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Remind the GOP They Don’t Own You: Vote McMullin
By Sterling32157 – Cropped from File:Evan McMullin at Provo Rally.jpg, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
If you believe Donald Trump represents the best available means to save the republic from the Left, then you should vote for him. There’s no shortage of good, intelligent, and wise people who’ve come to that judgment and Clinton is sufficiently awful that I can’t, in good conscience, say I know you’re wrong.
However, if you believe Donald Trump’s judgement, character, and policy positions make him an unacceptably poor candidate for the presidency — as, indeed, I do — then I suggest you not accept him. The Republican Party is not entitled to our votes, and signaling that we’re willing to accept anyone with a “R” after his name is an invitation to be ignored and taken for granted. Especially for those in deep-red or deep-blue states, there are prudential reasons for telling the GOP that it failed to earn our votes and to get stuffed until it learns the lesson. There is no clearer way to send that message than to vote for Evan McMullin.
Why not Gary Johnson? To begin with, I believe libertarians and conservatives are best served by working together and — even with the state the GOP is in today — I’ve little reason to think the Libertarian Party is the best vessel for classical liberal ends. More specifically, Johnson’s cluelessness on foreign policy and his 180-degrees-from-right position on freedom of conscience (among other things) make him particularly ill-suited as a protest vote. I don’t often get to say this, but I expect better of the Libertarian Party. As a man without a party, running in response to a specific situation, McMullin does not pose the same risk an emboldened Libertarian Party does.
I’m not particularly excited to vote for McMullin, whose campaign still reeks of the NeverTrump desperation from which — after several miscarriages — it eventually spawned. And whether it’s an affect or a genuine part of his character, I find McMullin’s tendency to come off as an apple-polishing teacher’s pet deeply grating. However, McMullin’s resume is impressive and honorable; his positions on foreign policy are solid; and a former CIA spook who appears to think Americans are the best guardians of their security and privacy is, frankly, bracing.
Remind the GOP that, if expects your vote, you expect a minimally competent and honorable candidate. Vote McMullin.
Published in General
Done!
I am with you Tom. I am open to some libertarians positions–I think every true conservative is. I may be 70% conservative, 30% libertarian. But I could never go with Johnson or the libertarian party. My home is conservatism–wherever it happens to be. This year the GOP has chosen to kick out conservatives, but McMullin welcomes them. That’s why he’ll get my vote.
The whole point of Trump is that he is NOT the party.
So you will not vote for him because you want to show the party that you cannot be taken for granted? That sounds like an excellent reason to vote FOR Trump. To show the party that no one needs them.
People, please! The RNC didn’t select Trump.
In fact you can argue the RNC once again outsmarted themselves with that dumb loyalty pledge because they were trying to stop him.
It had been argued for years by the faction of the GOP that embraced Romney and McCain as candidates that the coalition needed to embrace the candidate to stop a radical leftist. Ask @fredcole if he took any heat for not voting for Romney (Fred, if you did vote for Romney or didn’t get any flak feel free to slap me down).
The fact that so many people are (proudly!) stating that the portion of the GOP coalition from which fealty was previously demanded cannot expect the same loyalty they are expected to provide is the leading cause for the GOP’s current political acrimony and indeed our current nominee.
I do not look forward to the almost inevitable hypocrisy of the arguments for and against the GOP candidate in 2020.
You have written my very thoughts in this. McMullin is imperfect, as all candidates are, but at least he clears the bar which Trump cannot get over even when it’s thrown in a ditch beside the road.
Also, any time I hear “you must” my natural rebellious nature spurs me to test that proclamation.
This guy? #NoGoodChoice
Which reminds me of one of the things I actually LIKE about Trump: he seems to like America and the “average people”, which cannot seem to be be said for most of the rest of these entrenched political types.
Tom, with all due respect, he’s not going to win. Voting for McMullin wont stop the Democrats from trying refound the country upon the redistribution of wealth, ending the rule of law, fighting endless wars (the third invasion of Iraq, is it?), establishing a surveillence state, leaving our borders unprotected, racking up massive federal debts, rewriting the Second Amendment, and establishing abortion on demand. How, pray tell, does voting for McMullin do anything about that?
Tom, if you’re conservative, you won’t recognize the country in eight years.
Tell that to the party and all the screaming about unity and how we must vote for him because he’s the party’s candidate.
Whether you like it or not, he is and has been, officially, since July.
With all due respect, Tom did not argue that he even had a chance to win; rather, he argued in favor of telling the party we deserve at least a reach-around.
You’re almost certainly right. However, my argument was not based on his winning.
I didn’t say it would. Frankly, if I had confidence that Trump would do any of these without causing compensatory harm, I’d vote for him. Alas.
My rebuttal, for the humorous, that is…
http://ricochet.com/386307/dont-vote-for-mcmullin-very-important-overlooked-reasons/
That link doesn’t seem to be working, but I think McMullin’s handwringing and — yep, I’m going there — virtue signaling over this is overwrought and counterproductive. I wish he’d shut the hell up about it.
Got a better candidate?
Word.
Sorry Tom. I will not accept being portrayed as racist’ and ‘deplorable’ and ‘misogynistic’ by the Left. Neither will I abide being portrayed as ‘racist’ and and ‘misogynistic’ by McMullin. If ‘None of the Above’ was an actual choice, I might select that. But it isn’t. Like it or not, it has boiled down to these two unsavory choices. Unsavory, but not equally so. Hillary is an order of magnitude more reprehensible than Trump and defeating her requires an all-hands effort.
There are some more substantial ways to remind the GOP that they don’t own you. A sustained fight for preferential voting would be one. Fighting for easier ballot access another.
It’s a little weird to say that McMullin is my first presidential ballot cast. My absentee ballot while I was in college came in after election day, then I moved and failed to register in time.
I haven’t been able to tell my dad yet, who doesn’t support Trump as much as hate Hillary with the fire of a thousand suns. He thinks very little of “the Mormon guy.”
There are no good candidates. I deeply regret this. We’ll have to order from the menu today – so special orders.
Make the best choice to protect us from the greatest harm for the next four years, and work like the dickens during that period to try to correct course. I’ve decided that is Trump – not happy about it – but I’m making what I think is a practical choice. I don’t give a damn about the republican party. I care about freedom (my own mostly) and the Constitution. I don’t think Trump will be given much leeway to stray – whereas Hillary will be given mostly free reign. The media will protect her from the consequences of her corruption. #DemocratPrivilege.
https://t.co/Ilqd0IP6Lh
any better?
And speaking of the party, 2 of the 3 positions for my district in the state legislature are running unopposed. I owe the party exactly nothing.
Kind of, but I see as Trump as having BECOME the GOP, even the GOPe. All that anti-establishment stuff he said earlier (some of which I even agreed with) is just shtick. He can turn it on and off when he needs to. He was plenty establishment when he needed the Clintons, Pelosi, Reid to get things done. Then he pulled a fast one and ran as an outsider to get the nomination. Now, I see him as an insider again. I agree with whomever said there is no TrumpISM, there is only Trump. Can’t vote for a guy like that (or Hillary).
Unfortunately my ballot isn’t long enough to vote McMullin with a write-in asterisk.
*Please note that this vote should be interpreted as sending a message to the GOP and is not an endorsement of the candidate’s views on racism in the GOP, his waffling on abortion, or his stint as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs.
So I’ll pass.
I’ve little doubt that someone will throw this back in my face in a way that makes me squirm or, perhaps, should make me squirm. However, I maintain that it’s more important for each of us to have a line that we won’t cross than for all of us to have precisely the same line.
Then you’re a horrible person and I hate you!
Oh, wait. ;)
Here’s a book that details some of the ways in which progressives would try to take away your civil rights for your own good.
It’s been months since I read this book, but Stevens’ contempt for the First Amendment stuck with me. He argues that the plain meaning of the text, while having a “certain rhetorical appeal,” is nonetheless an incorrect reading. I remember saying to myself, “you’re &$(;:)& right it has a certain rhetorical appeal.”
Third Parties band together. Hell, you convinced me. I’ll switch from Sir Bongs-a-Lot to McMullin.
But it is. There is no obligation to vote for the office of president when you go into the voting booth.
Sending a message? That’s so cute.
In 1992 people were frustrated that they had to choose between a rather moderate WWII vet and a philandering sleazebag, so close to 20 million people said “No” and went with the third party candidate. Well, after receiving that message the two parties came back in 1996 and gave us Bob Dole against Bill Clinton.
Voting your conscience is a good thing, but do you really believe anyone is going to listen to the message you’re trying to send?
As I said, I get that position: