for him in 2016. I am voting for President Trump because it is in the best interest of the country.
“Nobody should vote for a candidate because of what anyone else does or thinks.”
From a different angle; should everybody that’s legally empowered to vote, do so?
(bolds/caps/italics mine throughout)
” ‘Stop encouraging people who don’t want to vote to vote.’ Low voter turnout is ‘not necessarily a bad thing’ if it reflects the nonparticipation of Americans who tune politics out.
” ‘VOTERS WHO DON’T WANT TO CAST A BALLOT BECAUSE THEY’RE TOO LAZY OR UNIFORMED SHOULD STAY HOME . . . When we pressure people to vote, we’re diluting the democratic process, by bringing out those who are easily manipulated.’
”There is nothing wrong with not caring about politics, or with having better things to do than vote. THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH TURNING THE FRANCHISE INTO A FETISH. Voter turnout is not the acid test of democratic health, and NOTHING IS IMPROVED WHEN WE GO TO EXTREMES TO COAX NONVOTERS TO THE POLLS.
” ‘Some of these people really shouldn’t vote, (P)EOPLE THAT ARE VOTING IN THE BLIND ARE DOING A DISSERVICE TO OUR COUNTRY.’ ”
So, who’s this EVIL bigoted RACIST hellbent on violating the sanctity of THE PEOPLE’S sacred right to vote?
Sean Hannity, Alex Jones, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, EIB’s El Rushbo, The Donald, Cornelius Hieronymous Gotchberg?
None of the above, it was NBA HoF & career Über Lefty Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; no Righty, he!
The business of America is business.* Without a flourishing economy providing jobs and opportunities and taxable (and taxed) income, nothing works in the United States. Trump and his administration get that. Democrats don’t. This election is a choice between a functioning economy and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez or Liz Warren as Secretary of the Treasury and Bernie Sanders as Secretary of Labor and Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. And how about Ilhan Omar as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security? And Keith Ellison as Attorney General.
__________
*Used to hear that all the time as a kid. Why haven’t I heard it in decades?
I think you are wrong. The Democrats DO get that. They just don’t want it. They want the country to be Detroit. Detroit got to its current state through over $10 trillion (in today’s money) in social programs over 50+ years spent to ‘improve’ it. It is the Democrat’s ‘New Model City’. It is what they want for the entire country. What is not for a Democrat to love? It has a captive population that can’t move, can’t get a job, has no hope of an education, and no hope of a better life. All they can do is ask for more handouts for the government and vote Democrat.
Jack, nearly four years ago, I had the honor to share lunch with you and my sister in Alexandria. The topic came up; you admitted you had written in Romney and I ‘fessed up that I had voted for the geography-challenged, pot-smoking Libertarian and his alcoholic running mate (formerly Governor of the state in which I now live). We were both well-pleased with our choices.
Part of the fun of this blog is understanding the logic that underlies ethics. White privilege or not, I was raised to respect; I was raised more or less by the Golden Rule. I do my damndest to treat everyone as trustworthy until trust is violated, to not carry grudges (that’s too much weight to carry). I think Dr. King’s admonishment to judge others by the content of their character were probably the wisest words uttered in the last century.
Yesterday, I voted. Up until about three weeks ago, I was planning to vote for Jo Jorgenson, the Libertarian candidate, as a protest (The Libertarian Party will need to learn how to pull off a two-car funeral before anyone takes it seriously).
Yesterday, I filled in the little circle for Trump. But I did not vote for him.
Nor did I vote against Biden. Instead, I voted against a party so cynical that it would put him forward, despite the fact that he’s always been a sleazeball and is now a sleazeball with cognitive degeneration – and a major scandal brewing. I voted against a party that ordained an incompetent running mate who’s glib but who is so transparently phony that she couldn’t muster enough support to make it through the first round of the primaries.
I voted against Facebook and Google and Twitter and their unholy alliance with the news media – which, by the way, is too fucking stupid to realize that Facebook, Google and Twitter have been sucking up all the ad revenue that once made being in the news media a reasonable career choice.
I voted against the news media that preferred to offer cynical, seasoned and accomplished editors (who viewed their most important job as teaching starry-eyed kids to become cynical and seasoned) early buyouts, replacing them with glib young fanny rubbers who were one hell of a lot cheaper, but nowhere near as skilled. I voted against the pundit class that still draws reasonable paychecks while beat reporters with a degree of integrity have no more salient questions to ask beyond “Would you like fries, baked or rice with that?” I voted against a vast federal bureaucracy whose employees are far more interested in the comfortable status quo than in the national interest.
I voted against the many hundreds of Facebook “friends” who are so unquestioning and so dependent upon feelz to assume that what they see on Maddow or hear on NPR or see in the New York Times is gospel – well-documented evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.
I voted against Antifa and the radical agenda cleverly positioned as “Black Lives Matter.” I voted FOR the good-hearted people who think that those are fine concepts on their face, but recognize that many people are too gullible to do their homework and understand what the organizations promulgating those ideas are actually attempting to accomplish.
I voted against the Big Lie. And that might be the most important part of all.
Trump is a disgraceful individual – venal, shallow, narcissistic, arrogant, posessed of an astonishingly flat learning curve. I did not vote for him.
That he has done amazing things for the nation bespeaks one of three things: he is 1) lucky as shit – the dog who actually caught the car; 2) one of the cagiest bastards to ever hold the office (using amazing populist skills to advance a far more sophisticated agenda than most people realize); or 3) a force of divine providence.
Occam’s Razor suggests #1. I don’t care. I see what’s coming if Biden wins, especially if Biden wins and the House and Senate are both in D hands. We are always better as a nation with divided government; the Founders knew this and set things up to encourage it. They were brilliant men.
There is no chance that the state in which I now reside – Massachusetts – will produce Electoral College votes for Trump.
I cast my vote in opposition to all of the above horribles, and in hopes that if he DOES go down, he at least goes down with the majority of the popular vote. That would not change the outcome, but it might serve as a check on the Democratic Party agenda.
If that’s the outcome, the Dems better work fast. Because the nation will reel them back in pretty damned fast.
I already voted and I could not ever vote for someone who is senile and will be a puppet of the left. In addition, Biden’s astonishing corruption vis a vi his son Hunter Biden makes him a totally unsuitable candidate to become our next president.
In 2016 I agonized over my vote for president. I was never a Trump supporter, but I absolutely could not stand to vote for Clinton. As October went by, I watched the polls and steeled myself for election night and the news that she would be elected.
When I went to vote, I abstained in the presidential ballot. I was mightily surprised that night — and mightily annoyed that the networks dragged their feet so long on announcing an increasingly obvious result. Eventually the voters left them no choice.
I have be pleasantly surprised by how well Trump has governed and how much he has accomplished. He has done more to keep his campaign promises than any president in my memory. At the same time, he has shot himself in the mouth time after time, which hasn’t helped his chances.
I have seen more and more how the networks have colluded amongst themselves to ensure they are nastier and more biased than Trump ever dreamed of being. They may well represent an existential threat to our democratic tradition of government — and the best antidote for that is a 1984 style result (although it is possible that Trump will carry the state that Mondale won).
Come Tuesday I will cast my vote for President Trump — he’s earned it and I think it’s the best hope for our republic at this point in time.
Back in January I was at a science fiction convention and picked up a campaign button that I just could not resist. It reads:
CTHULHU 2020
The Greater of Two Evils
But I acknowledge that I have a twisted sense of humor…….
Cards on the table: I was never going to vote for Biden. I believe his candidacy was decided on early by the DNC as a “playing to lose” strategy. Before the pandemic, Trump seemed to be on a trajectory for an easy victory, and the historic advantage of incumbency and a great economy were likely insurmountable, at least by any of the terrible candidates the Democrats had to choose from. The Covid happened, and the DNC had already put the Biden play into motion, but instead of a sacrificial candidate a the end of his career, he was now a potential contender, and his campaign went from going-through-the-motions into straight-up elder abuse. Joe isn’t capable of doing the job; he’s not even capable of campaigning for the job, really. So even if I agreed with his politics (I don’t), I wouldn’t cast a vote for him and be complicit in his abuse and mistreatment.
My vote for Trump isn’t a vote *for* him, per se. My politics don’t align with his much more than they do with Biden’s. I’m voting against the tech companies and media that have conspired against the open and free exchange of facts and ideas. Their attempts to manipulate the public must not be rewarded. It’s bad enough that they are so biased against Trump and Republicans in general, but they could do incalculable damage as a propaganda arm of a Democratic party in power. The subtle, even invisible ways today’s technology can be used to manipulate cannot be entrusted to be allied with governmental power. It’s plenty damaging to have such power arrayed against the administration, but imagining what could be done if the administration in power had the cooperation of these companies is terrifying. Orwell wouldn’t have thought such things possible even in his wildest thoughts.
So congratulations, Twitter, Facebook, Google: you earned at least one vote for Trump.
I know this page is not a representative sample, but it is kind of “scary” that we are seeing so many people, myself included, deciding to vote for an incumbent we don’t like as if he is an underdog. And, much of it is as backflash against a major party (not to discount the involvement of the press). I doubt that Biden will win so many converts out of dislike of Trump.
This election may involve record turn-out and it appears increasingly possible that Trump’s gains will be significant.
And, I guess when I say, “scary,” maybe I mean “unprecedented.” Though my knowledge of Presidential history (to say nothing of election history) is lacking, I can’t think of a comparable example.
-Jut
Instead of posting the lengthy text here, I’ll share a link.
Why I’m Casting My Presidential Vote Based 100% On Policy and You Should Too!
Democrats: “We’re going to burn the WHOLE Damned City Down!”
Reasonable people: *boarding up properties to protect from Democrats*
Democrats: “SEE!!! They’re terrified of Orange Dictator and his Cult Army!!!”
*Biden elected*
Democrats: “Screw it, let’s burn the place anyway because Cheeto Man won’t leave the White House!”
Reasonable people: “You know the new administration doesn’t take office until January, right?”
Democrats: “RACIST!!!”
If you’re looking for reasons to vote AGAINST, here’s one for you against Biden/Harris
Below is the new ad that Kamala Harris posted yesterday on Twitter.
Personally I don’t think Kamala Harris fully understands what the United States of America, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the American Dream and freedom are all about. The United States is NOT an equality in outcome system it’s an equality in opportunity system. Maybe she’s confusing our system with communism, or Socialism, or something else that she’s making up.
Kamala Harris sounds a bit like a Marxist and she wants the American people to put her a heartbeat away from the Presidency.
Posting this ideology revealing ad two days before the Presidential election was damned foolish.