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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
Also I look Hispanic and speak fluent Spanish. Ball in play friend.
Well done Tom. Well reasoned and well written. Congrats!
You nailed it. Childish and irresponsible is the correct description of the neverTrumpers.
Also I have spent the night contacting Conservative friends and family and not only dissuaded 20 of them from voting Trump tomorrow (not difficult at all) I got them all to donate $10 to Mr. McMullin. I do hope he stays Independent.
Admirable. It’s unfortunate that McMullin is the beneficiary of your rejuvenation though.
Show me one better. I’m trying to see things less cynically.
As I understand it, they’re fine with their Senator’s spouse currently being at Goldman Sachs, and having Goldman loan critical campaign funds, but a one year stint there yourself to make yourself less financially dependent is too much. They’re very nuanced people, South Texans.
http://ricochet.com/387441/off-to-the-races/
Just cast mcmullin vote. Was originally going to write in Rubio but since he isn’t a registered writein in my state the vote wouldn’t count. I first thought the mcmullin candidacy was a silly waste of time, but today I am grateful to mcmullin and his backers for providing an honorable choice this sordid election. And I smile that I remained true to principles over party. Donald trump is unfit to be president. I am proud that in some small way, I can say I helped stop that. #nevertrump
In 1864, Abraham Lincoln, Republican POTUS, invited Southern Democrat Andrew Johnson to join his ticket on the National Union Party ticket. This new party won the election.
Those 10 people tell 10 people who tell another 10 people who tell another 10 people and so on and so on and it keeps multiplying like that shampoo commercial in the 70’s. I’m seeing a Mcmullin landslide now.
Respectfully, Paul, there may be a difference between a Hillary presidency and a Trump presidency, but not so much that I can see one being that much better than the other. I expect both to be one-termers and that term to be disastrous–maybe different kinds of disasters, but disasters nonetheless. Both have made a point of utterly rejecting conservative principles of governance (the only ones that actually work). Both are disqualified in terms of character and trustworthiness. Both are self-centered megalomaniacs. Sometimes the most moral option is to refuse to make an immoral choice, even knowing one of choices will be imposed on you.
To quote my namesake (I actually think they called Goldwater Mr. Conservative first): “There is a price we will not pay. There is a point beyond which they must not advance.” Supporting a candidate like Trump is the price I will not pay, he is point at which I must not advance. For my political taste, he is a bridge too far. I am not a Republican as much as I am a conservative. When the GOP no longer puts up conservative candidates, I have no loyalty to that party.
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Think of it like this: Reagan was the pure wholesome goodness of whole milk. Romney and McCain were watered-down substitutes, which I
could 
stomach even if they were thin and bluish in color, not my cup of tea (to mix metaphors). Think 2% or skim. But I will be darned if I am going to drink rat poison just because it comes in a paper carton and is endorsed by the American Dairy Association.
(I have used this before, apologies. Last time you’ll see it….probably).
Done and done here in Minnesota!
From the man who called Evan McMullin “Egg McMuffin”
I couldn’t agree more. I won’t take part in supporting the direction Trump has taken the GOP. Let’s put an end to this terrible chapter and move forward.
I know your being facetious but I spent the day handing out flyers on the south side to many Hispanic people who said they were already voting McMullin. I’m going to be sticking with this movement as it’s the only principled thing I see available.
Also not a damn GOP ground game in sight. Hillary people, I saw other McMullin people but not one Donald person. I hope he loses Texas if he doesn’t think he needs a canvassing operation.
Seems like a very honest mistake. And technically, the Republican party at its genesis was a sectional divide between abolitionists and anti-slavery expansionists. If you count the constituency that were obstinate ex-Whig members–technically there were three. The events leading up to Lincoln’s nomination were hotly contested, and even by the humility-praising standards of the mid 19th century, Lincoln, who likely had Marfan syndrome, was considered a timid choice. Granted, they were wrong and he became the best president in US History, but that’s how it goes.
And as for dumb crab politicians have said this year, making a slip about Lincoln, which if I really wanted to I could make a case that he was right, pales in comparison to the onslaught of perfidious sewage spewing out of Donald’s cakey pie hole.
Lastly on Trump, how could any Conservative tolerate such a cry baby whiner? I have long admired Conservatives for individualism, strength, and the ability to pick themselves up and sally-forth. Donald sounds like a 16 year old Southern Debutante who didn’t get all the gifts she wanted at her cotillion. THIS is the guy who is going to fix Washington, or reject bureaucratic spoils? Gimmie a freakin’ break.
The prom was rigged! Rigged, I tell you!
The party had the wholehearted endorsement of the Republican Party. It’s not all that unusual in two party systems to have moments where a different label is applied; the DFL party in Minnesota is the Democratic Party, the Socialist Party in the form of Bernie Sanders is the Democratic Party, the Pataki victory as a Republican and Conservative Party nominee was a Republican win. Even if you felt that the NUP was a new party, it was one of the two major parties in that election. There was no alternative other than Lincoln to McClellan, and McClellan won only two states.
Even McMullin spoke to my face and acknowledged that it was a mistake. Rina Shah acknowledged that it was a mistake. The facebook page itself showed that most of the supporters of the campaign saw that it was a mistake and many were horrified by it. The rest of this is about why it’s a mistake, but the campaign was not keeping it because they believed it was true.
There were more issues than that, but sure. Having important political issues doesn’t make you a third party. When Lincoln was running for President, there was a Republican Speaker of the House and Republicans had come second in the previous Presidential election. Republicans had been consistently successful in Senate elections and totally dominated the governorships and state legislatures of what would become the Union states.
The Constitutional Union Party came into existence after the Republicans and it always functioned in the classic role of a third party. There is no argument that the CU Party, which contained many fewer ex-Whigs than the Republican Party, was the major party and the Republicans the Third Party.
Sure. See also, eg., Bush 43. No one thinks that Bush was a third party candidate (although, unlike Lincoln, Bush did need third party help to get into office).
I prefer McMullin to Trump. This didn’t mean that McMullin became awful in my eyes, and I still urged people to vote for him after this. It just meant he was not someone I feel great about supporting. I am still grateful that he ran, and believe that his running may have been critical to the best result of last night, Johnson’s total failure to approach 5%. It’s hard not to smile at the irony that a third party vote spoiled the election for Johnson.
Tom, it’s moot now, but isn’t voting for a candidate who has no chance of winning an empty gesture? Perhaps the U.S. should go back to the way presidents were chosen in the 18th century, when every candidate ran for president and the candidate with the second highest number of votes became VP.